Pembroke Pines police officers will soon be able to print computerized traffic tickets from their squad cars.

Not only will this save time for street cops and department office staff, but it also will provide the city with a more thorough database of traffic incidents.

The new equipment will likely hit the streets in late September after the printers arrive and the software is installed in the laptop computers in patrol cars, Police Cmdr. Keith Palant said.

Palant said that in the past, whenever the Police Department has introduced a new tool or technological improvement, officers tend to issue more citations.

So drivers may want to be more vigilant than usual and traffic scofflaws may want to cool it in Pembroke Pines for awhile. ''As time goes on, it levels off,'' Palant said.

The tickets can be used for every traffic citation, including speeding, reckless driving and stop-sign offenses. ''It will expedite the process where officers can get back to normal,'' Palant said.

Currently, police officers write traffic tickets by hand and later other department employees enter a limited amount of information into a database.

''It's very time-consuming, very labor-intensive,'' he said. ``We don't capture all the data we could.''

Now all the information, including the location of the incident and type of offense, will be entered into the department's records database. This will allow staffers to analyze the data and put the information to use.

For example, the department could figure out where the most citations for a particular offense are happening, then direct more patrols to that location.

With the new technology, police type in a date of birth or driver's license number and other information, such as the driver's height and gender, appears automatically.

The device also will alert the officer verbally if the driver has a suspended license or an outstanding warrant for arrest.

It has another benefit, too.

''The judges and state attorneys will love it. The tickets will be legible now,'' Palant said.

The system is easy to use and got high marks from staffers who tested it before the department decided to spend the money.

The city spent about $70,000 for 140 printers and about $34,000 for the software. Pembroke Pines officials also agreed to spend about $2,000 for a device that will allow some officers to obtain information quickly by swiping driver's licenses.

The city will pay nearly $7,000 a year for system maintenance.