I HATE ICBC

Drivers who run red lights could have their pictures taken more often under a new plan to put digital cameras at B.C. intersections.

The Insurance Corporation of B.C. and the provincial government have started to explore a plan to upgrade their film cameras and get more cameras to rotate through 120 monitored intersections.

“The program has been effective in reducing the number of crashes, and in particular reducing the number of crashes at those locations,” said ICBC spokesman Doug McClelland.

“We see savings on our claim costs,” he said. “Our investment pays for itself.”

It’s not clear yet how many cameras will be added or how much they will cost.

Right now 30 cameras rotate through 120 intersections across B.C. that have been fitted with boxes to monitor traffic.

In 2006, the cameras brought in $2.6 million in ticket revenue. The camera program costs about $1.9 million per year.

When a car enters the intersection, a flash will go off whether or not there is a camera inside, said McClelland.

“It’s not limited to tickets — this is to change behaviour in general,” he said.

The total crashes have dropped some six per cent since the program began in 1999, and the tickets issued have dropped 35 per cent between 2001 and 2005.

Ian Tootill of Safety by Education Not Speed Enforcement says the cameras cause more rear enders than they solve.

A study by the city of Regina found accidents rose by 12 per cent at intersections where red light cameras were installed.

“It causes people to do unexpected things if the cameras are there,” said Tootill.

Source: CTV

Vancouver’s Civil City Commissioner Geoff Plant wants to collect the estimated millions of dollars in outstanding bylaw violation tickets owed to the city, he said on Wednesday.

Plant wants ICBC to block the renewal of drivers’ licences or car insurance to anyone with any unpaid city-issued tickets, including parking tickets and bylaw infractions.

He plans to propose the idea to city council next Tuesday.

“Drivers licence renewal and insurance renewal is a powerful tool to ensure compliance,” Plant said.

If city council approves the idea, Plant will ask the provincial government to legislate the responsibility to ICBC.

ICBC spokesperson Doug Henderson told CTV News the organization is not in favour of the proposal.

“ICBC really isn’t interested in getting into the business of collecting fines for municipalities or cities,” he said. “To do something like that would have an impact on our business in terms of resources, as well as cost. It’s not really something we’re interested in getting involved in at this point.”

The company currently maintains a policy of not renewing licences or insurance only when a driver has an outstanding debt to the company or an outstanding motor vehicle violation, which are provincially regulated.

On Wednesday, Plant said it didn’t matter if ICBC did not like his proposal.

“ICBC is not enthusiastic about this,” he said. “But I don’t think ICBC is the decision-maker here. Ultimately the province has to decide what’s in the public interest.”

But Premier Gordon Campbell told reporters the city should find other ways of enforcing bylaws.

“The city sets its bylaws, the city sets its enforcement procedures and the city should discover how they can do that without using ICBC,” he said.

B.C. Solicitor-General John Les said the proposal could be a slippery slope.

“I mean that’s part of the problem, where does this thing stop?” he said. “ICBC is not the collection facility for Vancouver, or potentially for other cities across the province.”

Plant said he would like to see fines for parking and other bylaw offences increased to a minimum of $250, with $500 for more serious offences and up to $10,000 for the most serious offences.

The city of Vancouver originally submitted the idea, led by Councillor Kim Capri, to its Union of B.C. Municipalities in September 2007, saying its own collection of bylaw fines is “slow, expensive and labour-intensive.”

The Insurance Brokers Association of B.C. discouraged the proposal, saying insurance brokers are not enforcement officers and municipalities are better suited to act as collection agencies.

The proposal triggered widespread outrage from insurers, motorists and the media.

The agency that insures and documents cars is investigating itself for failing to document vehicles it sold from its own repair shop.

The cars were involved in accidents and then repaired — but if you bought a used vehicle from the Insurance Corporation of B.C.’s Burnaby research and repair shop, the company might not have told you about the crash.

Employees at the ICBC repair shop have been put on administrative leave and the shop shut down while the company investigates whether they failed to provide the proper documentation.

About 174 vehicles were fixed at the shop and sold to the public over the last 10 years.

ICBC won’t give details of the facility but its president, Paul Taylor, said employees would not have profited financially by keeping a vehicle’s accident history secret.

“At this stage we don’t believe this is an issue around safety,” said Taylor. “But out of utmost caution we are proposing to have all vehicles inspected.”

When a car crashes, and is written off by ICBC, it may end up here in the repair shop, a non-descript building in Burnaby.

Inside, ICBC experts use the vehicles to research new repair techniques. When they’re done, the cars are sold to the public — and ICBC is supposed to let the buyer know about the accident using a form.

But it seems ICBC employees may not have properly filled out their own form.

On Thursday, the facility was closed and protected by security guards. ICBC is contacting everyone who may have been affected.

“We’re confident we can track down the owners of these vehicles,” said Taylor.

If you bought a used vehicle from a repair shop run by the Insurance Corporation of B.C., you may get a call from them saying that there’s something you should have known when you bought the car.

If you’re buying a used vehicle and want to make sure it hasn’t been in an accident, you can check your vehicle history or get the vehicle inspected.

You’ll need your vehicle VIN, your vehicle make, model, and year. Inspections cost $20 or $59.95, and you can find out more information at an ICBC website, http://www.icbc.com/buy_car/vehicle_claims_history.asp

Source: CTV

The Insurance Corporation of B.C. has turned over more information to police about a scandal involving re-built cars, but it’s still not clear if the Mounties will launch a criminal investigation.

The scheme saw nearly 100 `written-off vehicles’ repaired at ICBC’s Burnaby shop and sold without proper documentation.

Some of the buyers were ICBC managers who may have been involved in rigged bidding.

ICBC spokesman Doug Henderson says the company initially provided the RCMP with information from an internal probe, but now it’s passed along additional details.

He says that will allow the Mounties to assess whether they need to do their own investigation, but an RCMP spokesman has said ICBC would have to make a formal complaint before a criminal investigation could be launched.

The NDP has demanded the ICBC internal probe be made public, but acting Solicitor General John van Dongen says an independent audit by PriceWaterhouseCoppers is being done and it will eventually be made public.

Source: CTV

The Insurance Corporation of B.C. says it expects to pay $825,000 in severance to workers fired for selling rebuilt cars without telling buyers about the vehicles’ damage history.

Eight workers were involved in the scheme at an ICBC research centre in Burnaby where repaired cars were sold to unsuspecting buyers or bought by ICBC staff through auctions that may have been rigged.

Related article: ICBC ignored Burnaby auto repair scam: report

Three top-level executives of the company have left since the scandal broke and the RCMP is investigating the car-sale scheme.

ICBC says of the eight workers involved, one was fired and two others left voluntarily.

Details on two other employees are being withheld because they’ve asked the privacy commissioner to decide on what information will be released.

Another three employees were reprimanded but remain with ICBC.

In July, an independent investigation by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that a total of 55 vehicles repaired at the research facility were purchased by ICBC employees and connected parties.

PwC also found concerns about practices at the research and training facility were reported on three previous occasions, but were not appropriately investigated.

Source: CTV

Employees at the Insurance Corporation of B.C. blew the whistle on an automobile repair scam three times in the past two years — but ICBC did nothing, the company admitted Thursday.

The RCMP also announced it will investigate the scam, and B.C.’s auditor-general is considering investigating the scandal as well.

“Concerns were raised and nothing appears to have been done,” said Mike Farnworth, the NDP’s justice critic. “That is what is particularly scandalous, because this could have been nipped in the bud sooner.”

The Mounties’ commercial crime section will look into revelations from the crown insurance company that its own employees bought vehicles fixed at an ICBC facility, and that nearly 100 vehicles were sold without proper documentation.

“The aim of this investigation is to ascertain whether or not any offences were committed,” said Sgt. Susan Green.

The company faces its own internal probes and an external audit, but this is the first time the police have become involved.

Earlier this month, less than 24 hours after being appointed, B.C.’s acting solicitor-general apologized in the legislature for the scam that involved ICBC.

John Van Dongen had apologized on behalf of the government, the ICBC board, and ICBC workers not involved in the scheme, to anyone who may have purchased wrecked vehicles that had been rebuilt at an ICBC research facility in Burnaby.

“I indicated to the legislature that I would do whatever possible to return public confidence to the agency,” Van Dongen told reporters.

“I was concerned,” he said.

The scheme saw 98 ‘written-off vehicles’ repaired at ICBC’s shop sold without proper documentation. Some of the buyers were ICBC managers.

The company has promised it will no longer sell cars that have been written off and rebuilt, and will immediately report fraud, theft, and misappropriation of company policy.

ICBC board chairman T. Richard Turner told Van Dongen in a letter that the responsibility for internal investigation section of ICBC’s special investigations unit has moved to the human resources and corporate law division.

That was after the internal investigation found that the company “lacked clear and specific procedures and training to govern the designation, repair and sale of vehicles.”

Results of the ICBC probe will also be turned over to the RCMP.

An independent audit by PriceWaterhouseCoopers is being done as well.

Source: CTV

A federal agency that regulates competition is looking into allegations of bid-rigging at car auctions at the Insurance Corporation of B.C.

The probe by the Competition Bureau would be the fifth investigation into the automobile repair scam that saw nearly 100 vehicles sold at ICBC without proper documentation — many of them to ICBC’s own employees.

“I received your six e-mail messages this month regarding ICBC’s vehicle auctions,” wrote Richard Robicheau, a competition law officer, in an e-mail response to a complaint from staff at the United Auto Trades Association of B.C.

“An officer from the Criminal Matters Branch will contact you about this complaint.”

UATABC president George Hancock wouldn’t say which of his members made the complaint.

But Hancock said that his members — small and medium-sized glass and auto body shops — have complained for years about rigged auctions and other questionable practices.

“It’s not in the best interests of the public what’s happening here,” Hancock told CTV News.

The newest complaint was made on April 18, after the media reported that ICBC was to be the subject of a criminal investigation by the RCMP’s commercial crime section.

ICBC is also being probed by B.C.’s auditor-general, an independent audit by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and is facing an internal investigation.

The scheme saw 98 ‘written-off vehicles’ repaired at ICBC’s shop sold without proper documentation.

Competition Bureau spokeswoman Marilynne Nahum said the agency investigates conspiracies that lessen competition, bid-rigging, price discrimination, and predatory pricing.

But she couldn’t comment on the specific investigation. “The competition act requires that we conduct our investigations in private,” she said.

Anyone found guilty of bid-rigging will have to pay a fine or is liable to imprisonment of a term not exceeding five years.

ICBC has not been contacted by anyone at the Competition Bureau, a spokesman said.

Source: CTV

An independent investigation has concluded ICBC did not do enough to stop its own staff from selling written-off vehicles with documents that hid their crash history.

The report by auditors with PricewaterhouseCoopers found “there was a general lack of controls and conflicting policies and procedures regarding the appropriate vehicle designation and around employee purchase of vehicles repaired at the facility.”

The external investigation also confirmed findings from the provincial auto insurer’s own internal probe that employees were repairing their own personal vehicles at the Burnaby training and repair facility and that management was also involved in the questionable activities.

PricewaterhouseCoopers was contracted by ICBC to conduct the independent investigation into concerns that employees and managers at the centre were selling written-off vehicles which were repaired at the ICBC centre after they altered the documentation of the repair history.

The investigation concluded managers and staff changed the documentation on 96 written-off vehicles so that they could be sold for more than they were worth to the unsuspecting public in private sales.

ICBC interim president and CEO Geri Prior blamed a lack of proper policies, and the fact that operations managers who handled the intitial complaints about questionable activities at the facility were allegedly involved themselves.

“ICBC takes these findings very seriously,” said Prior. “ICBC has been proactive and up-front about this investigation from the beginning and we are committed to making things right for our customers”

But Prior refused to say if anyone at ICBC was disciplined for their role in the incident, saying only an undisclosed number of individuals were no longer working for the corporation.
Complaints went ignored for years

According to ICBC documents, complaints were raised in 2006 and 2007 before ICBC began its own investigation in January 2008.

That investigation also revealed that employees and managers at the Burnaby facility purchased 22 vehicles in auctions allegedly rigged to guarantee they would have the winning bid.

New Democrat MLA Mike Farnworth said what was most disturbing about the finding was that actions weren’t taken by management when the issue first arose.

“When concerns are raised and nothing is done about it, I think that that shows a complete lack of control, a complete lack of accountability… That’s your job, to take these issues seriously when they’re raised,” said Farnworth.

Farnworth said he’s looking forward to the release of the RCMP’s investigation, which was launched in April.

ICBC said it had take a number of actions to prevent reoccurrences since announcing its own investigation in February:

* The research and training facility no longer repairs vehicles for sale.
* Employees and members of their immediate family are not permitted to purchase any ICBC salvage, either directly or indirectly through a friend, acquaintance, family member or other proxy.
* The repair of personal vehicles at the facility is not permitted under any circumstance.
* Updating policies and procedures to make sure all vehicles are designated properly.

The former CEO of ICBC, Paul Taylor, quit in April after the scandal was revealed.

* CBC, Audit slams ICBC for ignoring internal vehicle sales scam, Jan 25, 2009

*Note: Pleas don’t do this while you are driving.

Man rants about ICBC, records a video while he is driving.

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