On Sunday morning, white shoes were placed at the corner of Saint-Laurent Boulevard and Jean-Talon Street, the spot where 31-year-old pedestrian Fabienne Houde-Bastien lost her life in May.
Posted at 12:22 p.m.
“The shoes in which you took your final steps will stand proudly here as a symbol that we hope will help raise awareness and change things so that more tragedies like yours do not happen again,” testified the mother of the deceased during a ceremony full of emotions.
For the first time, the organization Souliers et Vélosphantoms Québec paid tribute to a dead pedestrian. The ceremony took place on Sunday morning in front of around a hundred people.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
The ceremony took place on Sunday morning in front of around a hundred people.
“It’s been five months since you left us. It’s as if we could hear your voice just yesterday. However, there is an eternity between us and the last time we were able to hold you in our arms,” explained Fabienne’s mother before making a promise to her daughter. “That we take the opportunity to get up every morning, no matter how difficult it may be. »
Three times over the limit
On May 21, after an evening with friends, Fabienne Houde-Bastien was walking home on Boulevard Saint-Laurent. As the young thirty-year-old entered Jean-Talon Street, a driver entered Jean-Talon Street at high speed, burned out his lights and collided head-on with an SUV that was driving on Saint-Laurent Street. The impact was so violent that the vehicle hit overturned and fell onto the young woman.
The driver, Vi Trung Ngo, is accused of injuring a man and killing Fabienne Houde-Bastien while driving under the influence of alcohol and with a high blood alcohol level. The 47-year-old mechanic had a blood alcohol level of 0.213 that night, almost three times the legal limit of 0.08.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
For the first time, the organization Souliers et Vélosphantoms Québec paid tribute to a dead pedestrian.
The owner of the Auto-Vi repair shop in Rosemont, Vi Trung Ngo, received no less than 40 tickets, including four times for having a cell phone in his hand, twice for running a red light and five times for not having a driver’s license. A month before the collision, Vi Trung Ngo crashed into a vehicle at low speed in front of police officers.
The first ghost shoes
To mark its tenth anniversary, Vélo Fantôme expanded its mandate and scope in September. The organization will now build monuments to cyclists and pedestrians across the province. To support the group’s new mission, a crowdfunding campaign was launched in September. To date, more than $4,000 has been raised on the Zeffy platform.
With a new name, Souliers et Vélos phantoms Québec aims to better highlight the severity and increase in human tragedies in terms of road safety. The white shoes are placed at intersections where pedestrians die after a collision, as has been the case with ghost bikes for several years.
The first ghost bike was installed in 2013 in memory of cyclist Suzanne Châtelain, who died in a car accident on July 18, 2013 at the corner of Avenue du Parc and Rue Saint-Viateur.
With Louis-Samuel Perron and Henri Ouellette-Vézina, La Presse