Bike trails: false citations given to motorists

Zechariah Goudreault/ 24 Hours

Zechariah Goudreault

Monday, 23 October 2017 21:37

UPDATE
Monday, 23 October 2017 21:55

Look at this article

Cyclists montreal determined to make bike paths safer are distributing fake tickets to drivers who stop in.

Twenty people gathered Sunday morning on the bike path on 1st Avenue, at the corner of Beaubien street East, in order to remind drivers who stop their vehicle in the bike lane when they are committing a violation of the Code of road safety.

During the passage of the “24 Hours” on the site of the gathering, several motorists have been arrested by cyclists to be locked on the bike path.

“Often, drivers will put their “service bureaus” because they say that they will not be there long, but in fact they ignore the Code of road safety,” said the activist for the rights of cyclists, who uses an assumed name, Dominique The Vigilante.

The activist, who fight against the theft of bikes in Montreal for several years, has created fake tickets “good citizenship” that he distributes to the motorists.

According to him, this initiative responds to a need that the authorities are not able to fill […]. If the police are not doing their job, it is up to the citizens to do”, has he hammered.

Aggression

Some motorists have reacted badly to this initiative on Sunday. “He is a good example of aggressiveness on the part of motorists”, has launched a bike courier Francis Latendresse after having handed a motorist a false ticket of $ 169, which corresponds to the actual amount of the fine provided by the police for this offence.

The science communicator and cyclist Jérémy Bouchez, who organized the rally, asserts that these false fines are intended to “educate people by showing them what could happen if the police was doing its job.”

François Labrecque, commandant in the section of the road safety Service of police of the City of Montreal, explained, however, that it is forbidden in some districts “place any advertising on the windows of vehicles”.

Cyclists applicant of false tickets on the windshields of cars could therefore “be subjected to fines”.

“We can’t condone the fact that people are going to violate a municipal regulation to make their case”, he added.

Police Interventions

The mayor of Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie, François Croteau, who took part in the mobilization of cyclists in his district Sunday, is to be deplored that there are few police interventions “to show to motorists that they cannot park in a bicycle lane double”.

The spokesperson of the Coalition vélo de Montréal, Daniel Lambert, believes that the police should give tickets to “systematically” when they notice vehicles parked in bike lanes, and not give warnings.

The discretionary power of police officers allows them to decide if a citation should be given, or not, has, however, recalled François Labrecque. “We don’t want to remove the judgment to the police officers, it is there that come the bad experiences,” he said.