Guam - The Guam Police Department is going green, making paper citations a thing of the past, ushering in the age of technology with the introduction of electronic citations or e-tickets.  This week traffic violators will no longer be able to contest a citation based on illegible handwriting of an officer.

GPD Highway Patrol Division Captain Steve Ignacio said, "Once we know that it works - we have used the system, it's just getting it back on the streets - and once it works it's going to be apart of the Patrol Division's objective to issue electronic tickets." The Highway Patrol Division recently conducted a training course for nine of their officers to familiarize them with the electronic citation device.

"It was to get the officers re-acquainted with the software and the program understanding how the computers will be working out in the field and how the citations will be printed from the patrol cars, and just getting them use to working that environment," the captain added.

Although GPD has had the technology for several years, Highway Patrol is finally entering the age of technology and it's to the benefit of the issuing officers. "The division will be re-implementing the use of e-citation. What that does is it save use time in terms of paperwork and transmittal of hard documents to the court," Ignacio explained.

Less paperwork equals less steps, and that means GPD officers have more time to enforce the laws. "The Three Cs: the citation will be more Clear, more Complete and more Concise. And it will be easier for the Traffics Violations Bureau when they receive it at the courts to read who the violator is address is numbers and so on and so forth," Ignacio added.

The Highway Patrol Division will begin the live training exercise next week before making the full transition. Ignacio said, "With e-citation, once the violator is issued a ticket it's printed at the scene given to the violator. Everything else is transmitted wirelessly over the Internet and it is received by the court." The captain encourages drivers to abide by the laws of safe driving and to stay off mobile devices when you're behind the wheel.

So traffic violators, beware: if you are pulled over for infractions, GPD's new e-citations will speed their way through the system - leaving you with a possible e-ticket to the big house.