Scott Radley: Drivers of city vehicles don’t pay red-light camera and photo-radar tickets

Thousands of drivers in Hamilton receive a notice in the mail from the city each year with a ticket from a red-light camera or a photo-radar camera inside. It's always an unwelcome little surprise.

But what happens if a city employee driving a city vehicle is one of those. Do they have to pay the ticket?

No, they do not pay that amount," says manager of fleet, Tom Kagianis.

There is an internal discipline process so the drivers don't get off scot-free. Still, it doesn't exactly sound fair that a municipal worker doesn't have to pay a ticket that would cost you $325 or more.

Here's the situation. In the case of both photo-radar and red-light cameras, the ticket never goes to the driver - it's often impossible to prove who was behind the wheel - but rather to the owner. In this case, any ticket would be mailed by the city to the city.

With 930 city vehicles on the streets, it does happen. Ten times already this year.

The fleet planning office receives the notice, pays it, and then charges the fine to the department assigned to that vehicle. That department is then notified that one of its employees got a ticket and it is expected to figure out who it was.

Once that's sorted, the driver is expected to show up at the Collision Review Board. Think of it as city staff traffic court. There, a determination is made about whether the incident was preventable or not. Kagianis - who landed in this position long after the policy was written - can only think of one time a case was deemed unpreventable.

Assuming it's not excused, demerit points are issued to the employee. For speeding (no matter the speed), it's 15 points. That earns a written warning. For a red-light camera, it's 20. Which is the level that leads to a one-day suspension. More infractions lead to longer and longer suspensions.

So they don't get off unscathed. But there's still a problem.

If the city pays the ticket - $325 for a red-light camera infraction and different amounts for photo-radar fines, depending on the speed - it's really the taxpayer paying the penalty. That doesn't seem right.

Or, if you're thinking nobody's really paying anything because moving money from one city department to another city department is just an accounting game and nobody is really being penalized here, you might be right, too. Same if you believe a letter in a file that disappears after two years probably sounds a heck of a lot better than a hefty fine.

So why not just have the employee pay it like all the rest of us and be done with it? Particularly since the city is already figuring out who the driver was. Toronto does this, though tracking the drivers there has proved challenging so it's met with marginal success.

The answer is that when that's happened in the past here, employees felt they were entitled to fight it. Which seems reasonable. Yet since the ticket is issued to the city and since the employee is a representative of the city, it really becomes the city fighting against itself.

The employee discipline process is separate (and because of its nature confidential) but the city pays all fines due on these tickets as the vehicle owner," says the city's director of communications and strategic initiatives, Matthew Grant.

Not sure that's going to make those members of the public who've had to write a cheque too happy. Still, there is that suspension in some cases. That somewhat levels the playing field, right?

Indeed. But considering an employee earning $80,000 a year (the city staff median) would make about $220 each work day after tax, a one-day suspension without pay is still a considerably better deal than the fine.

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com