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DPS goes high tech with electronic crash reporting system
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Posted on May 11 2012
By Ferdie de la Torre
Reporter
Reporter
The Department of Public Safety is going high tech, with traffic.
According to acting DPS commissioner Ambrosio Ogumoro, the new electronic crash reporting system will allow police to electronically transmit crash reports from their vehicles to an islandwide traffic safety information database.
“The new system will help reduce roadway injuries and fatalities and will provide a means to identify roadway hazards and develop appropriate countermeasures,” Ogumoro said.
Sgt. Anthony Macaranas, officer-in-charge of DPS Traffic Section, said that what the system does allows traffic officers to write the crash report on the scene and in the comfort of a police vehicle.
“The beauty of that, it also has mapping where when you come to the scene, just tap that and it will show the GPS location of where the crime scene is,” Macaranas said.
He said the system is very helpful to investigators, especially when it’s a serious crash.
“The officer can do his report in his vehicle. And when he is done, he will just transfer it to my vehicle and I will review it. The officer will review it and then if it’s okay I will send over the records electronically,” he said.
Macaranas said police vehicles in the U.S. mainland already have this kind of system, but DPS is only using it for now on vehicular crashes.
Ogumoro said this program, funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Section 408, is part of an initiative that includes the Superior Court, the Department of Public Works, and DPS.
He said the initiative is part of a larger effort that includes electronic citations, a roadway information management system, and an integrated reporting analysis tool, which will be completed by September 2012.
Ledge Light Technologies developed the system, paid for by a federal grant awarded to the CNMI’s Office of Highway Safety.
Ogumoro said the new technology will aid the CNMI in its goal to achieve zero deaths in car accidents.
He said it has now been installed in two DPS police vehicles with a full department-wide rollout expected within the following year.
