[W. K. Lis]

From an www.masstransitmag.com article:

and I thought it was only a suggestion:

Montreal Woman Cuffed for not Holding Escalator Handrail

Posted: May 18th, 2009 09:39 AM EDT

Les Perreaux
The Globe and Mail (Canada)

QUEBEC - Anyone who has ridden an escalator and bothered to pay attention has seen - and likely ignored - little signs suggesting riders hold the grimy handrail.

In Montreal's subway system, the friendly advice seems to have taken on the force of law, backed by a $100 fine.

Bela Kosoian, a 38-year-old mother of two, says when she didn't hold the handrail Wednesday she was cuffed, dragged into a small holding cell and fined.

"It was horrible, disgusting behaviour [by police]," said Ms. Kosoian, a 38-year-old student of international law. "I did nothing wrong. They should go find the guys who stole my tires off the balcony."

Ms. Kosoian, who studies at the Université du Québec à Montreal, was riding an escalator down to catch a 5:30 p.m. subway from the suburb of Laval to an evening class downtown when she started rifling through her backpack looking for a fare.

Ms. Kosoian, who grew up in Georgia when it was still part of the Soviet Union, says she didn't catch the officer's instruction to hold the rail when he first approached.

When he told her again to hang on, she says she replied, "I don't have three hands." Besides, she had been sick and feared catching a new bug.

That's when the officer demanded identification so he could write her ticket, she said.

Ms. Kosoian started arguing. The officers handcuffed her and threw her into a small holding cell. The officers searched her bag and gave her a $100 ticket for failing to hold the banister and another $320 ticket for obstruction.

The handcuffs bruised Ms. Kosoian's wrists and an officer's boot scraped skin off the top of her foot.

She intends to fight the tickets.

Société de transport de Montréal regulations say "it is forbidden for all persons to disobey a directive or a pictogram posted by the Société."

At the top of the escalator in the Montmorency station, a small sign indeed shows a stick man holding a railing with the words, "Hold the handrail."

Montreal's metro system is policed by transit inspectors and local police departments.

Isabelle Tremblay, a spokesperson for the STM, seemed relieved to establish late yesterday that Laval police stopped Ms. Kosoian.

"We were quite surprised to hear about this, we don't give fines for such things," Ms. Tremblay said.

Laval police were unable to provide an explanation yesterday.

As Ms. Kosoian noted, Montreal's subway takes bicycles, strollers and babies but has few elevators, making banister-holding an unlikely juggling act for many.

Transit systems across Canada have struggled with innocent-sounding behaviour that can cause accidents.

A couple years ago, Toronto transit authorities removed signs urging escalator riders to stand on the right, walk on the left, because walking on escalators caused dozens of injuries. Walkers were not fined.

In the Vancouver region, officials will soon launch a campaign to discourage running, sliding down banisters and other risky behaviour.

"We do tend to tear our hair out sometimes at the ways people get hurt," said Drew Snider, a spokesman for the regional transportation authority.

In Montreal, 16 students were injured in 2004 when an escalator suddenly stopped.

As for fears of catching another flu, a leading germ expert says you are more likely to fall down an escalator than catch illness from a handrail.

"No matter how dirty your hands become, all you have to do to avoid getting ill is wash your hands," said Dr. Philip Tierno, the author of The Secret Life of Germs.

"Safety is first. If you break your head or break your neck, you don't have to worry about washing your hands."

 

[Acting Minor Traitor]

I don't care if they try to extract fines out of me; a story like this isn't going to make me hold a handrail in a subway station. One, I'm not a toddler or an elderly person who would understandably need help with balance, and two, there's no way I'm touching that. How am I supposed to know who's been licking it?

 

[nfitz]

Absolutely shameful behaviour by the Laval police. It's no wonder there is so little respect for the police when they do things like this.

 

[jozl]

There really is a bit of a fascist streak prevalent in Canadian society. This is so far over the top that there is no explanation that can justify the actions of the transit police in this situation. THE LAW IS THE LAW. Well, laws are there to serve society, not the other way around. If I were this woman I'd sue the crap out of Montreal transit as well as the moron who cuffed her. A bureaucracy can only go so far in its effectiveness. You can set up rules and structure but then you have to let people tailor them into a workable system. That's sort of how huge cities like New York and London work. You can't keep all the little duckies in a perfect row all of the time. Societies are more organic than that.

 

[nfitz]

This is so far over the top that there is no explanation that can justify the actions of the transit police in this situation.

The article made it clear the STM weren't involved. It was the City of Laval police force. I doubt very much this would have happened in Montreal.

 

[Archivist]

Definitely not in Montreal. $50 would have taken care of the whole thing, then.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

what a great way to get people to use public transit!


in soviet russia, escalator takes you......to jail!

 

[doady]

This is a sign of an overfunded police force. Obviously, they have too much time on thier hands. Time to cut back funding and lay off officers.

 

[wyliepoon]

At the other end of the safety rules enforcement spectrum, if you hold on to the escalator handrail in Hong Kong's MTR, you might be rewarded with a free subway ticket.

http://www.mtr.com.hk/eng/corporate/file_rep/PR-09-056-E.pdf

"MTR Ambassadors are going “undercover†to observe passenger behaviour and will reward 50 passengers a day with free Single Journey Tickets for paying strict attention to safety. The reward initiative is part of the month-long MTR Safety Campaign 2009 entitled “You can make it a safe journey†which kicked off today (18 May 2009)."

 

[nfitz]

There was a follow-up article in today's Globe: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090519.escalator20/BNStory/National/home

There's a great quote "Police maintain she made a noisy scene, yelling at the officer to go find real crooks. The public spectacle made it impossible for officers to walk away".

So basically she was arrested for calling a spade, a spade. What horrible police officers to turn such a minor thing an arrest.

 

[Brian69]

While I'm angered by this kind of behaviour I'm not totally surprised. Too often we're making rules to save people from themselves rather than letting people be responsible for their own actions. The way the police acted was so over the top it's hard to believe, but I guess they wanted to make an example of the woman. Instead they made an example of themselves.

 

[confusion]

At the other end of the safety rules enforcement spectrum, if you hold on to the escalator handrail in Hong Kong's MTR, you might be rewarded with a free subway ticket.

So we learn there is a right way (as written above) and a wrong way (as seen in montreal), to get people to hold on to the handrail.

This is eerily familiar to the war on drugs (although not as serious). You need to promote education and encourage people not to use (or use in the handrail case) instead of just locking them up (or cuffing/fining) for something that will only harm themselves.

 

[Swamp Thing]

Bear in mind that there is not actually a bylaw that requires one to hold the handrail.

She given a $100 ticket for ignoring the posted sign.

(Which she can easily contest, because such signs are declarations of the property owner or administrator, and have no force in law. At worst, the officer could have told her to leave the property.)

Then she was handcuffed, detained and given another $320 ticket for "obstruction" when she refused to show the officer her ID.

(This one's probably good for a civil suit, don't you think?)

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

you can't help but think that this might have been the arresting officer:

remember the time he made a remote control traffic stop light magically appear out of a tree?

 

[Long Island Mike]

Montreal Metro rules enforcement...

Everyone: Interesting story here-I can understand enforcement concerning farebeating for example but what happened here was a conflict of language,etc
and the bad publicity does NOT look good for the Laval Police here.

If that happened down in NYC I could just imagine the outcry this would create with the bad publicity and lawsuits that could result...LI MIKE