In September 2021, a young man was killed on his bike at the corner of Mont‑Royal and Park Avenue. Now the accused is on trial, evidence showing he stopped his truck, pulled the bike out from where it was caught underneath, put it aside, and drove away.
This man, Brandon Marchand-Bibeau, should be on trial, but that intersection has always been a tricky one, whether for cyclists, pedestrians or drivers. Beyond accusing Marchand-Bibeau, the question should be asked what has been done, or could be done, to make that corner less hazardous.
Daniel D 11:23 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
I apologise for immediately going off-topic, but can I ask why Quebec doesn’t mandate license plates on the front of vehicles like the other provinces? It makes me wonder if it’s easier to get away with a hit-and-run, as the vehicle could be reversed away far enough that the license plate isn’t visible when the vehicle turns to speed away.
bumper carz 11:39 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
As a full-time commuter cyclist for over 30 years, I have been treated to near-death manoeuvres by commercial truck drivers many times. When you get paid to drive a truck (or cab) fast and furiously… your boss (or client) rewards you for this dangerous behavior: “Hey, that was fast! Here’s a bonus! : ) “.
About 10 years ago, a commercial cube-truck deliverer chased me around Villeray in his truck trying to run me over with it because I had verbally complained (stopped at a red light) that he had almost crushed me by passing me with only a few cm between us.
I finally lost him by riding under an underpass into the Plateau’s one-way street driving hell, where I was able to stop and report the incident to the police.
The other hundred examples of dangerous truck driving… I have left unreported. Until now.
walkerp 11:48 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
I believe that the borough government has plans to make that intersection safer. I just heard this from a fellow citizen, but it sounded legit.
Daniel D 11:54 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
bumper carz: What a horrifying story! Did the police do anything after you’d reported that truck driver?
DeWolf 11:59 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
@Daniel, there are only three provinces that require front plates: Ontario, BC and Manitoba. The rest of the provinces and territories are like Quebec. (Front plates are a bit more common in the US, but there are still 19 states that don’t require them.)
From what I can tell, the justification is that dropping the front plate reduces costs for the government and it may also reduce maintenance costs for car owners (apparently front plates are bad for bumpers):
https://newcanadianlife.com/why-does-ontario-have-two-license-plates/
I can’t seem to find any actual data on whether rear-only provinces and states have more safety incidents, but my instinct says no, given that there doesn’t seem any correlation between the number of licence plates and the number of traffic accidents. Just for example, Quebec has more per capita road accidents than Ontario, but fewer than BC:
https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/statistics-data/canadian-motor-vehicle-traffic-collision-statistics-2020
DeWolf 12:02 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
Plans to redesign the Mont-Royal/Park intersection were announced on this very blog in September:
https://mtlcityweblog.com/2022/09/20/mount-royal-60m-to-spiff-it-up/
Part of it will include extending the Côte-Ste-Catherine bike path to meet up with the path on Park Avenue:
https://mtlcityweblog.com/2022/11/01/city-to-expand-cycling-network/
There haven’t been any concrete details released since then, however.
Daniel D 12:44 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
Thanks DeWolf!
carswell 13:03 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
Details are vague but the Mont-Royal/Parc intersection is slated to be reconfigured and made safer for active transiters as part of the recently announced cycling infrastructure plan. That led me to comment a while back that a cyclist obviously needs to die while crossing the Décarie for the city to get serious about bridging the bike path gap.
carswell 13:06 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
Apologies for the redundancy, DeWolf. Automatic updates don’t appear to be happening with my browser anymore. Should have refreshed before posting.
MarcG 13:21 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
@carswell: Automatic updates were disabled a few months ago, the requests were too much for the server.
Joey 14:08 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
I was under the impression that the lack of front plates was one of the main barriers to adding more speed cameras, but I’m not sure that’s correct.
mare 14:47 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
Number plate visibility don’t seem to have much priority here anyway. I see so many plates that are unreadable. Blue shields over number plates, plates covered in mud or caked-on road salt, or with the paint completely ‘chipped’ off on plates of very new cars. And of course the custom of driving a month with your temporary license paper glued to your tinted window. You don’t want to get into a hit-and-run encounter with any of those.
@Joey speeding tickets (and all traffic violations) need either a clear photo of the front and back of the car (with plate and recognizable face), or a sworn statement by a cop who has stopped you after witnessing the issue, and has checked the identity of the driver. This is needed because of the demerit points system, and people who have successfully sued that they weren’t driving at the moment of the offence, even though the car was theirs. So front plates aren’t deemed really important, because the cops have to catch you anyway.
(In Europe, without a demerit system, tickets are issued to the car owner, and in some places there’s a red light and speed camera at virtually every intersection.)
CE 14:49 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
New Brunswick made the front plate non mandatory a couple years ago. The police and school bus drivers weren’t happy. The change was blamed on lobbying efforts by antique car collectors.
Kevin 16:28 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
When you get a new vehicle you save money if you keep your old plate. There is no verification that the old plate is legible
mare 19:11 on 2022-11-18 Permalink
@Kevin, Really? Saving $15 after you’ve bought a car costing (tens of) thousands, that will cost you thousands every year?
bumper carz 17:12 on 2022-11-19 Permalink
Daniel D, yes, they asked me for the license plate number, which… I never saw since I was being chased from behind by the cube truck. I gave them the location where I had spoken to them at the red light, and described the two guys in the cab who I saw very briefly. But the police never got back to me.
I was just glad to be alive. It was in late March, and there was still ice on the road.