Parking immunity: out-of-province drivers skip fines in Halifax

Halifax is hoping to close a loophole thatlets drivers from outside Nova Scotia avoid paying parking tickets, leaving the city with more than $500,000 in uncollected finesover the course of ayear.

Under the current system, parking enforcement officers in the Halifax Regional Municipality can slap a ticket on the windshield of a vehicle with an out-of-province licence plate.

But it's really up to that driver to decide whether to pay it.

Nova Scotia has no agreements with other jurisdictions to share information about drivers. Without that information, the HRM can't track down vehicle owners and mail them a court summons.

Those tickets then sit in legal limbo, said HRM lawyer Mary Ellen Donovan.

"We definitely need better enforcement tools," she told CBC News.

Onestudent at Dalhousie University has been taking full advantage of this free-parking loophole.

The student, an official U.S. resident with a Georgia state licence plate on his truck,learned about the rules by chatting with a parking enforcement officer.

"It's an advantage as far as parking tickets go, because I don't really have to pay parking tickets when I get them,"he said. "Since I know that I can't be touched, I really like parking at the meters. It's just great, and very convenient."

He estimates he has racked up more than 50 parking tickets in the past year.

From June 2007 to June 2008, more than 30,000 tickets were issued to out-of-province vehicles for parking illegally in the HRM, according to a database of records obtained by CBC News.

Most vehicles were from other provinces, namely Ontario, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. About 2,000 of the tickets involved vehicles from the U.S.

The fines totalled more than $800,000.

About one-third paid their parking tickets. However, that still left the municipality with more than $500,000 in uncollected fines.

The municipality hopes new provincial legislation will eventually help it collect fines from driverswho don't pay up.

"The municipality at the present time is certainly taking a look at addressing this with the province," said Donovan. "We hope that before too long the situation will be addressed and there will be an opportunity to undertake enforcement with respect to out-of-province plates."

If Nova Scotia does makeintergovernmental deals to share driver information, drivers from those jurisdictions who park illegally would have to pay the fine or risk penalties at home.