Some drivers are crying foul after the Alberta government’s new cost saving measure is costing them extra in fines.

Last month, the government stopped mailing out vehicle registration reminders, saving the province an estimated $3M per year.

Unfortunately for some drivers like Ray Garlough and his wife, the new policy ended up getting them fined.

Garlough says that neither he nor his wife have had any kind of traffic tickets for decades, but were each slapped with $310 tickets from the Calgary Police Service for having expired tags on their vehicles for two weeks.

“We hadn’t had tickets for 25 to 30 years, so they hadn’t gotten money off of us,” Garlough said. “It feels like a cash grab, especially when you’ve done it the same way for 45 years.”

Andy Guljas is in the same boat as the Garloughs. “For 35 years they’ve been sending a registration notice so I didn’t know anything about it!”

Guljas says that many of his friends and family were unaware of the new policy too. “Out of the 40 to 50 people that replied [on Facebook], one knew about it. I was dumbfounded. How can the government just do that? It’s like entrapment.”

The NDP government did inform Albertans about the change in a brief radio, newspaper and online ad campaign just a month before ceasing the mailings. They did not offer one last registration notice to all drivers, but did give those aged 70 and older one last notice so they could get up to speed.

The government told CTV via email that they “expect Albertans to renew their licences and registrations as they’re required to do”.

Any sort of leniency on ticketing is up to law enforcement, the government said.

To check on when you need to renew your registration, check this chart on the Government of Alberta website.