Montreal City Weblog

Kate 08:24 on 2019-07-13 Permalink Reply  

• ant6n 09:02 on 2019-07-13 Permalink

  Without defending the speeding, in general it seems that progressives tend to be held to a higher standard than other politicians. It’s like if you want to make the world a better place, then your personal habits are more under scrutiny somehow.

  Imagine if Coderre had those tickets, the media would probably be like “boys will be boys (*wink*)”.

• Kate 09:22 on 2019-07-13 Permalink

  I know. Lots of folks seem to agree, going by Facebook and Twitter.

  I don’t think Dorais needs to step down but he could make some public point now of giving up driving. Unfortunately, in his position that would probably mean running up a bill for a chauffeur for some events – preferably not on the public dime.

• Kevin 12:04 on 2019-07-13 Permalink

  @ant6n
  Coderre got bad press for getting a ticket for driving with an expired licence and we ended up having a public inquiry into police surveillance of journalists.

• david100 12:55 on 2019-07-13 Permalink

  Yeah, agree exactly with Anton. Dorais should not step down, no way. But he’s obviously a menace on the road and should not drive again when he’s again eligible. He has some sort of impulse control issue maybe, or perhaps a subconscious longing to die – doesn’t belong on the road!

• ant6n 13:24 on 2019-07-13 Permalink

  @Kevin
  I’d say that Coderre escalated that situation himself. Getting speeding tickets and abuse of power are not really the same thing.

• DavidH 13:49 on 2019-07-13 Permalink

  The Coderre bad press was so NOT about the ticket. It was about him calling the top brass of the SPVM Marc Parent about it the next day. It made waves because just before that story broke he had disobeyed orders from a female police officer in Place des Arts metro and told her HE was the boss and calling the shots at the SPVM. That type of behavior is problematic and worth looking into.

  Getting 9 tickets over the course of 23 years isn’t really public interest. It’s ironic and worth a chuckle because he’s part of the party that reduced speed limits all over Rosemont and the Plateau and made a lot of people angry doing so. Nothing to dwell on. Certainly no reason to resign.

• Ephraim 17:10 on 2019-07-13 Permalink

  Does speeding affect his ability to do his job? Not really. So what’s everyone on about?

• John B 08:00 on 2019-07-14 Permalink

  Well, it does show poor judgement, and generally we want people with good judgement running our cities.

  But, the 9 tickets since 1995 thing is a bit of a red herring, that’s 1 ticket every 2.6 years, and I have always assumed that there were plenty of drivers out there that got a speeding ticket every couple of years. If that’s the case then he’s not that abnormal.

  What is abnormal is 171km/h. That’s fast & dangerous. On the other hand, one of his tickets was for going 16km/h over the limit – I’d like to know more about where that happened. On any autoroute 16km/h over the limit means you’re being passed constantly, or have a line of traffic behind you if you’re in the left lane.

  I feel like the general lack of speed enforcement is part of the problem. At least on autoroutes there seems to be zero enforcement until you’re going at least 30km/h over the limit, and probably higher, (I’ve never found a limit myself, but I try not to test it too much). In places around Montreal the autoroute has a limit of 70km/h, but it’s an autoroute so the traffic often goes 110 – 120. If the culture is that 40 – 50km/h over the limit is ok, then 70km/h isn’t that much of a stretch.

• Ephraim 12:53 on 2019-07-14 Permalink

  Speeding tickets are essentially random, for the most part. One of the tickets shows bad judgement. But we all do stupid things at times. Everyone. Or are you the one person who hasn’t jaywalked in Montreal?

  The SQ won’t bother until you are really speeding on a highway. Under 111, you don’t even have demerit points…. And under 121, it’s just $55. At 131 you are hitting $135+ 3 demerit points. This is when they think it’s REALLY worth writing a ticket. But basically, I haven’t seen them ever bother with anything under 120.

  It’s really the 70 km/h zones that are a pain… because no one, not even the police themselves follow the speed limit in 70 km/h zones.

  The rates are posted at https://saaq.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/documents/publications/speeding-fines-demerit-points.pdf

• Jack 11:31 on 2019-07-15 Permalink

  Also note how Quebecor tried to create a long cycled story by waiting to publish the amount of tickets, with comments from the “opposition” already in the bag. do not think they did not have this information already.
  Can someone who has some communication background help me out. If I were in Projet at the decisional level I would weigh every single article in Quebecor platforms for the last 15 years and come to an obvious conclusion. This “news” organization does everything its power to objectify , marginalize and damage our party and brand , so why do we talk to them ?
  They manufacture consent ( sorry Noam ) around their commercial ( car, suburbs, pools) and ethnic ( pur-laine) concerns. They constantly damage our brand on the basis of their financial and ethnic interests. So why not simply boycott them. Why not make the story about them.