Last Updated on January 21, 2013 2:16 pm
Drivers who receive traffic citations in North Carolina are saving time by paying
citation fines and related costs online rather than going to the courthouse to pay.
A relatively new system, payNCticket (http://www.payNCticket.org), accepts payments for traffic and other offenses that will not be contested in a court of law. Payment methods accepted are credit or debit cards.
The payNCticket system was built by the North Carolina Administrative Office of the
Courts (NCAOC) to provide benefits to both citizens and court officials and staff. In
addition to providing a more convenient payment option for citizens, payNCticket allows for quicker disposition of cases because of its automatic updates of case records.
Watauga County Clerk of Superior Court Diane Cornett Deal said in published reports “Our new payNCticket online payment system has become the preferred method of payment for waivable traffic offenses,”. “Citizens conveniently may make their payment from anywhere Internet connectivity is available. I encourage citizens not wanting to appear in court regarding their traffic citation to save gas and time and go online to pay.” she added.
“The notion of payNCticket was born out of need to reduce processing and transactional work that requires a great deal of time for clerks of court,” said Mecklenburg County Clerk of Superior Court Martha Curran, who seeded the idea of such a system. “Building a system to specifically address the workload for traffic citations makes great business sense, as this is one of the highest volume work areas for courts statewide.”
Prior to payNCticket, citizens had to pay fines and related court costs by going to the
courthouse to pay in cash or by mailing a money order or cashier’s check.
“The payNCticket system demonstrates how technology is modernizing the way citizens interact with courts statewide,” said NCAOC Director John Smith. “It also improves efficiency to courts by streamlining the payment and waiver process.”
Payments made using this new online system are processed by NIC, an independent company. A nominal processing fee goes to NIC; otherwise, most monies received from traffic citations do not stay with the courts but instead go to other state and local government agencies.
The payNCticket system is part of NCAOC’s eCourts strategy, which envisions expanded web-based services. NCAOC’s eFiling system, which debuted in May 2009, was the first system to accept online payments of court fees. Learn more at nccourts.org
Since the program began, courthouse staff members statewide have saved an estimated 7,600 hours by eliminating the need to manually take receipts. In 2012, more than 123,000 waived offenses across the state were processed via the online system.
Watauga County received 976 payments via payNCticket last year per reports. Previously, Watauga County residents had to pay fines and court costs by going to the courthouse with cash or by mailing a money order or cashier’s check.
Most money received from traffic citations does not stay with the courts but instead goes to local government agencies and the state’s General Fund.
