Saskatoon Police Mistake Traffic Counter for Bomb

The city has apologized and since implemented a policy of labelling all traffic measuring devices with the city logo and phone number.

After a prolonged investigation, security forces in Saskatoon have discovered that the mysterious plastic box that caused a major bridge to be shut down was actually a traffic counter installed by city workers. Police shut down the highly trafficked University Bridge for three hours on Tuesday after a resident reported a mysterious box was roped to a pole. After police and investigators examined the box (called a Pelican case) using X-ray equipment and a bomb squad, they shut down the bridge and warned the public that while the box didn’t include explosives, it was equipped to capture and transmit traffic or pedestrian data to an unknown location. Sheepish city workers have since picked up the box, labelled it, and reinstalled it on the bridge to monitor traffic.