Drinking and driving, speeding tickets, negligent crashes -- government workers in government vehicles betraying the public's trust.

An exclusive KIRO Team 7 Investigation uncovers a fast-growing liability for taxpayers.

Government-used vehicles are marked with a special license plate, beginning with 'XMT'.

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We searched about two years' worth of traffic citations written against these so-called "exempt" plate vehicles and discovered 782 at-fault tickets handed to government agencies.

Those are just the ones that got caught on the job.

KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne exposes risky drivers still behind the wheel of their government cars.

SAFE DRIVING HABITS Safe Driving Videos From The Risk Management Division

Thousands of government employees have the privilege of taking home a vehicle. Taxpayers pay for the gas, insurance and wear-and-tear. In return, that worker is on call, ready 24 hours a day to serve the public. Too bad some of those employees like to drink alcohol, then drive in their government rigs.

King County Fire Chief Mark Fitzgerald has responded to scores of drunk driving crashes in his 27 years on the department, so it's not like he doesn't know this is wrong.

Based on witnesses who say they repeatedly saw the chief drinking and driving, we followed him to a bar. KIRO Team 7 Investigators videotaped the chief downing the equivalent of nine beers over about a 2-hour period inside a Skyway bar. Our tape actually ran out about the time Chief Fitzgerald paid the tab, headed for his fire department-issued truck and drove away.

"It's totally unacceptable for people in those kinds of positions," said Karen Minahan of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Minahan is disappointed at the chief's poor judgment. What makes her even more angry is that drinking alongside Chief Fitzgerald on our videotape is his boss, King County Fire District #20 Commissioner Jeff Doppmann.

"I think the people in his little group obviously knew this and I fault them for not coming forward and saying something about it. They're just as liable," Minahan said.

Chief Fitzgerald told me on the phone he has in the past acted "inappropriately" and admitted to occasionally drinking inside this bar, then driving. He declined an on-camera interview, as did fire commissioners, who happened to work just a few hundred yards from the bar in question.

Chief Fitzgerald has never been cited for DUI, but King County Wastewater Supervisor Larry Joe Wilson hasn't been that lucky.

Last summer, State Patrol reports say Wilson was "falling down" drunk, with a blood alcohol level at least .20 -- more than twice the legal limit.

State Troopers caught him on I-5 driving a King County marked truck; a bottle of whiskey and opened beer sat by his side. Wilson was convicted and fined just over $1,000.

"I hate to see those kinds of activities going on," said Jennifer Hills, King County Risk Manager.

Hills cannot comment on Wilson's incident -- it's a personnel matter -- but did agree to talk with about policies.

"They're subject to termination, including immediate dismissal, so we've made it very clear what our employees can do and not do on county business in county vehicles," Hills said.

KIRO Team 7 Investigators don't know what kind of punishment, if any, Wilson received from King County for driving drunk in his county car, but we can tell you this: He didn't lose his job or the right to drive a taxpayer-funded take-home truck. We saw it sitting in front of his Marysville home over a recent weekend.

Wilson and Fire Chief Mark Fitzgerald aren't alone when it comes to irresponsible driving in government-issued vehicles.

KIRO Team 7 Investigators searched citations since 2002 issued to vehicles with plates beginning with XMT, exempt government vehicles.

We uncovered 424 speeding tickets, 10 arrests for aggressive or negligent driving, at least two DUI's, 24 cases of driving without or on a revoked license, hit-and-run, no seat belts -- every traffic law on the books was broken by on-the-job government workers in their government cars.

Karl Newman is head of the Washington Insurance Council. He says taxpayers foot the bill when government workers drive carelessly.

"There is no question that anybody cited for activity like speeding, DUI, collisions -- those issues are definitely going to affect insurance rates. The evidence is that anybody involved in breaking traffic laws has a much higher chance of being involved in a collision," Newman said.

Karen Minihan, who lost her leg when a drunk driver hit her, says we don't need statistics or experts to tell us drinking this much, then driving, can cost dearly.

"It's sad and it's got to stop. It's got to stop and it needs to come from the top down," she said. "Absolutely, it's got to stop."

Based on our findings, King County Fire Commissioners hired not one, but two law firms to conduct an independent investigation into Chief Mark Fitzgerald's behavior.

And as for King County Wastewater Supervisor Larry Joe Wilson, he declined our requests to talk.

But here is a noteworthy fact: Two months after getting that DUI, Wilson paid a fine for another ticket, this one for speeding and failing to have insurance.