Morning Brew: May 15th, 2008

ant flowerPhoto: "Camomile Ant" by sig11, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

Your abbreviated Toronto morning news roundup for Thursday May 15th, 2008:

The TTC is learning that the hybrid expensive diesel-electric buses they bought aren't coming close to saving the 20-30% in fuel consumption touted by the manufacturer. Records are showing closer to just 10% in fuel savings.

Four carjackers were caught in the act on video, and the police want the help of the public in identifying them. I watched the video, and have concluded that it's more an exercise in identifying shirts.

Night court is a great option for those not wanting to miss work to deal with their problems involving the Provincial Offences Act, but as of July 1st, night court will no longer be an option. Judge Harold T. Stone is happy to have more time to spend with his family.

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Did you know that there are 19,231species of bee in the world? The world's top bee experts are in Toronto this week and hope to use DNA mapping technology to help researchers catalogue and identify up to 5000 more species.

An OPP officer has been charged with street racing. Police from a different jurisdiction pulled him over after he was clocked driving his cruiser at more than 50km/h over the speed limit.

And finally, the National Post has a great piece on the life and death of hydro utility poles, inspired by an old leaning one in Little Italy.

Reader Reviews and Comments

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I'm a big fan of the street racing law. My inner mathematician says it should be 50% over the limit and not 50 km over. Whatever.

It's great to see that a police officer was charged. I was under the impression that cops would let other people working in law enforcement of the hook for speeding (although maybe in extreme cases like this they can't).

Posted by: Ben at May 15, 2008 10:00 AM

I agree about 50% over at higher speeds... doing 60 in a 40 is speeding, but isn't "street racing", IMO.

Posted by: Jerrold at May 15, 2008 10:08 AM

Speaking of ants, a friend send me a link this morning to a story about crazy ants that are wreaking havoc in Houston. Nice!

Posted by: Adam at May 15, 2008 10:12 AM

It shouldn't be called street racing if you're not actually caught racing against anyone. Going 50km over is simply "excessive speeding" if anything, but the whole street racing label was just a PR move to cash in on some of the actual street racing incidents (like those 20 year olds in their mom's Mercedes) as well as the general public's annoyance with the tuner culture, loud subwoofers and all.

I would be blown away if any of the people caught doing 50+ over on the 407, for example, were actually racing anyone.

Posted by: serotonin at May 15, 2008 10:14 AM

@ serotonin

I work for an insurance company handling Bodily injury claims.
The amount of innocent people that are killed on the road by some moron deciding "to speed by himself" is terrible.
I don't give a shit if your racing anyone, if you have a family member decapitated by some jackass who decided to show off the size of his cock by flooring the gas you WOULD NOT compare it to some portuguese kid blasting Z103.5 at the corner of Caladonia and Eglinton

Posted by: apetimberlake [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 15, 2008 10:41 AM

The hybrid buses should have gone into service downtown on day 1 rather than running the 25 year old GMs right where air quality needs the most help. Maybe we need a Chief General Manager who lives at 1 King West rather than in GO Train land.

Posted by: Mark Dowling at May 15, 2008 1:34 PM

The article doesn't mention if Constable Tappp's car was impounded for a week. Anything less would not be fair to the general public.

Posted by: David Toronto at May 15, 2008 4:56 PM

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