The Tucker County Sheriff and Parsons City Police departments receive laptops and printers for their cruisers Tuesday at the Randolph County Courthouse Annex. Margaret Walker, program coordinator from the Governor’s Highway Safety Program, presents Tucker County Sheriff Brian Wilfong with one of the electronic citation laptops.
ELKINS – On Tuesday, representatives from the Governor’s Highway Safety Program provided some much-needed new equipment to the Tucker County Sheriff’s department and the Parsons City Police.
Program Coordinator Margaret Walker said the Governor’s Highway Safety Program, which offers support to law enforcement through the state, and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are providing local law enforcement equipment necessary for the e-citation program.
“Right now we are trying to transition law enforcement from hand writing citations to printing them through the e-citation program,” Walker said. “With e-citation, everything is uploaded and entered onto the computer, and a ticket is printed. Some law enforcement agencies in West Virginia have no computers and printers so we are giving them a starter kit or providing the entire package so they may print out citations.”
Walker said this will furnish law enforcement the capability to print the citations rather than having hand-written.
“In the near future, most people that are pulled over will receive a printed citation rather than a hand-written ticket,” Walker said. “These will be easier to read and allow people to pay for their citations in a shorter time period. With this new equipment, police can upload the information within 24 hours and people can pay the citation right away rather than waiting to receive a copy in the mail.”
With the new e-citations, court systems will have access to the information quicker and Walker said the citations will be more efficient.
“One problem is the court system had difficulty reading the officer’s writing on hand-written citations,” Walker said. “This will allow for better accuracy.”
Walker said the Parsons Police received a laptop and a printer and the Tucker County Sheriff Department received three laptops and printers along with printer paper.
Wilfong said the equipment will help with their work and the donation of equipment relieves the department of the financial burden of purchasing the equipment.
“We are grateful to the Governor’s Highway Safety Program for the printers and laptops,” Wilfong said. “We will get the equipment installed and get them up and learn how to use them. This save time and make the citations easier to read. We are grateful for their help.”
Walker said the e-citation program in West Virginia started with the West Virginia State Police about three years ago.
“It was a pilot program with the state police,” Walker said. “Now it is not mandatory but it is one we are strongly encouraging because we need to get into the 21st century.”
