Collecting Fines

Vancouver drivers have good reason to fear their neighborhood garbage bins. Recently the city, seeking to boost revenue from traffic fines, has stepped up enforcement of an obscure bylaw that prohibits parking within 1.5 meters (less than 5 feet) of a garbage bin. Bylaw 2849 — a towable offense that potentially brings in even more lucre at the city-owned impound lot — is especially insidious when you consider that the bins in question are wheeled and could easily be placed within five feet of an otherwise legally parked car after the driver has left the scene.

Vancouverites have little hope of disputing the dubious tickets, as the city — frustrated by pesky judges who kept reducing or throwing out unjust fines — recently dissolved its traffic courts. One gets the sense that at this point the city would fine its own garbage trucks for venturing too close to a garbage bin.

Source: Digital Journal