Colleagues mourn loss of Hamilton man killed in hit-and-run

Ask any mechanic and they'll tell you jokes come with the job.

Good or bad, dishing them or hearing them, they help pass the time when all you got to look at is a shoddy gearbox or oil filter.

You've got to tell them to make the job go by quicker," says Gary McCalman, a career-long mechanic at Halton Honda in Burlington. That's what we always do, fix cars, make people laugh and tell jokes."

Few cracked them like Robert Stevenson.

For three decades, Stevenson used his patented dry sense of humour and half-baked gags to uplift colleagues at Halton Honda.

When he retired after a medical operation in December 2020, his boss and close friend, Fred Stipsits, went around the bays in the dealership and asked workers to share a story or two about him. He left with more than he could handle.

Those one or two turned out to be 50 million," says a joking Stipsits, head of maintenance at Halton Honda. When I left everyone's bays, I was laughing, the storytellers were laughing, the people in neighbouring bays were laughing.

Everyone enjoyed working with Robert. He made you smile anytime you visited his bay."

The tight-knit group of auto technicians say the bays have lost since a sense of flair since Stevenson retired. Even more so since he died.

He and his dog were killed Jan. 30 after a hit-and-run in east Hamilton. He was 70.

Hamilton police said Stevenson and his three-year-old dog were crossing Lawrence Road, just east of Cochrane Road, when they were struck by what was previously described as an eastbound Dodge Dakota around 8:30 p.m.

That vehicle has since been seized, police confirmed Thursday. The investigation has been transferred from the collision reconstruction unit to the east-end criminal investigation branch. No one has been charged in the traffic fatality, the city's first of the year.

It was very heartbreaking news," says Halton Honda office manager Joanne Buxton-Forman.. When I think about it, I get teary-eyed. It's just such a horrible situation what happened. He didn't get to enjoy any of his retirement."

Stevenson worked at the Burlington family dealership for more than 32 years, a feat few others have eclipsed, says Buxton-Forman, who met him when she was just a little girl.

He had the thickest Irish accent, so for the longest time I didn't know what he was telling me," she adds, chuckling. But he was the sweetest man. He was very well respected with the other technicians here, both old and young, because he'd been here for so long."

He was my closest friend there," says McCalman, who worked with Stevenson since the 1990s. He had a really dry sense of humour and he would always crack jokes. Just one of those likable, Irish guys.

You couldn't find anyone who'd say a bad word about him."

He meant so much to me," adds Stipsits.

Stipsits, 69, only knew him for nine years but he says it felt like much longer. They sat together for lunch nearly every day, Stevenson telling classic crummy jokes and Stipsits acting as a a perfect audience.

He loved his doctor jokes," says Stipsits. Robert told the doctor he had a trick knee and the doctor told him to join the circus. Robert told the doctor he had this ringing in his ear and the doctor said, What, like a telephone?' Yeah, Robert told him. Well, don't answer it.' On it went with stuff like that."

According his obituary, Stevenson was also a husband of 47 years with two kids and two grandchildren. The Spectator was unable to reach his family for comment.

A GoFundMe has been organized on behalf of the family to help with funeral-related costs.

Police are appealing for witnesses and are asking anyone with information about the fatal collision to call 905-546-4753.

Sebastian Bron is a reporter at The Spectator. sbron@thespec.com