Inquest Reveals Snowplow Driver Had No Permit When Couple Was Killed
According to evidence presented at a coroner’s inquest into the deaths of four people in three separate snowplow accidents that occurred in Montreal last winter, apparently at least one snow plow operator who ran over and killed an elderly Montreal couple had been driving with an expired permit.
In that incident, an elderly married couple were holding hands as they crossed Sherbrooke Street near the Notre Dame Hospital when they were run over and killed February 3, 2009. A Montreal police investigator confirmed that the driver, a private snow plow contractor, was driving with an expired permit and had worked six days in a row when he hit the couple. The driver also failed to keep the driving logs required by law, and ignored a pedestrian crossing sign at the time of the accident.
The number of incidents last winter sparked public outrage over Montreal’s snow-clearing operations, including its hiring of private contractors, and safety and driving standards, and led to the inquest, which is also looking into an accident that occurred just hours later, when an elderly woman was run over by a plow in the northwestern borough of Ahuntsic, as well as an incident that occurred a few months earlier, in December 2008, when a 49-year-old woman was run over by a snow plow when she dashed across Jean-Brillant Street in Côte-des-Neiges.
Tags: Montreal snowplow accidents., snowplow safety
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