7th District Police testing license-screening technology

It looks like one those handheld price scanners you’d see at the grocery store, but this tool that’s being piloted by one Philadelphia Police district is a bit niftier: it cuts the length of traffic stops nearly in half.

Launched last month, the tool allows cops to scan a driver’s license and automatically write a traffic ticket with the cop’s in-car computer. The scanner cuts ticket-writing time in half, said 7th District Capt. Joseph Zaffino, whose district is piloting the technology.

An average traffic stop will take anywhere between 20 to 30 minutes, Zaffino said, with five to 10 minutes going toward writing the actual ticket. The scanner gets ticket-writing down to three to five minutes.

Read the rest of this story and the others in Technically Philly’s series on Philadelphia Police and technology.

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