by Lornna Bates
Managing editor
The SE Campus Police and Safety Department introduced an electronic citation system Oct. 1, 2011. The system operates digitally, reading a barcode on parking decals with handheld devices that will correspond with student, faculty and staff information for vehicle and owner identification, making handwritten ticketing obsolete, said Capt. Stacy Ballew, assistant director of the campus police.
Students, faculty and staff will still receive a printed version of the citation left on the vehicle at the time of the violation. The handheld devices are accompanied by mobile computers and printers, for quick and efficient ticketing, saving the university time and money, said Ballew.
DigiTICKET, powered by the Tulsa-based company Saltus Technologies, uses a handheld ticketing device to scan the SE parking decal for the registered information on the vehicle, the permit and the owner and to offer a more accurate ticketing process, eliminating the need for handwritten tickets, said Ballew.
The vehicle information for the digiTICKET system is drawn from the vehicle identification cards that are completed at the Campus Police Department before a parking decal is issued.
By eliminating handwritten tickets, digiTICKET will nearly eliminate erroneous information and unreadable ticket markings, making it difficult to dispute tickets received, said Officer Clint Harrell of the campus police. “Officers write much like doctors, to the point where they cannot even read their own handwriting,” said Harrell.
Ballew said the digiTICKET handheld ticketing modules also offer the capability to take and electronically attach a photo of the infraction with the ticket on file, allowing the campus police to show the violation and the positioning of the vehicle at the time it was ticketed, which aids in the solidity of the violation.
With the same technology, officers are also afforded the opportunity to record a conversation, if necessary, to retain a copy of the communication that transpired for future reference, Harrell said.
This is not a usual occurrence, stressed Ballew. However the ability to record is there if the situation warrants.
The digital systems enable campus police to increase their visibility across the campus by creating an efficient ticket-writing process, including the capability of issuing multiple tickets quickly, without compromising effectiveness, said the Saltus Technologies website.
Each violation listed on a printed copy is a separate ticket and must be dealt with accordingly.
Contrary to what may be popular belief, the campus police do not issue tickets to meet a quota of any type, said Ballew. Citations are issued out of a necessity to ensure the safety of the campus and its occupants.
“Parking is a real problem on campus,” said Ballew. “The officers issue tickets because it is their job.” The officers are not singling any one person out, he said, and they do not issue tickets because it is fun or they are hard-nosed. Tickets are issued because the rules are not being followed, said Ballew.
In addition, there are a few student workers who patrol the campus and issue citations. “They are just student workers,” said Ballew. “It is not personal. They are just doing their jobs.”
While it may be understandable that an offender would be upset at receiving a ticket, approaching the ticketing officer/student in a menacing manner will not void the ticket and will not help your case, Ballew pointed out.
The handheld devices will integrate the data into the campus police system at the close of the ticketing agent’s shift by attaching and downloading the collected information, said Ballew.
“All parking violations are handled in house,” Harrell said.
Student dispatcher Malorie Moore, freshman pre-veterinarian major, said ticket fines can only be paid in the SE Business Office, located next to the campus post office in Hallie McKinney.
The Business Office is in the lobby, said Deborah Harper, Business Office assistant and cashier. The Business Office was formerly known as Business Services and/or Auxiliary Services, she added.
The campus police are officially trained and licensed peace officers of the state of Oklahoma and therefore are equipped to handle much more severe crimes on or off of campus, said Harrell.
If a moving violation or more severe crime occurs, the ticket will be marked as a district ticket rather than a parking violation, Harrell said. In this case, the reverse side of the ticket will have information for the violator on what they must do, he said, as the tickets will be handled in the district court system.
There are cases, such as receiving an invalid or missing permit citation the day after receiving an identical ticket where Ballew said the offender can visit the campus police station in an effort to remedy the situation.
If an opportunity is given to the violator and the infraction is not corrected, said Harrell, the offending vehicle will begin to receive tickets again. Campus police are aware of repeat offenders and recognize many of the vehicles they have previously ticketed, said Harrell.
The tickets are not officially uploaded to the network system in SE until the end of the month, leaving the campus police an opportunity to alter the citations that have been issued. Do not wait too long, said Ballew. Once the tickets are sent to the SE database, there is nothing that the campus police can do to change them, he said.
The tickets will be integrated with the student’s school file, in what Ballew termed an unofficial traffic account, and the information will remain there until the tickets are paid. Unpaid fines could result in a hold on transcripts, among other penalties, he said.
Students are also allowed the opportunity to appeal a parking citation through the Traffic Appeals Committee, said Jannista Wood, administrative assistant to Vice President of Student Affairs Sharon Robinson.
The process for appealing a ticket begins with visiting the Office of the Vice President of Student Affairs. A form should be picked up, completed and returned with the ticket, where the office will make a copy of the ticket and return the original to the student, said Wood.
From there, the committee will convene at least twice during the semester, most likely close to March for the first meeting, depending on the number of appeals that are received throughout the semester, Wood said. There are usually 10-12 appeals per convention, she said.
Students will be informed of the date of the meeting when it is determined.
“The students have to show up, go in and talk to the committee,” said Wood. The petitioner is then excused while the appeal is reviewed. “In a few minutes the committee will decide if the student has won the appeal or not. It is very quick,” she said.
The student can choose to wait to pay the
ticket pending the outcome of the appeal, in which case a financial hold might be applied to the student’s account, said Wood.
If the student has paid the fine, the money would be refunded in the event of an overturned citation, said Wood. If the appeal is not won, the offender is responsible for the fine that was instituted.
The committee has been in place for student appeals for 20 years or more, said Wood.
An appeals committee for faculty and staff has recently been created that allows faculty and staff members a chance to dispute a ticket received, said Wood. The appeals committee for students and the committee for faculty and staff are two separate committees, she said.
Campus police began to issue tickets on the first day of the semester, Jan. 11. The digiTICKET system has a GPS system that can track the tickets issued on campus and the locations, said Ballew.
Since the start of the semester, Ballew estimated that 1,000 tickets have been issued. On average, this number is not unusually high, said Ballew.
The tickets have been logged at various points across the campus, according to the GPS chart of violations Ballew produced from his records.
According to Ballew’s chart, the majority of violations have occurred on Seventh Avenue and Montgomery Street, the parking lots near the baseball field.
The digiTICKET system also offers Ballew the opportunity to graph the most common violations on campus through the digiTICKET dashboard. As of Feb. 8, the majority of tickets issued, at 58 percent, are offenders without a permit or with a permit that is no longer valid.
At this point in the semester, said Harrell, it is at the officer discretion for ticketing all parking infractions, especially missing or invalid permits, versus issuing warnings. After six weeks into the beginning of classes, students, faculty and staff have had ample opportunity to pick up their parking permits, which are available at no additional cost to the student or staff member, he said.
Faculty will not be treated any differently than the students, Harrell added. They should set a positive example for students, not add to the problem, he said.
At 18 percent, those parked in a restricted or loading zone are the next highest cited, such as parking in a paid parking zone without permission, according to the pie graph of violations from Ballew.
Six percent or less of the citations are received in the following categories: parked facing wrong direction, parked on dividing stripe, parked in no parking zone, parked in visitor space, not a designated parking space, parked in handicapped, parked in reserved or loading space and parked in driveways or obstructing traffic.
A ride-along with Harrell showed that at least 30 or more tickets could be handed out in just an hour time frame for various parking violations by both students, faculty and staff. Vehicles were parked on the grass, next to the curbs that enclose the parking lots, facing the wrong direction in a slanted parking spot, which goes against the natural flow of traffic and parked directly on the yellow stripes of a no parking zone. There were even two vehicles parked with the bumpers touching.
Most notable were the numbers of vehicles parked across campus with permit violations, including missing or outdated parking decals.