Man charged in deadly hit-and-run
A man has been charged with fatal hit‑and‑run in Tuesday’s road death of seven‑year‑old Maria Legenkovska.
Tim S. noted in a comment below that “the driver is being charged with leaving the scene and not the actual act.”
François Legault says the majority of drivers respect school zone speed limits. This La Presse item goes on to say that the CAA has found that, in fact, the vast majority of drivers break the limit, some going as fast as 70 km/h in the 30 km/h zones.
Tim S. 19:26 on 2022-12-14 Permalink
Pietons Quebec just sent out an email:
https://mailchi.mp/2198c2a47156/aout-6217002?e=bde6a90880
Highlights: a march at 7:45 Friday morning, and a petition against SUVs to sign.
H. John 20:57 on 2022-12-14 Permalink
I’m sorry is there something I’m not getting?
One article says “causing the hit-and-run death” and the other “accusé mercredi de délit de fuite mortel” which suggests he was charged with Criminal Code s.320.16(3) failure to stop at accident causing death.
I think that’s a fair guess since the prosecutor asked for him to be detained.
The potential sentence for that offence is life.
H. John 21:09 on 2022-12-14 Permalink
Rather than “potential sentence”, I should have said “potential maximum sentence”.
Tim S. 21:22 on 2022-12-14 Permalink
My point is that only charging him with not stopping implies that running over children in school zones is OK, as long as you stop and check on them afterwards.
Kevin 10:16 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
Prosecutors only need one charge at this early stage in order to get the ball rolling.
They frequently add, alter, or remove charges up until the start of a trial based on what they believe they can prove in court.
walkerp 10:45 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
This whole story is so tragic. Everybody is hating on the guy who did the hit and run, which is not unreasonable at all, but he probably has a family too. Just brutal.
Blork 10:47 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
What Kevin said. It’s known that he fled the scene, so there’s no delay in laying that charge. But otherwise there needs to be an investigation to determine if there was intent or negligence involved in the actual incident. (People don’t like to hear this, but sometimes such things are not the fault of the driver. That needs to be determined by way of an investigation and not just on people’s anger.)
Blork 10:49 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
I also agree with walkerp.
Tim S. 11:20 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
To be clear, I’m not calling for vindictiveness against the driver (I don’t know the exact circumstances of what happened), and yes, it’s entirely possible that extra charges are unnecessary or will be added later. But, there does seem to be a kind of tunnel vision about the seriousness of dangerous driving. For example, after ‘collisions’ I often see police being quoted in media reports as stating that the driver was not impaired, as if doing something incredibly dangerous while sober was a less serious matter. Maybe later on those drivers are eventually charged with reckless driving or similar, but if so it rarely makes it into the news.
All of which is to say, I wish we had an enforcement culture which focuses on the act of dangerous driving itself, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the act. Maybe there’s more going on than I see, if someone can tell me where to look I’d appreciate
Meezly 12:34 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
We clearly have to change the car-dominant cultural paradigm. If it can only start with our elected officials and the police, then it could have some sort of trickle down effect.
“François Legault says the majority of drivers respect school zone speed limits. This La Presse item goes on to say that the CAA has found that, in fact, the vast majority of drivers break the limit, some going as fast as 70 km/h in the 30 km/h zones.”
Even Legault is downplaying the dangers of driving, if not outright lying (as La Presse has shown). Is he just uninformed or is this downplaying a way of not having to deal with improving dangerous areas for pedestrians and cyclists?
Joey 13:12 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
I wish I could find it but I read a summary of a podcast a year or two ago that went something like this:
After all those SUVs rolled over and everyone was worried about ‘safety,’ the regulators decided to focus on passenger safety. So carmakers responded by making SUVs (and the sedan-replacement crossover utility vehicles) bigger, taller and heavier. Not only would these cars stop rolling over, but they would provide passengers with extra protection in the event of a collision. So passenger injuries/deaths improved (which may have led to more reckless driving), but pedestrians, cyclists and passengers in ‘classic’ smaller cars lost whatever chance they had to emerge whole from a collision. I see parallels to police departments buying surplus army vehicles, weapons and protective gear – they seek to ‘protect’ themselves but in so doing wind up making everyone else less safe.
EVs will sadly just make things worse as batteries are super heavy and the incentives are set up to encourage huge range (e.g., huge batteries) at all costs, meaning EVs are just going to get bigger and heavier unless some kind of breakthrough tech emerges soon.
TL;DR Mayor Plante needs to get everyone to slow down.
Blork 14:21 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
The fact that media always reports when the driver was not impaired is pretty normal, as that’s the first thing that pops into most people’s heads when they hear about a car crash. I don’t see anything worth complaining about with regard to that; it’s just the cops and the media reporting what people want to know.
Tim S. said “I wish we had an enforcement culture which focuses on the act of dangerous driving itself.” YES. I wish so too. That includes better driver education right from the start, where AFAIK nobody ever talks about the concept of “defensive driving” anymore. (This starts with the idea that you should always “expect the unexpected,” so when you’re passing a parked bus you should EXPECT a pedestrian to step out from in front of it, and you should EXPECT a kid to jump out from between parked cars, etc. and drive accordingly.)
It’s probably true that “most” drivers obey the speed limit in school zones, but what does that really mean? 99%? 75%? 51%? Generally speaking, if you sit down at an intersection and watch every car that passes through, most will be driving relatively safely. But some won’t. If you’re not actually counting, all you notice are the ones that are reckless, but the percentages aren’t the issue unless it’s well below 1% that are reckless.
No, the problem is that there are SO MANY cars on the road that even if 5% of them are reckless then we have a very hazardous situation given the amount of damage that a moving vehicle can inflict upon a pedestrian or cyclist. So saying “most are not dangerous” just means you’re not paying enough attention to those who ARE dangerous. You’re looking at the wrong number.
John B 16:35 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
Legault’s “most people don’t speed in school zones” is absolutely false.
I just came back from a week in the Okanagan valley in BC, an extremely car-centric area, and one of the big adjustments I had to make was being aware of school zones. I don’t know if it’s an Okanagan-only thing, a BC thing, or a western thing, but the speed limit is 30 in school zones, and it is followed almost to the letter and I rarely saw anyone exceeding 35-ish. In Quebec, or at least Montreal, we (the drivers on Quebec), may ease off the accelerator a bit in school zones, if we feel like it.
My understanding is that the reason Okanagan drivers are able to go 30 in school zones, even if the speed limit on the rest of the road is 50 – 70, is because there has been strict enforcement for at least a generation, and the fines for speeding in school zones are much more expensive than the fines for speeding elsewhere. TLDR: At some point in the past the provincial government made it a priority to ensure drivers never speed in school zones, passed appropriate legislation, and seemingly coordinated with municipalities and polices forces to raise awareness and ensure compliance.
Like planting trees the best time to do this was 30 years ago, but the second-best time is now. Legault should be taking action, not making excuses.
Meezly 18:21 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
Excellent point, John B.
“one of the big adjustments I had to make was being aware of school zones.”
I’m curious what were the factors that caused you to make those adjustments? I don’t own a car here so I can’t compare, but when I’m in BC, I rent a car, one thing I notice are clear signage to indicate drivers need to reduce speed in school zones.
Blork 21:49 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
If I can butt in, in front of John B. …
It’s surprisingly easy to NOT know what the speed limit is at a given location, even when it’s marked. Much depends on how logical or meaningful the speed limit is. Case in point: in Longueuil they changed the speed limits in 2018 on many residential streets from 50 to 40. In school zones it’s now 30. About a year after they made the change I got a speeding ticket in a school zone. I was going 30, so it made no sense, but the cop informed me that he had clocked me doing about 42 a block away and around the corner, where the speed limit had been 50 for many years, and was now — randomly — 30. Just on that one block of the street. North and south of that block it’s 40, but on that one block it’s 30 “because of the park” he said, despite the fact that on all other peripheral streets around the park it’s actually 50.
Here’s the kicker: there’s a sign in the middle of that block that clearly says “30.” But I never noticed it, because for years that sign always said “50” so I basically stopped seeing it. The fact that the sign is in the MIDDLE of the one-block 30 zone instead of at the BEGINNING of it is also a problem.
Regardless. My point is that I was well aware of the 30 zone in front of the school around the corner, but had no idea it was also, randomly, 30 for one block around the corner. Shit happens.
Here’s a map where I indicate the speed limits in that area. The red arrow points to the school, and that’s where I was pulled over. The blue arrow points to where I was clocked doing 42 in what I though was a 40 zone despite the sign. It’s my bad, and I own it, but there is no logical reason for that stretch of Adoncour to be 30. Any kids from the school who would be crossing into the park would do so at the intersection, not randomly jaywalking where there’s just a row of apartment buildings.
https://www.blork.org/pix/speedzones.png
John B 23:23 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
To reply to Meezly, the main factor that caused me to realize I had to make the adjustment was not hitting the car in front of me, which had slowed down for the school zone, but yes, the school zones are very well marked in BC. Here, I couldn’t tell you where any of my local school zones start & end, but I can tell you where the ones I drove through last week start & end.
Kind of to Blork’s point, when looking up the school zone stuff today I learned that BC also has a thing about “play areas” which are essentially school zones around parks, but with different hours.
Surely the real reason that the speed limit was changed where Blork was caught is to prevent him from hurting the deer that try to escape the park…