Juliet Wilson Davies, then 59, took her 20-year-old Peugeot racer out of the shed, filled the tires and put on her helmet and started rolling near her TMR home.
The special-needs teacher rode up Ste. Croix to Cycles St. Laurent where an attendant did a quick inspection and a few adjustements.
Wilson Davies rolled away happy with the state of her bike.
She returned along the same route in the opposite direction, going south on Ste. Croix, heading downhill under a viadict near the Cegep St. Laurent.
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| Dangerous drainholes on Ste. Croix |
In the darkness she spotted three dark metallic objects on the road and saw that it was three drains sitting next to each other, taking up the entire bike lane.
She went over the centre drain but her wheel got caught in the drainhole and she went flying several metres.
The accident left her with serious injuries that left her unable to move below the waist.
The drains, installed in 2002, are still there. The holes are at 45 degee angle, are 60 centimetres long and wider than a typical bike tire. They are on both sides of the street.
After the accident, she sued the City of Montreal on Oct. 29, 2008 for $1,023,145.
Her cause was heard between 17-24 Jan, 2011 and on 9 Sept. 2011 was awarded $868,820 plus interest from the date the case was launched.
Her husband Dietrich Waschke was awarded $40,000 plus interest. Their daughter Melinda Yin Waschke, a university student they had adopted from China as a baby, received $10,000 for damages.
The city also had to pay their other fees, which were $25,000.
On Wednesday the appeals judge, if I'm reading it correctly, also raised the compensation to $921,000, which is $50,000 more than the original decision.
I of know someone who unlocked their bike and went to get on it, but stood on a sewer grating next to teh curb and it broke or something and one leg fell in up to her upper thigh cut, torn and bruised by the jagged metal and concrete. Can't remember if she took action or not.
ReplyDeleteShouldn't take someone becoming paralyzed before the City finally admits culpability!
ReplyDeleteBut this should set a precedent. I no longer take out my racing bike due the the nasties found in Mtl road surfaces.
Wonder how many car accidents have occurred, suspensions snapped etc., because of our famous Québec roads.
Know my car continues to take a real beating, & has aged before its time!
I am very familiar with that underpass on St. Croix beneath the CNR tracks, north of the Loblaws.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that the unfortunate woman may have been moving a little too slow and turned her wheel at just the wrong angle to catch that sewer grating, thus suffering those terrible results. I am glad that she has won her case!
Whenever I'm riding on St. Croix heading south toward Cote de Liesse, if there's a lot of traffic I'll take the sidewalk rather than the road, because southbound vehicles tend to move too fast along that stretch after being forced to slow down in front of the college for several blocks. Presumably, they are focussed ahead to where Cote de Liesse crosses over at the inevitably slow traffic light, and hope to catch the green. Fortunately, I have yet to see any pedestrians using that underpass sidewalk, either, at least during the time frame that I have been there, and in any event I always slow to a crawl if anyone is walking under ANY underpass where I must take the sidewalk and let them know when I'm approaching from behind, since I expect the same when I am a pedestrian.
St. Croix/Cote de Liesse is not one of my favourite cycling intersections, I can tell you! Indeed, there was a female cyclist who was killed near there several years ago. That and the other notorious "death zone on St. Pierre between the Highway 20 underpass and the Jackknife Bridge where another girl cyclist was recently killed as well. Tourist-cyclists reading this: watch out!
When traffic is light, however, I will take St. Croix road itself beneath that underpass. I try to build up enough speed so that I don't have to pedal more than a few times to reach the level on the other side, and I am usually moving pretty fast at the bottom downhill so that I can lift and launch myself over any waiting sewers or ruts. I simply pull up on the handlebars for the necessary lift and simultaneously raise myself up of the seat slightly to avoid the jolt. Kid stuff, of course!
My guess is that the unfortunate woman was moving a little to slowly, became nervous due to passing vehicles, and may have turned her wheel at just the wrong angle to catch that sewer grating, with the resulting terrible consequences. She could have been killed. Why doesn't the city fix it?
Obviously, bikes with thin racer tires are more vulnerable to such sewer grating traps than the average "street bike".
Here is another street to ride carefully on: Lafleur south of Newman Blvd. They still haven't replaced those old gratings (see centre of photo and zoom in) which are just waiting to gobble up thin racer wheels! Night-time cyclists BEWARE!
https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ll=45.425982,-73.649393&spn=0.000008,0.004823&t=m&z=18&layer=c&cbll=45.426076,-73.649353&panoid=DmBrzU6wGZE0sUDEYh_TFA&cbp=12,57.68,,0,10.82
About 20 years ago I decided to install those solid, tubeless GreenTyres. http://www.greentyre.co.uk/
The ride is noticeably harder, but I have never regretted using them. Anyway, on our generally lousy pavement, I tend to move more slowly and cautiously now than when I used pneumatics. Besides, I got fed up with flats--especially when they happened far from home!
In all of my years of cycling~and they were many indeed~I only had one flat on my Racer.
ReplyDeleteCould be luck.
I know that racing bikes aren't optimal for the city, but I did everything with that bike~shopping, laundry, visiting friends, you name it. Rode it in snow and ice. Rollerbladers weaving & falling on the canal bike path got me off that lovely circuit fast.
And now Raleigh's leaving QC! They made good bikes.
That's my worst fear, getting caught in a drain and flying through the air. I know several people who've had that happen and ended up with broken collarbones, etc. Most of the old drains have been replaced, fortunately.
ReplyDeleteI was also a casualty of a bad intersection in ville st pierre at the highway 20 offramp near the traffic circle,just before Lachine. It's been fixed now, but I was hit by a car there some years ago and called it the Intersection of Doom.
There are still a lot of dangerous intersections, mainly because they are three or fourway and cross a bike path that is travelled by thousands of bikes every day, so cars coming from four directions have to stop at the same time.
Our society is evil incarnate. But I knew that already. Every day I cross Cote-de-Liesse on the Isabey passerelle. It requires 100% of your attention to navigate those stairs, and the snow clearing after the big dump was shit. Personally, I think it's time we start putting the incompetent and the corrupt to death.
ReplyDeleteAlso, thanks for the advice, Urban Legend. You're a good man. And thorough.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good example of why cyclists want to stay on the sidewalk when they have to take an underpass.
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't they replace the recently-demolished pedestrian/cyclist overpass (over highway 20) that used to connect Norman to 14th Ave. Lachine?
ReplyDeleteOr was this done to discourage trespassers going over the Sortin Yard tracks just west of the Meadowbrook Golf Course?
If I remember correctly, I think Ottawa (or Vancouver) had a city hall number where cyclists could call and report sewer grates that were not perpendicular the road direction that could eat your wheel. Unfortunately, I doubt MTL could be organized enough to do this type of thing in any efficient and timely manner Robert
ReplyDeleteWild what happened to her but this is why bigger tires (700x32c+) are necessary for Montreal roads. I think the average manhole cover slots are wide enough to swallow a 23c tire.
ReplyDelete