You can no longer drive away from parking tickets in Toronto

Today I learned that, up until recently, you could totally drive away from a parking enforcement officer while he was ticketing your car, without any kind of consequence — as long as he hadn't placed anything on your windshield yet.

This little life hack could have saved me some cash, had I known about it prior to August of 2017. Now, it means nothing, because the rule has been scrapped.

Thousands of drivers have been learning this the hard way in recent months.

CityNews reports that parking officials have been dishing out "drive away" tickets to people who, well, drive away from them on the street.

Wait, until a few months ago terrible parkers could get out of tickets by fleeing the scene? https://t.co/m0clI76YqU

— Joe Rayment (@Joerayment) May 17, 2018

The tickets, which arrive via snail mail, come with an additional $10 charge tacked on atop the regular parking violation fee. All an officer needs to ding you with one is a licence plate and the model of your vehicle.

Apparently they've been sending out 4,000 to 5,000 of these puppies a month and, despite the objections of drivers who like the old way, they're not going to stop.

The City of Toronto says that they tickets are meant to protect parking enforcement officers from "being clipped by cars that try and drive away." It expects about 60,000 of them to be issued by the end of this year, bringing in roughly $3.1 million in extra fines.