Original Article Aug 11, 12:06 PM EDT Tucson officers to begin issuing 'e-citations' TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- Starting next week, getting a traffic ticket in Tucson will be a high-tech affair. The Tucson Police Department is ready to activate 50 new hand-held computers that will allow officers to merely swipe a person's driver's license when giving a ticket. The offender will receive a printout of the "e-citation," but the police department and city court will keep records electronically. The new tickets will be "extremely accurate," said police Sgt. Steve Wheeler. Handwritten tickets are magnets for errors, according to a nationwide electronic citation assessment from the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the U.S. Department of Transportation. They often contain inaccuracies or omissions, are smudged or have poor penmanship, or one of the layers of paperwork is lost in the process. Tucson City Court administrator Joan Harphant said roughly 10 percent of handwritten tickets in Tucson need to be corrected through a complicated legal process that includes a judge's approval. The court handles around 250,000 citations a year. The new system, which the city court paid for using around $225,000 from late fees, will cut down on labor-intensive record keeping and improve efficiency, Harphant said. Wheeler said the chance of an error is reduced using e-citations because the information on a driver's license is automatically transferred to the ticket. Officers still will ask drivers to verify their address and other information as well, he said. Motorcycle officers, who hand out the largest portion of non-criminal traffic tickets, will be the first to hand out e-citations in Tucson. The computers are small enough to clip on a belt or tuck in a pocket and the printers will fit in compartments on the backs of the motorcycles. City court and police officials want to expand the program to more officers and other city agencies that report code violations, including fire, water, environmental services and zoning departments, Harphant said. But so far, no funding is in place for a larger-scale program.