Background
A traffic violation ticket can be considered to be a legal citation or summon which is issued to vehicle owners and people who use the roads by the state’s law enforcement officers in case they have been found guilty of disobeying the state’s particular traffic laws.
The traffic violation ticket issued can either be in the form of a citation with a moving violation, like when a rider exceeds the specified speed limit, or as a non-moving violation, like that of a parking ticket. They are then heard at the traffic court and the violator has to pay a fine for his or her unlawful actions.
Thus, a traffic violation ticket notifies a person that he or she has committed either a major or minor legally impermissible infraction due to which a fine has to be paid. Normally traffic violators either, postmark the ticket and send the fine within the given due date, or at the time they appear for their hearing at court when they are summoned. But this becomes a hectic event for the traffic violators, police officials, and lawmakers since they have to handle more than a million other such traffic violation tickets every year and coordinate the dates of the hearing while having to do their daily jobs.
But with a traffic violation ticket online query and fine payment system not only will the police officials and lawmakers be able to manage and issue traffic violation tickets to the offenders within minutes but the vehicle owners will also be able to enquire about their traffic violation tickets. They will be able to instantly pay their fines online as per the rules associated with the traffic violation ticket that they received. (Walker, 347-363)
Current trends
Nowadays, almost every vehicle owner receives either a parking ticket or a speeding ticket at some point in their life. And if they fail to pay the fines associated with that traffic ticket then it will immediately lead to them having to pay additional fines along with the original amount given in the citation of the ticket. If the vehicle owners are still unable to pay the cited fine amount, then ultimately it could even lead to their vehicle being booted or towed or the issuing of an arrest warrant in their name. Thus, failure to pay one’s traffic ticket can lead to serious problems. But if the vehicle owners pay for the traffic tickets received by them through the online fine payment system then not only is this the quickest but also the easiest way of resolving the entire situation thus, preventing any further unwanted consequences, like having to spend a night in custody. (Fugmann, 116-129)
Payment through internet
Paying for one’s parking ticket through the online fine payment system consists of certain very easy steps which the vehicle owners will be able to follow effortlessly. They should first confirm that they deserve the traffic violation ticket that they are paying for since they cannot be fined or made to pay for a traffic violation ticket that they are going to contest. Thus, when they receive a traffic ticket citation, to begin with, they should immediately check and confirm that they are being ticketed for a violation which they have committed and are not mistaken for someone else. Even though the violations are printed at different areas on the traffic violation ticket, it always clearly stares at the traffic rule which has been violated by the vehicle owner concerned.
After determining that one deserves to pay for the traffic violation ticket, he or she must be ready with certain information that is required for paying the traffic violation ticket through the online fine payment system. Almost every country has an online fine payment system for paying traffic violation tickets and even though they may have a different outlook the information required and payment options are given are almost always similar. The vehicle owner concerned needs to have the traffic violation ticket, a bank checking account or debit card or credit card, the license plate number of his or her vehicle, and the vehicle identification number or VIN. On the reverse side of the traffic violation ticket, the vehicle owners will find the appropriate online website by which they can pay for the fine of their traffic violation ticket. The due date and maximum allowable time by which the vehicle owner should pay up the fine will also be mentioned. All the vehicle owner will have to do is find the proper website by mentioning his or her traffic violation ticket, state, or county where the citation was issued. (Harter, 110-117)
Steps of query and payment
After the vehicle owner has reached the appropriate website and located the page where he or she can pay the fine, the traffic ticket number needs to be entered along with the date the traffic ticket was issued so that the user can log on or enter the online payment system. Once the user can log on the website will give them proper instructions following which they can continue with their online fine payment options. After all the details asked have been filled out the user needs to submit the online fine payment form after which a confirmation page will appear. The user needs to jot down the given confirmation number along with the date and time when the fine payment form was submitted for future references.
If the user wants to print the page, he or she can do that too. In case the user does not print the receipt provided, the online fine payment system also gives them the option of using their authorization number, as given by their debit card or credit card Company, as proof that they have paid the fined amount. The user can also have the website administrators mail the fine payment confirmation to their given email id by clicking on the option given. And as soon as the violator has paid for the traffic violation ticket, he or she can get back to driving the vehicle again. (Lancaster, 193-200)
Most of the web applications allowing vehicle owners to pay their traffic violation tickets online use a very secure method for transmitting and processing whatever data is given by the user. The website also charges the users with a small processing or convenience fee which goes into maintaining it which can also be paid through the same online payment method.
We can easily see that paying one’s traffic violation ticket through the online fine payment system has become an easy and trouble-free way of resolving an extremely time-consuming affair. Not only will the vehicle owners be able to pay the fine of traffic violations and tickets issues but the lawmakers will also be able to view the details of any previous traffic violations along with the name of the traffic violators.
This makes it easier for lawmakers who may want to refer to any previous cases while handling a new one. With hundreds and thousands of cases of traffic violations and issuing of traffic violation tickets every year, it is only appropriate that the traffic violators pay for the cited fine for the violation through an online fine payment system. It makes it a lot easier for the traffic police too who simply have to integrate the violation fine payment service methods with an online web application designed to do so. (Hsieh-Yee, 161-174)
Advantages of online communication
A major advantage of the online query and fine payment system is that it saves traffic police officers from the tedious job of having to collect the violation fines from each and very traffic violator. With the online traffic query and payment service, the traffic police officers can now simply issue the traffic violation tickets and either put it on the violator’s car or mail it to the violator. Thus the traffic police officers can concentrate on their other jobs like enforcing traffic rules and assuring the people of the city that the traffic flows smoothly without having to worry about any traffic violation tickets. Law enforcement officers have to manage and control hundreds of traffic signals and junctions along with thousands of intersections and terminals in the city. Handling the traffic violation ticket queries and payments thus, become an added responsibility for most of these police officers.
And since our overall vehicle population is also increasing at a steady rate the ratio of traffic officers and vehicles has become completely lopsided. Thus traffic police officers have to rely on technology in the form of online traffic violation ticket query and fine payment websites rather than on manpower if they want to fulfill their duties to the full. Had the entire process of traffic violation ticket query and fine payment been done manually then the traffic police officers would have themselves had to collect the fined amount from the vehicle owners concerned, individually, and then deposit the money in the specified bank, at the given time and date. (Nakkouzi & Eastman, 171-182) After this the receipt would have been passed on to the treasury department. So not only would they have had to do their regular traffic duties but would have also had to run around for depositing traffic violation ticket fine payments. But with online traffic violation ticket query and fine payment options the burden on the shoulders of the traffic police officers has been highly reduced since, the entire process can be carried out by the traffic violators themselves without even involving the traffic police officers.
Not only does the web application for online fine payment of traffic violation tickets ease the burden off of the traffic police officer but also makes the entire process easier for the traffic violators. If an internet user has received a traffic violation ticket then he or she will be easily able to settle the fine online with ease through the online traffic violation ticket querying and payment system lessening a lot of his or hers pain. Payment of online traffic violation tickets take less than even 5 minutes if the individual having to pay it has all the necessary information ready. Traffic violators can pay the traffic violation ticket fines by simply using their credit cards or debit cards and instead of having to frequently visit courts they have to pay an extra transaction fee for covering the costs needed in electronic processing. Thus paying for traffic tickers becomes fairly easy for both the traffic violators and the traffic police officers when they have to roughly hand out millions of tickets every year. (Doszkocs, 191-196)
Application
Such a prototype of a web application that helps traffic violators to pay their tickets through an online fine payment system is usually made of a front-end that allows the vehicle owners or violators to enquire about their traffic violation tickets along with instructions on how to instantly pay the fine based on the citation in the traffic violation ticket and a back-end that is controlled by administrators for managing the query and payment of traffic violation tickets online.
The end users who are the vehicle owners will easily be able to utilize such an electronic web application service for various queries that they have about the traffic violation ticket received for their specific vehicle, pay the appropriate fine that has been predetermined for the particular violation and if necessary even look up the applicable court date for their case. In today’s world the Internet has become the fastest mode of communication and the number of people accessing and using the internet has reached an unprecedented number and is still rapidly increasing. They not only use the internet for their communication purposes but also for their business purposes. The entire procedure of making queries about the traffic violation tickets by the vehicle owners, notifications that a vehicle owner has received a traffic ticket, paying the appropriate fine imposed in the citation and synchronization of the court dates can be made very simple and easy by the effectuation of such a traffic violation ticket online querying and fine payment system. (Laudon & Traver, 78)
This type of an online payment and querying system will also help in increasing the gathering and grouping of the traffic violation tickets. Vehicle owners will find such an online system particularly simple since after receiving a traffic violation ticket they will no longer have to take out time off of their busy schedules to make appearances in the court for pleading guilty for their offence. Since this electronic service eliminates the requirement of processing the traffic violation tickets manually, the need for extra staff members for doing such job will be highly reduced as will be the manual processing charges and waiting time.
Causes of the design
The traffic violation ticket online query and payment service has been aptly designed to help the traffic ticket citation receivers to identify and be able to pay the cited fine online. This is an extremely suitable alternative since vehicle owners can easily pay their traffic citations online and live an extremely hassle free life. Before paying the fine amount they can also look up to ascertain that the amount stated is correct or not and then pay it by using their credit cards. The courts need to timely receive the traffic ticket citations and enter it into their legal system so that the payments for the citations can be made. But if done manually the courts do not receive the traffic ticket citations which are issued by the law enforcement officers for almost up to 2 weeks calculated from the day on which it was actually issued. It takes almost another week for the ticket to be manually processed. But by using the online fine payment system the entire process takes less than a few days and thus, the vehicle owner can go back to driving their vehicles within days. (Flanagan, 65)
Approximately 90% of the people in this country have reached the legal age allowing them to drive with a license and at a time almost everyone has at least one, if not more, vehicles registered in each individual’s name. Thus the outputted figure can be easily translated into zillions of miles that are driven by the vehicle owners every year with hundreds and thousands of traffic violations being made by them. Thus if each of these tickets had to be attended to every day then it would have taken the law enforcement officers and traffic courts months to attend to the queries of the vehicle owners and process their cited fine amounts. The traffic violation ticket query and payment online system is extremely user friendly. They have enough provisions allowing the vehicle owners to not only pay their traffic violation tickets but also check the current status of their traffic tickets, check for hold on vehicle tabs and also schedule a time for a court hearing. They even provide access to certain fundamental court information which may be useful for the payers. (Wolff, 226)
Functions
The traffic violation ticket query and payment sites are extremely safe for the vehicle owners. They have created considering certain factors which include their design, hosting providers and domain name. The navigation options and architecture of the entire website has been designed in an extremely professional yet simple manner so that even those who are not technology savvy can use it. Since the website uses encryption algorithms for encrypting the private information provided by the users, the entire system is extremely secure and also safe. Also, none of the credit card information sent by the users is stored on the website and thus it can neither be stolen nor used by a third party. Once the user or the system approves or rejects the forms filled or payments made, each and every bit of the user provided information is completely chucked out of the system. (Cunningham & Fatelnig, 145)
Since, all of the information provided is encrypted using a key without it no one can decode the provided information. And when the users or vehicle owners wish to track or check the status of their traffic ticket payments or make any other enquiries the system itself decodes their requested information and then encrypts it before sending it back to the user’s computer. The encryption methods used have a very high standard and also the highest strength of capability. After the information has been encrypted by the traffic violation ticket online query and payment system there is no way of decrypting it without the actual decryption key. The encryption methods used have billions of potential keys which can be used for deciphering the encrypted user information. But only 1 of them, and not all of them, will actually decrypt the coded user data. Thus, we can see that the traffic violation ticket online query and payment system is extremely safe since it is almost virtually unlikely and impossible for any individual or system without any authorization to discover the correct key. (Murthi, 5-15)
Since the credit card information or personal data sent by the users are merely transmitted only between the computer systems of the user and the traffic violation ticket online query and payment system, all of the information sent and received is entirely protected by high levels of encryption which can neither be decrypted easily nor can be read or intercepted by another individual. Also the traffic violation ticket online query and payment system reviews all the information provided by the vehicle owners. However the users themselves have to personally verify the information provided by them by consulting their official records that have been filed at the court of law. (Jackson, 124-137)
Additionally the traffic violation ticket online query and payment systems also provide the vehicle owners with their phone number and email addresses so that if the users have any further questions that have not been answered by the online system they can directly call the service providers and ask their questions. Since traffic violation tickets fall under the category of civil infringement which is considered to be a non-criminal offense, a violator can only be punished through pecuniary penalties that include fees, fines and court costs. He or she cannot be jailed for receiving a traffic violation ticket. By using the traffic violation ticket online query and payment system for paying for the ticket received a violator admits to the infraction and takes responsibility of their actions.
In case the violator wants to take responsibility for the infraction but also wants to give an explanation for it through a court hearing then they can also directly contact the court. Violators can also request for a Mitigation Hearing through the online system where he or she will be allowed to give an explanation for the infringement committed by them and the circumstances that led to the infraction. The violators can also request for a Contested Hearing through the online system where he or she denies committing any infraction and as a result refuses to pay any fine. The traffic violation ticket online query and payment system mainly also allows a vehicle owner to enquire and make payments for their traffic violation ticket citations by using the citation number. However if they do not have a citation number they can also refer to the citation by using the license plate number of their vehicles. The online service also allows vehicle owners to pay their Delinquent Citations.
Traffic violation ticket online query and payment systems have become hugely popular and are widely used since they provide the advantage of lessening the download time of the citations given. If a violator or vehicle owner has just received the traffic violation ticket citation for an infraction then he or she will not immediately be capable of paying for the citation online. The ticket will require some time to get downloaded into the traffic citation system. However, nowadays most of the law enforcement officers issue the citations to traffic violators through a hand-held electronic traffic ticket writing device and thus the citations can be downloaded in a just a couple of days after it has been issued. Had this been done manually, then the handwritten citations would have taken a couple of weeks to be scrutinized and then recorded in the traffic citation system. (Donkers, 31-43)
A major advantage of this online system with regards to citations is that even if the violator or vehicle owner does not find his or hers citation in the traffic citation system then they can easily mail their payments along with a copy of their actual citation. The system then processes the payment after receiving it and after the citation has been downloaded or recorded into the traffic citation system, the traffic violation ticket online query and payment systems automatically applies payment received to its original citation. Thus, the vehicle owners do not have to take any other actions or visit the courts to check whether the citations have been paid. If a vehicle owner tries to pay for the traffic citation received by him then the traffic violation ticket online query and payment system will automatically show him whether any other traffic citations have been issued under his name for that particular vehicle or for any other vehicle that has been registered under the same owner. It is completely up to the vehicle owner to decide whether they want to pay for a particular traffic citation or for all of them at the same time. (Bean, 9-14)
Analysis
The traffic violation ticket online query and payment system supplies the payers with a number of options to make payments for their traffic ticket citations. They can either pay through a debit card or a credit card. The payment options that are available to the users are clearly listed in the online system so that the users can choose the appropriate option suitable for them. The online system does not accept a single user or virtual card. The users no longer have to queue up at the traffic courts and wait for the clerks to sort, check, and fold and print the required documents when having to pay for their traffic citations manually. The traffic violation ticket online query and payment service is an extremely cost saving method since it completely eliminates the requirement of mailing, printing and traveling expenses. (Walker, 347-363)
Sometimes a user may also be eligible for the early payment deduction option. In this case the citation amount that has been given in his or hers traffic ticket will be more than what is actually required to be paid by the vehicle owner. In such cases the online payment system will automatically adjust the fine amount that the user requires to pay and will display it before the user. In case the user cannot detect the reduced payment quantity, he or she should pay through the early payment timeframe which will automatically take them to the online page displaying the reduced fine amount. (Doszkocs, 191-196)
Conclusion
Nowadays people use the internet for sharing their thoughts on a blog site, listening to music, watching movies and for communication and business purposes. And by using the traffic violation ticket online query and payment service internet users are adding to the thousands of things that can be done online, here being paying for their traffic ticket citations. It offers convenience to the users in our fast paced world since the citation fines are transferred directly from the banks of the vehicle owners to the online system by the use of the card without causing much trouble to the users. By making the traffic citation payments online, the payees and the payers are working towards the betterment of the environment since the online system is highly environment friendly. Since such a payment option is carried out without the use of any paper, it helps to preserve our nature. In the manual system, the records that are required to be made for registering the traffic ticket citations would have been made of paper which we get from trees. (Fugmann, 116-129)
But by using the online system we eliminate the need of any paper records. Such an online payment system also saves the users a lot of their money since they no longer have to make visits to the banks or mail the money to the courts. Also, since the online payments of the traffic tickets can be carried out from anywhere at any time simply by using a computer and the internet connection, which everyone has today, the vehicle owners are less likely to be late in paying for their traffic ticket citations. Thus this saves them from having to pay extra for a late fee. The traffic violation ticket online query and payment system itself coordinates all the traffic ticket citations received by a particular user. Thus it becomes easier for the users to pay for the different citations by using the site in case they have more than one bank account. (Nakkouzi & Eastman, 171-182)
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