Photo radar caught city of Toronto vehicles speeding, running red lights. This department was the worst offender

Thestar.com
March 25, 2022

Residents aren’t the only ones being caught speeding by Toronto’s new traffic cameras -- they nabbed 456 city employees speeding around town in vehicles in the first 18 months of the program.

They also caught 129 city employees in city cars blowing through red lights.

Drivers in Toronto Community Housing Corporation vehicles racked up the most speeding tickets between July 2020 and December 2021 -- 90 in all, for an agency with 207 cars on the road.

Drivers in TCHC also earned 29 tickets for failing to stop at a red light -- the most of any city agency identified in a report released this week.

David Jollimore, general manager, fleet services division, said most of the TCHC infractions are related to the agency’s community safety unit, which responds to emergencies at city-operated housing sites.

Those emergencies range from mental health crises to shootings, which are also attended by police, fire and paramedics, depending on the circumstances.

“This is a unit within Toronto Community Housing that does respond to emergencies, but in their response to emergencies, they are not permitted to violate what is set out in the Highway Traffic Act,” said Jollimore.

He said senior management at TCH has been made aware of the problem and efforts are being made to recover the fines from the offending employees.

“The city has to meet a higher standard than the public with respect to these things,” said Jollimore, who joined fleet services in late 2021.

He said Toronto has 3,600 vehicles on the road and 11,000 drivers who cover a combined total of 16 million kilometres a year, servicing city streets, parks and public housing.

In all, cameras caught 251,410 speeding violations in 2021 and 298 of those tickets were issued to city of Toronto drivers, he pointed out. Of the 77,461 people captured by red light cameras for failing to stop, 65 were employees driving city vehicles.

In a statement to the Star, TCHC acknowledged that a great majority of the infractions were connected to the agency’s community safety unit, adding that the importance of safe driving is made clear to employees.

“In an emergency, these officers can be liaising between Toronto police and tenants that have experienced a criminal act, providing lifesaving medical treatment or assisting tenants that require shelter or evacuation.”

Jollimore said fleet services is responding to the problem by investigating each violation and following up with drivers to determine whether any disciplinary actions should be taken, including suspending driving privileges, and to provide remedial driver training as required.

Deputy mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 16 Don-Valley East), who has asked staff for more information about the tickets, including how fast the drivers were going, agreed the figures for TCH drivers are concerning.

“I think we could ask some interesting questions. There needs to be some explanations about why some of their staff have lead feet.”

Minnan-Wong pointed out that the city has a stated goal, under the Vision Zero plan, of reducing the number of traffic fatalities and severe injuries.

“If we set a standard of Vision Zero, and we’re asking residents to follow speed limits and we’re spending a lot of money with these automated speed cameras and our residents are paying pretty stiff fines, we should be held to the same standard, if not higher.

“It’s not Vision Low, it’s Vision Zero.”

Mayor John Tory’s director of communications said that under Tory’s leadership the city has invested millions of dollars in making roads safer.

“City staff have assured us that every driver is held responsible for all charges incurred and they follow up with additional measures, including additional training or suspension, depending on the circumstances,” said Don Peat.

“We fully expect that will continue and that we will continue to see the number of infractions declining over time.”

Drivers in parks, forestry and recreation, which has 704 cars on the road, collected 75 tickets. Close behind was Toronto water, with 74 automated speeding tickets issued to a fleet of 731 vehicles.

Jollimore pointed out that those numbers are much lower, proportionately speaking, than the number of tickets issued to drivers of TCHC vehicles, because the parks department and Toronto water have many more vehicles on the road.

Solid waste management, with 558 vehicles on the road, tied for fourth place with transportation services, which has 640 vehicles on the road. The two departments each racked up 69 speeding tickets during the period.

The report is headed to the city’s infrastructure and environment committee later this month.

The city installed 50 Automated Speed Enforcement cameras in school safety zones across Toronto in mid-2020, two in each ward. It plans to add another 25 in 2022.

The city has had red light cameras in place since 2000.