Hold on: Improved Traffic Court phone system on the way

Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2005 | 9:02 a.m.

Busy signals greet the majority of people trying to use the telephone to resolve traffic tickets issued in Clark County -- but that should change soon.

Although Las Vegas Justice Court's Traffic Division currently receives 900 calls a day, officials are able to answer only 300 of them using the current manual phone call answering system.

Court Executive Officer Chuck Short acknowledges that 67 percent of the calls made to the Traffic Division go unanswered by the two staff members dedicated to answering the calls, but he says help is on the way.

Short expects the Clark County Commission today will approve a contract to install an interactive voice recognition system for the traffic court. The $225,000 system, to be developed by Sonant Corporation, will give callers the opportunity to pay tickets over the phone without the hassle of waiting on lines or waiting on hold.

Sonant is the same company used by court administration to install an interactive voice recognition system for jury services.

The system will be in place by March, Short said.

For the time being, Short offered his apologies to people placed on hold for long periods of time and those who don't get their calls answered at all.

"This is unfair to the people of Clark County who are trying to pay their traffic fines, and I apologize for the inexcusable inconvenience," Short said. "We will soon have a system in place that will seek to avoid having them waste their valuable time, generosity and patience."

Short said the new telephone system will allow people to take care of their traffic court business from any state -- or anywhere in the world where there is phone access.

To speed the installation process, Short said, court administrators have been informally working with Sonant to create 75 percent of the script that callers will hear when phoning the Traffic Division.

Short said there also has been an increase in the amount of people coming to take care of their traffic tickets in person since the office was moved to the Regional Justice Center. He said 700 people now come to the traffic court windows each day, compared to the 550 who came when the Traffic Division was housed at the old courthouse.

He attributed the increase to the fact that Las Vegas Municipal Court's traffic division is now housed in the same area as Las Vegas Justice Court's traffic division.

It takes an average of five minutes for traffic court staff to handle each person's situation, Short said.

As for collecting outstanding traffic fines, Short said requests for proposals for a collection agency should be sent out in December. He expects one to be selected by February.

Outstanding traffic fines became an issue in the wake of a consultant's report last month that said Las Vegas Justice Court has failed to collect about 50 percent of imposed fines over the last eight years, representing a loss of $61 million.

Matt Pordum can be reached at 474-7406 or at pordum@lasvegassun.com