Despite seeing the most collisions on city streets in more than two decades, Toronto police charged fewer drivers with criminal traffic offences last year than in any year since amalgamation.

According to statistics released ahead of police board meetings this week, Toronto police enforcement of Criminal Code traffic offences — serious charges such as dangerous driving, failure to remain at the scene of a crash or impaired driving — hit a new low in 2018, continuing a trend of year-over-year declines each year since 2012.

The fall in enforcement has continued even after the city launched Vision Zero, a citywide push to combat traffic deaths, and even as the number of pedestrians and cyclists killed on city streets hit a 10-year high in 2018.

Last year, police charged 1,258 drivers with Criminal Code traffic offences, down from 2,759 six years prior — a 54 per cent decrease to the lowest level in available data that goes back to 1997, the year before the Toronto Police Service was created from the old Metropolitan Toronto Police Service, which policed the old municipalities of Toronto, Etobicoke, York, North York, East York and Scarborough before amalgamation.

In a written response to questions from the Star, Toronto police traffic services Supt. Scott Baptist said the decline in criminal charges “can be attributed to a number of factors,” such as “collaborative education and outreach initiatives, including communication strategies and social media interaction, delivered by (Toronto police) and its partners.”

Baptist also highlighted new legislation for impaired-driving offences and a decline in overall staffing, saying: “While there are fewer frontline officers, the (Toronto police) are transitioning to more intelligence-led and focused deployment.”

Criminal Code offences “do not account for a broader range of collision-causing behaviours, such as speeding and distracted driving, which are not criminal offences,” he said, adding Toronto police place emphasis more on the “quality of our efforts rather than the quantity.”

“Our goal of traffic enforcement is in fact Vision Zero and officers are directed to ensure that their enforcement efforts are conducted with this ultimate goal in mind.”

At the police board this week, the service pointed to a similarly steep decline in the issuance of more minor “provincial traffic offence” tickets as one reason why the city has seen a sharp increase in collisions since 2012, arguing that the close of a dedicated traffic enforcement team that year led to the subsequent rise.

“Ultimately, as enforcement volumes decreased, collisions have increased,” police said in a report calling on the board to reinstate that dedicated squad.

Police data shows there were 79,765 collisions in the city last year, up from 50,703 in 2012. Meanwhile, the number of provincial tickets issued by police fell by about 64 per cent over that period to the lowest level in the data, according to numbers released in the report, which was signed by Chief Mark Saunders.

In his written response, Baptist noted that while collisions have increased, those that result in injuries represent about 15 per cent of that total.

(Police statistics show the number of collisions resulting in an injury last year — 10,306 — was comparable to 2012 — 10,374.)

On Thursday, the board approved the plan to restore the traffic enforcement team.

“It has been well documented through numerous studies that enforcement is a key component to achieving a reduction in deaths and injuries caused through preventable collisions and poor driving behaviour,” the Toronto police report said.

The latest citywide police statistics show, however, that the decline in enforcement of the most serious criminal traffic offences cannot be entirely attributed to the 2012 closure of the dedicated team, although it began at the same time. Starting the year the Strategic Targeted Enforcement Measures (STEM) unit disbanded and as drivers began facing fewer provincial tickets, regular officers at police divisions across the city simultaneously began charging fewer and fewer drivers with criminal traffic offences, the data shows.

After charging nearly 2,300 drivers with criminal traffic offences in 2012, the divisions charged 502 fewer drivers in 2013, 373 fewer in 2014, 197 fewer in 2015, 18 fewer in 2016, 97 fewer in 2017 and finally 182 fewer in 2018 — a 60 per cent drop over that span.

Indeed, the decline in drivers charged criminally by the police divisions has been steeper than the decline within the traffic services unit, which ran STEM, after the dedicated unit was closed.

Meanwhile, the number of collisions in the city went up each year since 2012; there has been no significant fall in the number of people killed or seriously injured on city streets.

Police give provincial offence tickets for breaking Ontario laws, such as Highway Traffic Act violations ranging from improper turns to not wearing a seatbelt, from failing to stop at red light to speeding infractions. Most tickets result in a fine, although some drivers may face lengthy licence suspensions or even jail terms of up to two years for serious offences such as careless driving causing death.

The numbers of provincial offence tickets Toronto police referred to in their report to the board this week also included tickets given under other provincial laws, such as the Liquor Licence Act.

Drivers convicted of Criminal Code charges can be sentenced to longer prison terms, including up to life in prison for convictions for dangerous or impaired driving causing death.

At the meeting on Thursday, Baptist told board members that all uniformed officers can and do write traffic tickets, conceding that the report his team helped write perhaps too strongly suggested that the closure of the STEM team was the key factor in declining traffic ticketing.

STEM members were writing about 80,000 provincial tickets a year, he said, meanwhile the service as a whole wrote 700,000 total at its peak of enforcement in 2010.

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In his written response to the Star, Baptist further noted that Toronto police introduced a new records management system for provincial tickets in 2013. That change took time for officers to become familiar with and endorse, and would have had an impact on enforcement levels, he said.

Baptist noted that Toronto police has been through a two-year hiring moratorium with higher-than-anticipated attrition, resulting in the lowest staffing level in more than 30 years, adding: “Officers will be deployed to the highest priority calls, reducing their availability for proactive traffic enforcement.”

Police data shows the number of uniform officers in the service has fallen slightly each year since 2012, down a total of 11 per cent over the six-year period. Overall, police employed fewer uniformed officers in 2018 than in any year since amalgamation.

The same data shows the service received slightly fewer emergency calls in 2018 (1,094,182) than in 2012 (1,150,857).

Forty-five pedestrians and cyclists were killed on city streets enforced by Toronto police in 2018, the highest year-end total in more than a decade. (The Star maintains a separate list of traffic deaths that counted 47 dead last year. That list includes people killed on provincially enforced roads, such as the 400-series highways.)

The steepest decline in criminal charges since 2012 has come in Scarborough, where a disproportionate number of vulnerable road users have died in recent years.

The three Scarborough police divisions charged 602 drivers with criminal traffic offences in 2012; down to just 149 last year. Toronto police 42 Division, which covers the vast area of Scarborough north of Highway 401 charged just 36 people with a criminal traffic offence last year, an 87 per cent decline in six years.

The STEM team was created in April 2003 following a year in which Toronto saw an astonishing 97 people killed on city streets, including 50 pedestrians.

According to a report presented to the city in 2004, the team focused its enforcement activities in high-risk areas such as school and community safety zones, areas with high numbers of complaints and collisions, and areas where excessive speed was an issue.

That report noted the launch of the STEM team also coincided with a service-wide push on traffic enforcement. “In an all out effort to make our roads safer, traffic enforcement has been designated as a core responsibility for all police officers during the course of their daily duties,” it said.

“The Service’s goal is to reduce collisions and incidents of poor driving behaviour, thereby reducing needless deaths and injuries occurring daily on Toronto’s roadways.”

In his response to the Star, Baptist said “road safety and pedestrian safety is of paramount importance” to the Toronto Police Service.

“Traffic enforcement has always been, and will remain, a responsibility of all frontline officers here,” he said. “While officers will engage in proactive and reactive traffic enforcement duties, Toronto is a growing city with increasing police demand and high priority calls for service which include an immediate risk to life or the public.”

Starting with Sweden in the late 1990s, jurisdictions across the world have launched Vision Zero plans with the stated goal of eliminating traffic deaths.

Mayor John Tory first announced the city’s version in the summer of 2016.

This July, councillors voted unanimously to adopt Vision Zero 2.0. In a speech to council at the time, Tory conceded the original plan “wasn’t working.”

Traffic deaths have not significantly declined in the city since 2016. Based on the Star’s count, 34 pedestrians have been killed in Toronto so far this year.

At the police board meetings this week, Saunders recommended the new traffic enforcement squad should consist of officers working on an overtime basis, paid for with $1 million from the city’s Vision Zero budget.

Tory convinced board members the team should start as soon as possible on that basis, but should be made permanent through core police funding as of 2020.

With files from David Rider and Wendy Gillis

Ed Tubb is an assignment editor and a contributor to the Star’s coverage of the 2019 federal election. He is based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @edtubb

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