Snowplow damages cars in St-Laurent
Some St-Laurent residents are angry after a snowplow damaged their parked cars as it passed. But the people are quoted as hemming and hawing about whether they should’ve moved their cars before snow crews came along.
Ian 11:31 on 2023-12-10 Permalink
“But” aside, if you are legally parked you can’t be reasonably expected to anticipate some contractor literally plowing into your car and thinking they can get away with it.
IANAL so anyone with actual legal expertise please correct me if I’m mistaken –
I was under the impression that if a contractor did damages to someone’s property while in your employ you were responsible for those damages as they are acting on your behalf, but that you could then sue the contractor for whatever damages you were held responsible for.
More to the point though, it’s a public safety issue.
“… “If a snow plow can hit four or five vehicles and not feel it, what is the safety like for pedestrians or other people on the road?” asked Coyne.”
Kate 11:52 on 2023-12-10 Permalink
If you had a Tesla would you park it on the street and expect it not to get nicked by a plow?
Ian 12:09 on 2023-12-10 Permalink
If that’s a crack at the kind of people that drive Teslas, point well taken 😉
On my old street I saw a Porsche with a street parking sticker. My kid observed “maybe they didn’t have any money left for a garage because they spent it all on the car”. Haha yeah 😀
To be fair though I just drive a Nissan and I don’t have money for a garage either …
steph 13:00 on 2023-12-10 Permalink
They have insurance (all insurance is no fault). Make a claim. Let the insurance company take care of any back end. If all they want is an apology… I’m sure we can afford them a canadian ‘sorry’.
Nicholas 13:00 on 2023-12-10 Permalink
As much as cars destroy cities, it’s very clear: if a moving vehicle hits a stationary object, the driver of the moving vehicle is at fault. Even if the object shouldn’t be where it is. (I guess there’s an exception if, say, someone purposefully submerged a car in snow to trick a plow to drive into it.) If something is not where they’re legally allowed to be, you tow it, you don’t get to destroy it. Sidewalk plows hit stairs or street poles all the time, it happens, all these snow clearers have a difficult, stressful job, and there will be some damage, and the city or contractor or their insurance will pay for it.
jeather 13:14 on 2023-12-10 Permalink
If it was Monday morning, I don’t know every location’s specific rules, but the actual snow clearing started Tuesday, so they weren’t parked where there were orange signs. It snowed overnight the night before, people always leave their cars on the street to shovel them out.
Ephraim 18:16 on 2023-12-10 Permalink
@Ian and @Kate – A base Tesla Model 3 in 2019 was $45K before the $13.5K after tax subsidy. Which was about the price of an Accord. (And because of the subsidy, that Model 3 sold rather well. Tesla also gave free charging and free lifetime connectivity. (Well, not intended to be lifetime, but they forgot to set a term and in Quebec they lost the court case.)
Ian 20:57 on 2023-12-10 Permalink
Yeah well a base model 2019 Nissan Rogue was just under 27K.
That said I know people with older Tesla S models and they really didn’t handle Quebec winters very well.
It’s true though that for a long time buying a Tesla was seen as an environmental choice and not just a chad status symbol for the anti-woke idiocracy.
Ephraim 23:15 on 2023-12-10 Permalink
@Ian – The difference between the base Model 3 was simply battery size. It’s not the same as comparing a base Nissan Rogue. The other side of it is the maintenance costs. You change an air filter ever year and… done. And electrical is 9.8c per KwH. The S definitely wasn’t made for this weather. Heck, the self-driving doesn’t work in some regions of Quebec because they don’t mark the roads to North American standard (they don’t put in the lines around entries/exits).
Tesla’s are a magnet for Luddites. Personally, I think it’s because they find the change in technology threatening. It’s emasculating for some people. You see people so stupid as to damage a Tesla not realizing that walking next to it triggers the cameras. A cop goes through a light, a Tesla driver honks their horn and it saves the video from the last 10 seconds on all cameras, ready to be posted to YouTube. (In fact, the cameras on the Tesla is what has caught so many people doing stupid things on the road, like blowing coal. Heck there is even a weekly compendium of stupid stuff from Tesla cams online.
And just like all new manufacturers, Tesla made mistakes. In Quebec they had to modify all the Model 3s with little snow guards at their own expense. But let’s be serious, not all Tesla drivers are the same, just as not all BMW drivers are the same…. some actually do use a turn signal.
CE 00:39 on 2023-12-11 Permalink
It’s true, I saw it happen once!
jeather 11:01 on 2023-12-11 Permalink
Of course, the Luddites weren’t simple idiots against technology, or against new technology: they were against the new technology that was used to impoverish workers without any recompense. They deserve to be remembered properly.
This isn’t my issue with Tesla-the-company at all, though I guess some of the workplace safety violations aren’t dissimilar to some of the Luddites’ concerns.
Joey 12:50 on 2023-12-11 Permalink
Read the article – there’s no issue here. Snowplows (not snow removal trucks) smashed a bunch of cars. The car owners’ insurance companies will cover the damages and sort things out with the contractor’s insurance company. The city has actual stuff to do beyond mediate a dispute between private entities – that isn’t even a a dispute. WTF these people feel the need to use social media and broadcast media to coerce the city into offering a meaningless apology is beyond me.