Crime & Law
Cook County Court Clerk’s Pilot Program Streamlines Process for Paying Off Speeding Tickets
(Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County)
A pilot program from Cook County’s circuit court clerk is speeding up the way residents can pay off their speeding tickets.
Clerk Mariyana Spyropoulos’ office has launched a new e-citation program that allows traffic citations to be transmitted to the circuit court clerk’s office electronically, which she said will cut down on delays and improve overall efficiency.
“This is a modernization effort that had been discussed for nearly a decade, and my administration delivered it within a year,” Spyropoulos said. “Our focus was on delivering practical improvements that make the court system work better for the public and for the clerks who keep it running every day.”
Under the current model, traffic citations need to be transmitted manually, a process that requires clerks to retype handwritten citations that were delivered in person. Those citations then don’t show up in the clerk’s system for seven to 10 days.
The pilot program significantly reduces that timeline, allowing clerks to approve pre-filled citations that can now show up in their system within 24 to 48 hours.
Spyropoulos said her office processes around 1,200 citations per day and hundreds of thousands each year. She said payment options through the new program remain the same as they have always been — online, by mail or in person.
“We’ve got endless stories of individuals who, they’ll get a ticket, they’ll come down to our offices and want to pay that ticket, but we can’t help them because we don’t have the paper ticket in order to match with their case,” Spyropoulos said, adding the new program is “less waiting, less confusion” and fewer visits to the clerk’s offices.
The pilot launched in early December, according to Spyropoulos, who said more than 40 municipalities and county agencies have already signed up. She expects the entirety of Cook County to be on board by the start of the summer, including the Chicago Police Department, which accounts for around half of the county’s total citations.
According to Spyropoulos, conversations with CPD officials remain ongoing, but bringing that department into the pilot won’t put any additional stress onto the program.
“We will not need more staff or more resources,” she said. “We’ll be able to use the staff we have and more staff will be available to do customer service because this is streamlining the process.”
