A teenage girl was hit by a truck in Rosemont late Friday morning. TVA emphasizes she was looking at her phone at the time.
Updates from May, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Here’s a preview of a TV documentary airing this weekend (and then on tou.tv) about Montreal’s massive porn industry.
Another documentary launching this weekend is about Jewish cuisine in Montreal.
Faiz Imam
Yup. Mind geek has an unassuming headquarters in a generic office building on Decarie, across the highway from the big orange.
They are actually in the news recently, because they have stated an interest in buying Tumblr from Verizon, who is struggling to do anything with it since they banned all NFSW contentast year. It’s been quite a catastrophe, especially for LGBT communities that have lost many of their well established spaces in recent years.
I hope they succeed.
dwgs
Now I want to see the third documentary that combines the two subjects…
Ian
Well, there is a sort of a connection, there are a LOT of famous Jews in porn – Nina Hartley, James Deen, Ron Jeremy, Seymore Butts, Joanna Angel… to name only a few…
But I guess the food angle would be a stretch, porn tends more toward the pizza delivery boy scenario more than a nice bowl of matzoh ball soup and a side of varenekes.Chris
sorry but sometimes a bagel is just a bagel
Ian Rogers
Don’t make me dust off the kishka jokes 😛
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Kate
The transport ministry has cooked up a mobility plan to get as many as 4,000 commuters out of their cars and onto public transit while work is done on the L-H-Lafontaine tunnel.
But only while work is done on the tunnel, after which they’ll be welcome to return to their 20th‑century smogmobiles? Why not think of this as a permanent shift?
The tunnel is not even being completely closed at any point, just losing a lane in each direction.
Tim F
Not one lane, one half of the tunnel. So it goes from being three lanes on both sides to alternating one lane in one direction, two in the other. Considering both sides are jammed during both rush hours, it’s not a pretty picture.
As for permanence, you never know. The St-Jerome train line (now exo2?) started as a temporary measure during roadwork. The reserved lane on the Champlain Bridge to Brossard too, if I’m not mistaken.
Kate
Thanks for the clarifications, Tim F.
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Kate
Your notes on where not to drive this weekend.
denpanosekai
I love how they always have to remind us that Route 136 is (was, I guess) Autoroute 720. Yes, we absolutely needed to spend hundreds of thousands (probably more) just to rename the fucking Ville-Marie expressway. It was such a huge problem in the past. Thank god for that.
Ian
Even Google Maps still calls it the 720
Kate
Google Maps still calls Parc Jacques-Parizeau “Parc de Vimy”…
dhomas
Both those place names have now been changed. The Parc Vimy should now show up as Parc Jacques-Parizeau already. The Route 136 might take a little longer to go live.
You can edit these things yourself on Google, when you notice an error or a change has occurred.
dhomas
Here’s the link showing the updated name:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/HQAfDfVgKbY6BnfTAKate
dhomas, that’s your map link, but if I go to Google Maps without using the link, it’s still Parc de Vimy.
Otherwise, people would be constantly renaming things. I could rename Jarry Park to Parc Montreal City Weblog and it would apply to everybody.
Ian
Yes and no, you actually can rename stuff on the official map by suggesting changes – this is how Mile Ex got on Google Maps, despite not being a “real” place name.
https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7084895
Also worth noting if you explicitly search “Parc de Vimy” you will find the park on the map. If you then type in Parc Jacques-Parizeau, the name simply changes in the display. Google of course keeps track of how many people search for one or the other, which is why default place names take a little longer to propagate through the system.
mare
Also of note, all official road signs I saw today when driving to and entering the tunnel still have Autoroute 720 on it. Both coming from Papineau and from St. Jaques.
dhomas
It’s not only my map. If someone that’s not me searches for “Parc Jacques-Parizeau”, it will bring them to the appropriate park. Parc de Vimy still works because people still search for it and need to find it. As for random changes to the map, I’ve made several corrections in the past, so Google “trusts” me for most of my edits. That said, my modification for Route 136 has not yet gone live, as it is a significant change, like renaming Jarry Park might be.
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Kate
Bones found in the basement of a St-Henri building last month are human remains so now investigators have to figure out whether a crime occurred.
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Kate
A man was hurt in a shootout in Villeray Thursday night. Note the discretion of “un commerce de restauration rapide” – it’s a McDonald’s on the corner of de Castelnau and St-Laurent, as shown and mentioned in the TVA version, which says there have been no arrests.
Kevin 22:24 on 2019-05-03 Permalink
The police emphasized the victim was looking at her phone.
Personally I’m for Hammurabic law on lousy drivers. Or at least corporal punishment.
Kate 08:41 on 2019-05-04 Permalink
Cops must have been quick to interview witnesses then.
Chris 11:59 on 2019-05-04 Permalink
She has a head injury. Surprised they’re not blaming her for not wearing a helmet either! 🙁
qatzelok 12:22 on 2019-05-04 Permalink
“He was chasing a ball. She was looking at her phone. The victim was not wearing bright colors.”
Car advertisers can blame whomever they please.
Kevin 13:52 on 2019-05-04 Permalink
Kate
What else are cops going to do? They certainly aren’t going to issue 2 demerit points to the driver who went through a crosswalk. That might set a precedent. And the person is in shock. /sarcasm
mare@mac 13:54 on 2019-05-04 Permalink
No mention she was walking on a crosswalk (I live 100m away around the corner). Of course the paint is scraped off the road by snowploughs and drivers don’t look at signs because they’re looking at potholes.
But nobody ever stops there, it’s right between two traffic lights and there’s a lot going on on Beaubien. I make it a sport to cross there and see the bewildered look on driver’s faces. Of course I do stop when they don’t stop, and I’m never looking at my phone when I’m in traffic, but still.
If you’re from outside Quebec you might be in the assumption that drivers know they have to stop. In France pedestrians are King. And it’s a van of transport company so the driver might have been looking at a form (maybe on his phone, mounted on the dashboard) for his next delivery. Totally legal, no blame on him, he just couldn’t avoid hitting her.
So sad and it makes me very angry.
Ian 10:57 on 2019-05-05 Permalink
While I too have had many experiences with drivers blowing through crosswalks – I usually yell at them, they usually give me the finger, honk, or more often simply ignore me – I can’t help but be a little perplexed.
A few years back, as some of you may recall, a young woman walked between two cars of the metro and died as she mistook the space for a door – because she was too busy looking at her phone. I remember a lot of people expressing their frustration that young people pay so much attention to their mobile devices that they don’t take basic precautions when out and about so it’s not surprising, young people should take this as a cautionary example, etc., but now that a young woman with her nose glued to her phone stepped out into traffic and died it’s clearly the fault of the driver, what do you expect with weak road laws, drivers are dangerous scofflaws, anyone who reports with a different slant is in the pocket of BIG AUTO etc.
I find it all very interesting.
Kate 13:53 on 2019-05-05 Permalink
Ian, I was mostly noting that it was a little unusual for the police to be so certain of the phone thing. Most accident reports don’t include a specific detail like this right away – it takes time to interview witnesses.
But yes, it also had a tsk-tsk flavour like the familiar “the cyclist wasn’t wearing a helmet” so often chorused by media when a heavy motor vehicle crushes a cyclist in traffic.
Contrast with the metro incident isn’t quite fair. In the metro you have a short, simple list of things you need to do to stay safe and the main one is “don’t fall onto the tracks.” If you’re behaving in such a way that, despite everything, you do fall onto the tracks, that’s really on you. In surface traffic there are so many more factors. I’m not saying the truck driver in this specific situation could’ve acted otherwise because I don’t know, but I think it’s premature to blame the victim in this case.
Ian 07:43 on 2019-05-06 Permalink
Many factors, sure, but “speed was not a factor” and “eyes riveted to her cell phone” doesn’t sound so much tsky as simply descriptive. I’m glad she didn’t die after all, regardless, but I see a lot of people doing some very silly things on their phones.
I can’t be the only person who regularly sees folks riding their bikes no hands the wrong way up a dark street with no lights, texting. Of course somebody texting while piloting their 20th century death factory smogmobile is common, too, and at least with the texting bicyclists in most cases the only person that gets hurt would be themselves. There’s no excuse for being a ninny with your eyes glued to your phone when you should be paying attention where the heck you’re going, you are a danger to yourself and others.
That said, I admit I’ve used being glued to my phone as an excuse to get out of a jaywalking ticket – and the cop vigorously scolded me but let me off because the behaviour is so common.