The driver involved in the hit-and-run that injured two workers, one seriously, in Pointe-aux-Trembles on Wednesday night, voluntarily surrendered to a Montreal police station.
This was confirmed by the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) when the 68-year-old was arrested for questioning by investigators. He was later released. He is currently not charged.
We recall that on Wednesday evening, two 39-year-old traffic police officers who were monitoring an asphalt paving site on Boulevard Saint-Jean-Baptiste near Boulevard Industriel at night were injured when a vehicle entered the restricted area.
One of the victims suffered minor injuries while the second was taken to a hospital with serious head injuries. According to recent news, he is still in critical condition.
An increasingly dangerous profession
This incident is a reminder of the dangers of working as a flagman near construction sites. This is particularly regretted by the President of the Association of Road Signage Workers of Quebec, Jean-François Dionne, who considers the situation in Montreal to be very worrying.
It’s difficult in Montreal because the city doesn’t talk to the right people. Different contractors who don’t talk to each other do construction sites next to each other, there are detours that lead to other detours… The world is fed up with it, so people go for the first worker they see. There is a lot of verbal abuse, Mr Dionne said Thursday after the Pointe-aux-Trembles incident.
According to CNESST, the number of road marking workers injured on construction sites has been increasing continuously since 2018. For comparison, 161 injured flag-markers were recorded in 2021, compared to 215 in 2022.