Montreal's public transit system changed forever in early 1964 as a new form of identification was put onto the 2,000 vehicles of the city bus fleet.
Those buses were equipped with a new and special sign that made them easier to recognize from behind.
That sign contained the bus route number, allowing you to tell which bus you just missed.
Prior to that, transit users would have to run to the front of a bus to identify the route it was taking.
So for the last half-century bus riders have been equipped to know that their just pulled away without them in it.
Chimples, myself and a batch of four interns just conducted a blue-ribbon roundtable panel on the psychological impact of this technological innovation on city dwellers at the University of Herouxville and two of us argued that the innovation was positive while the other four said it was a bad idea, as it made people depressed in the knowledge that their bus had pulled away.