Iqaluit drivers beware: drive in a blizzard and you’ll pay

The City of Iqaluit wants to penalize drivers who continue to operate vehicles on the road during blizzards and severe snow storms, saying that stuck or abandoned vehicles hamper municipal road crews. (FILE PHOTO)

Iqaluit drivers will face new penalties if caught on the streets this winter during declared snow emergencies, under a new City of Iqaluit bylaw passed Sept. 8.

The city wants vehicles kept off the road during heavy blizzards.

The new bylaw, passed by city council Sept. 8, provides for fines against drivers found on the road and allows them to remove any cars to facilitate snow removal.

Owners of any vehicles found on the streets by the city will face a fine of no less than $365, as well as any necessary towing charge.

“We want like to see that when a declaration is made, people turn around and come off the roads during this time frame and avoid using the roads until such a time it’s deemed safe,” said the chief municipal enforcement officer, Kevin Sloboda.

Though council did not legislate an exact time frame for when drivers must get off the road, they did include an appeal process for any drivers who are fined.

Coun. Romeyn Stevenson said he’s worried that some drivers may not have time to get off the roads when a snow emergency is declared.

“If we were to declare a snow emergency, they would obviously be at work, and might need to pick up their kids from daycare. I didn’t see a time interval built in for people to have a grace period,” says the councilor.

Under the bylaw, drivers can appeal any fines to the city’s public safety committee, who can waive the costs if they determine there was a reasonable cause for someone to be on the road.

City council was working under the assumption of a one- to two-hour grace window after a snow emergency is declared.

The new law comes as a response to difficulties faced by cleanup crews during record snowfalls and blizzards faced by the city in recent years.

Sloboda believes the new ban will help city crews streamline logistics and focus on the task at hand — snow removal.

“People will be out on the road during these blizzards, the vehicles will get stuck and covered over. The crews will be out cleaning and strike a vehicle and we have an insurance issue,” says Sloboda.

The real challenge for the city will be to make sure they get the call right when declaring the state of emergency that brings these by-laws into effect.

“Having been the person who shuts schools down, or been close to people who had to shut schools down for eight years, its not fun to make that call,” Stevenson warned.

“It’s difficult to make that call always correctly, but its good we have the power to do that.”