Once two Maryland State Police troopers finish testing software they developed this year, traffic stops will take a fraction of the time they require now.
Cpl. Doug Baralo, Westminster, and Tfc. Chris Corea, Bel Air, of the state police Information Technology Division in Pikesville have selected the Westminster, Bel Air and Golden Ring barracks to participate in a six-month pilot program that will test an electronic warning system.
Police will scan driver?s licenses with handheld bar code readers using technology similar that used found in grocery stores, allowing information about motorists to automatically appear on laptops in their police cruisers.
Using touchscreen monitors, police will select which warnings ? and eventually citations ? they wish to give and print them out using printers inside the cruisers.
Lt. Dean Richardson, Westminster Barracks commander, shared his excitement about the program with the Carroll County commissioners and allied agency directors last week.
“People don?t like to be stopped, we know that,” Richardson said. “But at least this system will make it quicker.”
Police estimate the e-warning system will save troopers at least a half-hour a day of paperwork and restore more time for actual police work on the streets.
Five troopers from each of the three barracks will serve warnings using this system within the next few weeks, Baralo said, adding that the eventual goal is to hand out citations electronically, too.
The system would automatically transmit citation information to the district court in Annapolis instead of through the mail.
Recalling their own policing experiences and frustration with time-consuming, paper-and-ink procedures, Baralo and Corea worked on the program for almost a half year.
The system?s eventual capabilities of storing offenders? records in a database will make it easier for police to learn the history of a driver with a swipe of an infrared beam.
