Kamloops may soon give you the boot for unpaid parking tickets

Kamloops drivers don’t have to worry about a parking ticket hitting their credit score, but they may soon get the boot if fines pile up.

Bylaw department manager Will Beatty said staff are considering whether to bring wheel boot or windshield barnacles to use on repeat parking offenders.

“You would get a code to release it once you’ve paid your fines, then you would be responsible for dropping it off,” Beatty told council at a March 31 committee of the whole meeting.

He told council both options are being considered, but the barnacle is safer and would be preferred over a wheel locking boot.

It sticks to a windshield with suction cups, blocking a driver’s view so they won’t drive away, likely after two or three outstanding fines.

The city is also considering whether to contract a towing company, Beatty said.

It comes as city council gets closer to hiking the cost for parking metres and tickets, looking to reverse course from a deficit in parking management.

Although those costs may increase, there’s no method to ensure tickets are paid, short of taking a driver to court. Even then, there’s no guarantee the city will do so.

“As of right now, we’re in a state where we’d have to swear information with the court to proceed with various bylaw infractions, which costs money… Right now, for the cost of tickets that are in place at times are not worth the cost of going after them,” Beatty said.

City councillors want ways to recover the costs.

“My concern sometimes lies with… the amount of tickets that are not collected. I’m not sure what that number is, but I’m sure it’s a fairly sizeable number,” Coun. Kelly Hall said at the meeting.

Beatty said staff are exploring whether to adopt a process to send unpaid fines to a collections agency, but he added that an increased parking fine from $40 to $80 may mean it’s worth the effort to go to court. The current process sees them written off after six months if the driver isn’t taken to court.

Last fall, the six-month outstanding tally of parking tickets was $80,000. How many of those were paid, written off or taken to court isn’t clear.

The rate and ticket increase hasn’t been approved at council yet, but it’s on track to come into effect by this summer.