Taxi drivers fight erroneous parking tickets

Calgary taxi drivers say the city's parking authority is costing them time and money in issuing erroneous tickets as well as being unfairly militant in documenting violations.

In the past year, Associated Cab has seen an increase of 80 per cent in tickets issued by the authority against the company but about half of them are annulled in court, said general manager Jeff Garland.

Garland, who handles about 130 tickets every two months, said part of the problem is the new parking authority cars mounted with automated cameras thatsnap photos of vehicles that have not paid for street parking.

"The volume of parking tickets in the downtown core is outrageous. The problem is most of these tickets is of drivers unloading or loading passengers," said Garland.

He said he spends almost one working day every week fighting the tickets, some of which clearly show a driver in the vehicle, and a passenger entering the cab.

"I take every parking tag we get and I check to see if the driver's been loading and unloading and I'll go down and battle it out with the prosecutors," Garland said.

"Time is money too, to us, whether it's our time or the court's time or the prosecutor's time for a $40 ticket."

Dale Fraser, general manager of the Calgary Parking Authority, said it has an "effective" tag appeal process in place, and is not concerned with the number of tickets that are incorrectly issued to taxis legitimately dropping off or picking up customers.

"If a taxi company driver or a courier operator driver is downtown, they're there for business. And when they park downtown, there is a cost for their business, including parking, and they need to bear that in mind," said Fraser.

Garland plans to ask the parking authority to improve the photo system. He is also meeting with the city's taxi limousine advisory committee to ask for 25 more taxi stands downtown so cabs have more parking spaces.

No room for exceptions

Robert McGregor, a driver with Checker Yellow Cabs, believes commissionaires with the parking authority have also become more militant in issuing tickets.

Earlier this spring, McGregor was waiting for a passenger to take her luggage up to her apartment. He said there was nowhere to stop within three blocks of the building, exceptin front of a fire hydrant.

"A [parking authority] officer came along and approached me and told me to move. My passenger had the meter running, her purse in the car, so I couldn't leave with her purse or I would be charged with theft. And I would also run up the meter higher for me to start driving around the block and so forth," he explained.

"I said, 'Isn't there any discretion in a circumstance like this? I'm just doing my job. There's nowhere else for me to safely stop and let my passenger run in with her bags.' 'Too bad' was the answer and he wrote me my ticket."

McGregor, who is fighting the ticket, said that in the past, commissionaires would consider extenuating circumstances.

However, Fraser said nothing has changed.

"Frankly for safety reasons, that taxi driver is lucky he wasn't towed and/or fined more heavily for parking in front of a fire hydrant. There are still rules," said Fraser when CBC News outlined the situation for him.