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Highway Overpass Near Montreal Collapses, Two Cars Crushed

EagerBeaver

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Why?

What is going on with the civil engineers over there? Roads and bridges are supposed to be checked periodically.

It appears as though there were fatalities in two of the vehicles. These cars were in the wrong place at the wrong time, just terrible luck. You don't expect the road to collapse underneath you.
 

eastender

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US Interstates

EagerBeaver said:
What is going on with the civil engineers over there? Roads and bridges are supposed to be checked periodically.

It appears as though there were fatalities in two of the vehicles. These cars were in the wrong place at the wrong time, just terrible luck. You don't expect the road to collapse underneath you.

Same structural engineers as in the USA - within the last 10 years there have been collapses on the I20, I40, I95 - in Connecticut I believe.
 

Techman

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Just another example of our tax dollars not at work. What a wonderful place we live in.
 

EagerBeaver

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eastender said:
Same structural engineers as in the USA - within the last 10 years there have been collapses on the I20, I40, I95 - in Connecticut I believe.

Eastender,

The Mianus River Bridge collapse on I-95 occurred in 1983. I don't believe we have had any bridges collapse in Connecticut since then. A number of people were killed in that Mianus River Bridge collapse, at least some unnecessarily when they ignored a pedestrian trying to wave them to a stop after the bridge had already collapsed.

There was recently a terrible tunnel collapse in Boston, which killed a woman.

These collapses should not be happening.
 

centaurus

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May 7, 2006
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LOL !

You guys from the states are bad mouthing canadian civil engineers???

I have two words for you: ( Big Dig ) .

Nough said!.

ps: sorry about the rant, but i am a mcgill engineer graduate.

Also, did you know that the passing rate of the professional engineering exam test in the US by canadian engineers is 100% ? Compare that to 50% by US engineers.
 

picasso

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centaurus said:
ps: sorry about the rant, but i am a mcgill engineer graduate.

My condolences! :D
 

pussinboots

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This is the second time a bridge has collapsed in Laval - last time it happened was in 2001 (July) I believe. No criminal charges pressed - lack of support columns on the bridge to stop it moving (gee does that make sense? :eek: ) Can't remember, but I believe one person died.

You've got to wonder about this, something's not being done right.
 

EagerBeaver

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Roland,

That's why someone is supposed to be doing periodic inspections, so these problems are identified and corrected before a catastophe occurs.

Was someone supposed to do periodic inspections on this Bridge?
 

EagerBeaver

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5 Deaths from Tragedy

The Gazette article reports that five people in two different vehicles travelling side by side towards Montreal were crushed to death underneath the rubble. The wreckage of these cars was crushed down to below knee level after the overpass collapsed on them.
 

Cosmo

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Hi,

Anyone ever travel through Turcot interchange?
Ever notice the state in wich the pavement is on some spot?
Truly scary!:eek:
Cocrete is beign eroded and pices are falling off.
I don't want to sound alarmist here,but imagine it collapse.
These roads are old and worn down,instead of building new ones I think we should fix the old ones first.
 

rollingstone

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As a resident of Boston and an engineer myself, I am all to familiar with news items about shoddy construction and fatalities involving the big dig. The whole construction industry and enforcement of construction laws seems to be far too laid back, whether in the US or Canada. While I am sure we will see some million dollar lawsuits, these accidents should have never had happened in the first place. What ever happened to designing a structure to withstand well over its intended load? In addition, it seems like the bridge collapse didn't happen suddenly, but drivers had reported debris dropping as it began crumbling. Why didn't the police react to these reports immediatly and shut down that section of the highway?

I'm sure we will see this play out in the political sphere and millions of dollars will be allocated to inspection and maintainance, but a few years from now everyone will become complacent again. I think the iron rings need to be replaced with concrete ones, that way it will always weigh down on the engineer in charge.
 

Cosmo

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Hi all,

I've heard that the overpass wich was built in 1970 was suppose to have a lifetime of 70 years.
Barely lasted half of that estimation.
Some of the possible cause of it's early 'demise'' would be the fact they are building the Laval metro not too far from it and the detonations caused some great vibrations that could even be felt from a few km away.
Maybe those vibration have something to do with the fact that it collapsed so quickly,maybe not,I'm no expert.:confused:
Bye.
 

Juliana

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People had try to allert the autorities when the bridge was just shacking....

From what I heard some people from the population of Laval including the police tried to allert the department of transport that the bridge was vibrating and failling. In fact staff from the ministery of transport had visite the lieu the morning that proceed the accident. If so how come the authorities did not tried to prevent this tragedy ?

This is soooooooooo scary:mad: :eek: :( !
 

anon_vlad

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I saw a report recently which claimed that a majority of university students cheat. I wonder if the incompetence of some graduates who got through by cheating has anything to do with bridges falling down.

The university students with the heaviest workloads are the engineers. They have the most hours of class and labs per week. In my opinion, only an exceptional student could possibly keep up without collaborating. The line between working with other students and copying/cheating is often breached.

Unfortunately "collaboration" means that a student with assignments in multiple subjects will do one of them and trade his/her solution with others and end up knowing almost nothing of the other subjects.

I have met some engineering graduates who not only didn't know how to do some very basic stuff from courses they passed but didn't even remember seeing it.
 

Mike Mercury

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There are guys who graduated after failing 2 or 3 core courses 2 or 3 times each. Now that's mediocre. Graduates can have an IQ of genius or gifted down to slightly above average.
Engineering is not as competitive as law or medicine.
 

chef

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anon_vlad said:
I saw a report recently which claimed that a majority of university students cheat. I wonder if the incompetence of some graduates who got through by cheating has anything to do with bridges falling down.

The university students with the heaviest workloads are the engineers. They have the most hours of class and labs per week. In my opinion, only an exceptional student could possibly keep up without collaborating. The line between working with other students and copying/cheating is often breached.

Unfortunately "collaboration" means that a student with assignments in multiple subjects will do one of them and trade his/her solution with others and end up knowing almost nothing of the other subjects.

I have met some engineering graduates who not only didn't know how to do some very basic stuff from courses they passed but didn't even remember seeing it.

As an engineer who got through all his courses honestly (and I did not consider myself an exceptional student), it really annoys me when I read posts like the one I have quoted - because I know it's true. I know a few engineers like that.
 
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