Mayor John Tory’s traffic crackdown extended to out-of-province plates
Mayor John Tory is extending his tough take on lane blocking and illegal rush-hour parking on out-of-towners by towing out-of-province vehicles, many of them multiple offenders, who have three or more tickets.
The hope is that the inconvenience and $200-plus towing charge will be “a significant deterrent” to the repeat offenders, many of which are delivery trucks.
“Many of us have seen these trucks that have sheaves of parking tickets right on the windshield. They don’t even bother to take them off because they can ignore them. If they blow them off it’s no big deal because they don’t have to pay attention to them. Now they do,” Tory told reporters at city hall on Monday.
Although the city has no legal means to compel those owners to pay their fines, the mayor’s crackdown on illegal lane blockers and parking violations during rush hour, city officials believe there will be a financial benefit. Toronto hopes to clear at least another $1 million to $2 million as people, mostly Ontario residents, pay up sooner to avoid being labeled a repeat offender.
Until recently there was no database to allow parking enforcement officers to identify the out-of-province repeat offenders. That information is now available.
There are over 100,000 out-of-province tickets on the city books, the majority unpaid, he said. But there are further measures that could be taken to enforce the law at the provincial level.
“All this does is it allows our traffic enforcement officers to have the data in hand so they know repeat offenders are people they can tow just as it’s the case with people who are resident with Ontario plates. The next step is to have Ontario take a broader participation in the mutual enforcement of these kinds of things which happens between other states and provinces,” said Tory.
The new out-of-province plates will go into effect next month following a police education period.
About three weeks ago, at Tory’s instigation, the city launched a zero-tolerance policy on all cars that violate parking regulations, block traffic and block traffic whether they’re pulling over to pick up a coffee or they’re sitting in the wrong zone for hours. So far, the mayor said, the campaign has resulted in the towing of 962 cars and trucks and 5,856 tickets.
