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The basics of traffic enforcement and investigation haven't changed much since the 1940s. Officers fill out citations on multi-page tickets and enter arcane codes into accident forms, both rife with errors from bad handwriting or just bad data. And, when the reports and tickets reach the station, they have to be entered into the department's database system, and possibly again at the court and state level. Past attempts at automation have done little more than transfer the handwritten forms into computer-based forms, and the computers just aren't practical to carry around on traffic stops and accident investigations.
Now that handheld computers (also called PDAs, or Personal Digital Assistants) have much of the power and capabilities of their desktop big brothers, there may be a better tool for the traffic officer.
Crossroads Software is a company whose bread and butter is based on streamlining the process of issuing traffic citations and completing accident reports, and then making the data contained in those documents useful without a lot of post-processing. Their products are extremely customized and versatile, so that law enforcement agencies don't have to change their methods or their forms in order to adopt the product.
There is a special bureaucracy associated with traffic enforcement and investigation. Traffic citation (also called tickets or summonses, depending on the jurisdiction) form designs are often mandated at the state level by the highway patrol or equivalent agency, or by the local court that adjudicates the charges made on the citations. Unlike crime reports, which generally go through a prosecutor's office before reaching the court, judges will often receive a copy of the original citation that the officer wrote, and use that in court for review and recording of disposition. Because of this, judges can be particular about any changes in the design or layout of the form. It might benefit the law enforcement agency to modify the form, but they can't do so without getting approval from the court or the state. This limits the adoption of most automated traffic citation systems that have been on the market to date.
Crossroads' traffic citation system uses exactly the same form as that already in use, although it doesn't look that way at the outset. Officers carry a Pocket PC handheld...