Got unpaid speeding tickets? Starting in May you’ll have to kiss that license plate renewal goodbye until you pay them thanks to changes the Liberal government is set to start up this spring.
The changes include no renewal for drivers with unpaid fines for any driving-based offences. Currently renewals have been only refused for vehicle-based offences, like parking tickets and red-light camera fines.
Unpaid tickets are a huge problem and it is estimated that municipalities in the province are owed a collective $1.4 billion in unpaid fines for provincial offences, including those under the Highway Traffic Act. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario has been asking the government for more than a decade for more tools to collect that money.
Some of those fines date back 50 years and couldn’t be feasibly collected, so the government is making the policy retroactive seven years which is better than nothing but municipalities had been hoping the change would apply even farther back
The change is one of the last to be enacted under the Making Ontario’s Roads Safer Act that passed in 2015. The legislation also increased fines for distracted driving and “dooring” cyclists and introduced new penalties for drug-impaired driving.
To receive similar content, “Like” us on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/niagarabuzz.ca
