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Dangerous hydro pole left in middle of Quebec highway

By Mark Pereira RSS feed

Posted Nov 22nd 2012 1:00PM

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This freshly paved patch of highway in rural Quebec came with one rather large catch... about the size of a bizarrely placed hydro pole in the middle of the road!

It seems road crews in charge of paving the new stretch of highway blame poor communication as the reason they originally left the unfortunately positioned utility pole standing tall. Meanwhile, transport and utility officials continue to point the finger at each other as the cause of the big blunder on Highway 251 near Sherbrooke, Quebec.

Thankfully the dangerous hydro pole was finally removed from centre of the road this week, after gaining National notoriety and taking nearly two months of waiting. Luckily there were no reported accidents or crashes caused by the poorly positioned hydro pole during the time it stood.

Click here to watch the news report on the wacky incident.




News Source: Global National via YouTube

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Category: Canada, Safety, Government/Legal

Tags: danger, dangerous, hydro pole, pole, pole in highway, quebec

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Borderman07@redskinsfancentral.com

Don't understand what privatization has to do with this..or unionized workers. After all, there is a road in China with a house right in the middle of it..and I doubt a union there had anything to do with it.

November 24 2012 at 12:45 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ckernzie

Transport Quebec is just building the road and if the Hydro Quebec guys can't get their **** together than what is the road crew supposed to do? Government workers don't mind looking stupid or making other departments look stupid and any private contractors hired don't give a crap because it’s not their responsibility to move the line it's Hydro Quebec's.
I've seen privatization here in Alberta work better in these types of situations because it keeps government involvement low enough that stupidity like this doesn't happen...as much. Companies are worried about their reputations and losing their contracts and I'm not talking about some road crew sub-contracted to fix a particular section of highway, these companies become the defacto governing body over the road or power line and the Province just worries if they are meeting the regulations. Here it would have been Volker Stevin handling the road as they have the long term contract for anything to have to do with the Provincial highways in my region of the Province and AltaLink would be taking care of the power pole. They are a hellavalot more efficient than the government departments that used to run these things. The quality of our roads have gotten better (especially in the winter) and the response of the power transmission guys is quicker and more efficient as well. We really get a good bang for our tax dollars over the unionized 'don't give a ****' government workers.

November 22 2012 at 1:34 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply