MPI to keep photo-radar ticket copies

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This article was published 07/06/2014 (4491 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Public Insurance has ended a policy where photo-radar tickets, issued against corporate and fleet vehicles, were destroyed after they were paid by the employee.

MPI spokesman Brian Smiley said the Crown auto insurer will now keep a copy of the ticket on the employee’s file and in the corporation’s own internal records.

“It’s just to ensure that we are transparent and to ensure that we’re not hiding anything,” Smiley said.

The issue was brought up in the house this past week by Steinbach MLA Kelvin Goertzen, the Progressive Conservative critic for MPI.

Goertzen said he had filed a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act request a month ago asking for any amounts paid by the corporation for tickets issued for traffic infractions for vehicles leased by MPI — there are 247 fleet vehicles used by employees — from 2010 to the present, including vehicles used by corporate executives.

Goertzen said he filed the request to see how many speeding or other traffic violations had been recorded by MPI vehicles, given the corporation’s promotion of safe driving.

“There’s a problem when the ticket is issued to MPI,” Goertzen said Friday. “The third party who’s actually paying is irrelevant. The ticket is between the Winnipeg Police Service and Manitoba Public Insurance.”

MPI said in its response it could not fulfil his request because copies of paid tickets had been destroyed.

“I wasn’t asking for people’s names or anything, but they shred everything so there was absolutely no way to determine whether these things were paid, or whether they were actually paid by the employee,” Goertzen said. “If there’s a lot of tickets on MPI vehicles doing exactly what they tell people not to do, it’s probably not shining a lot of glory on anybody.”

Smiley said records were shredded because MPI viewed keeping copies of paid tickets violated employee privacy.

“It was the corporation’s opinion, at that particular time, that the photo-enforcement ticket was personal information of the respective employee,” he said. Smiley also said any ticket issued against a company car is the responsibility of the driver — not the corporation.

“We closely monitor the assigning of these fleet vehicles,” Smiley said. “Once the photo-radar ticket comes in we’re able to quickly determine who had that vehicle at that particular moment in time.”

Smiley said under the old process, the employee was sent the ticket with a cover letter from MPI administration. The employee’s manager was also notified. To close the file, the employee was required to pay the ticket and submit the receipt to MPI’s fleet department.

Under the old process, once the ticket was paid and receipt submitted, all paperwork concerning it was shredded.

That won’t happen now, Smiley said, adding one reason is to keep better track of employees who get a lot of tickets.

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca