Wortley at Mountsfield Traffic Study – Introduction
Gorski Consulting was recently contacted by a residents’ group that expressed concerns over the safety of a roadway near a school where a pedestrian crossing was recently installed in London, Ontario. The site was located at the intersection of Wortley Road and Mountsfield Drive in the “Old South” neighbourhood of London. (A video frame taken from our study is shown above.) The issue of child safety near school zones is important and therefore Gorski Consulting agreed to conduct a study of the safety issues at the intersection.
The Googlemaps image below shows the site of the study with respect to the central portion of London, Ontario and its downtown. The area slightly to the north is also known as “Wortley Village” and is one of the more desirable residential locations in the City.
A closer view of the Wortley-Mountsfield area is shown in another Googlemaps image shown below. This view shows the location of the Mountsfield Public School and the orange circle shows the location of the intersection where the traffic study was conducted.
The safety of the Wortley-Mountsfield intersection needed to be examined during a time when children were entering or exiting the nearby elementary school, Mountsfield Public School. However because we did not become aware of this request until June 10th, there was little time as the school year would come to an end by June 25th. Never-the-less, we were able to complete two video sessions at the site, one on the afternoon of June 15th and a second one on the morning of June 22, 2026.
In both sessions the video documentation was completed with the use of six, synchronized, video cameras. Three of the cameras (GoPros) were positioned facing across Wortley Road so that the speed of vehicles on Wortley could be captured along two, 50-metre, road segments. In the June 15th session, GoPro40 was placed on the west side of Wortley Road at the pedestrian crossing, as shown in the photo below.
The yellow fire hydrant visible in the above photo was used as the arbitrary “Zero Point” for positioning video cameras at 50-metre distances to the north and south of the fire hydrant. At a location 50-metres to the north of the fire hydrant we positioned GoPro29 on the west roadside, facing east, so that it would show a painted marker that we created on the east sidewalk. A view of GoPro 29 is shown in the photo below. Also visible is JVC4, a camera positioned to look southward toward Mountsfield Drive and the pedestrian crossing.
A similar arrangement existed at 50 metres south of the pedestrian crossing where GoPro39 pointed across Wortley at a paint marker while JVC1 was positioned pointing northward along Wortley.
And finally the JVC2 camera was positioned on the north side of Mountsfield Drive and pointing westward toward the pedestrian crossing, as shown in the photo below.
Upon initial attendance at the site on June 15, 2026 it became apparent that the pedestrian crossing was not well visible because of the interplay between sun and shade caused by the large, roadside trees. The location of some of these trees can be seen in the Googlemaps view shown below.
Indications of this problem can be seen in the site photos below, taken on June 15, 2026.
In the image below a school bus is attempting to make a left turn to travel from the stop-signed Mountsfield Drive, to travel southward along Wortley Road. Tree branches are hanging too low so that the bus driver’s view of northward traffic is made more difficult and the driver is forced to put more attention to that portion of the roadway. This could prevent a good assessment of what objects (pedestrians) may be near the bus.
A discussion of the results from the video sessions at this site will be discussed in an upcoming website article which will be posted on this Gorski Consulting website in the near future.
Classic Red Herrings In Failing To Disclose Why Five Children Killed North of Kitchener Ontario
There can be nothing more comforting than a standard, condolence message sent by Ontario’s Premier about the “heartbreaking loss” whereby five children were killed in an unidentified collision at the intersection of 4th Line and Wellington Road 12 north of Kitchener, Ontario on June 13, 2026. This would seem to be the case since police and official news media did not report any useful information about the actual collision. The only available information is that the collision involved a van and a SUV. The five deceased children were riding in the van. There was conflicting information that either 9 or 10 persons occupied the van.
It is notable that a day after the tragedy news media announced that police would be conducting a “new safety blitz” focusing on the dangers that exist at roadway intersections. There was no clear explanation what the blitz entailed and what police were actually intending to do as part of the blitz.
The propaganda about the safety blitz is, in the view of Gorski Consulting, a red herring, that has been thrown onto the public deck so all can see that something is being done, even though there has been nothing done. The issue is not the danger of collisions at intersections. The issue is that five children were killed but no adults were killed. This fact is been hidden from public understanding.
No one has provided any description of the involved van and whether it was capable of properly transporting 9 or 10 occupants. Some specialty vans could be capable of such transportation but that is not possible for most, typical vans. So were the children who died properly restrained by infant carriers, child seats or booster cushions? This issue has cleverly been ignored by police and news media. And this is a recurring problem.
There have been many previous collisions of suspicious child fatalities where those fatal results have not been discussed, for seemingly bazaar reasons. Surely, any person, in any official capacity, who knew that there was a life-threatening danger to a child’s life, would do something to broadcast that danger. For the simple fact that when the danger remains unknown, it cannot be corrected. And the danger will cause the death of future, innocent children. This relationship is not that difficult to comprehend.
It has been my personal experience, from examining an admittedly small sample of collisions involving serious injury and death to children that a child that is properly restrained, particularly in an infant carrier or child seat, gains superior protection from these devices compared to adults simply wearing a three-point (lap & shoulder) seatbelt. That extra casing around the child’s body is what gives the child that extra “helmet” of protection. In addition, most of these devices restrain the child with a 5-point, harness, something that is difficult to do with adults unless they are in racing cars. Yet it has been my personal experience that I have witnessed unnecessary tragedies where children were either not restrained, or were improperly restrained and this has led to very difficult tragedies that need not have occurred. In monitoring various news reports over the years I have observed a number of occasions where child deaths have occurred in suspicious circumstances, circumstances that ought to have been uncovered, but were not. And because these circumstances have not been uncovered those tragedies have been repeated, for nonsensical reasons.
So, for the present matter, it is imperative that the circumstances by which the five, innocent children came to their deaths, ought to be made public. If this is a matter of a very high severity collision whereby there is a reasonable explanation for these deaths then so be it. It could be a terrible tragedy that we would find difficult to avoid. But if this collision consequence is a matter of improper or no child restraint then it must be revealed as such.
True To Their Word Police Reveal Nothing About How Five Persons Died
No one needs a crystal ball to make the following pronouncement: Today, tomorrow, or three weeks from now there will be a tragic motor vehicle collision that will be scantily announced in official circles. It will be pronounced as devastating. And there will be quotes from various politicians and officials explaining how deeply sorry they are that the tragedy took place. Investigating police will have closed the collision site for several hundred metres around, or sometimes for several kilometres, so that the peering eyes of journalists with long-zoom lens can only distinguish the markings of official vehicles, but very little or no useful images of the collision-involved vehicles. It will be announced that the tragedy is under investigation and it is too early to tell how it unfolded. And there will be quotes from local residents about how they do not understand how the tragedy occurred but they will explain their theories. And then there will be the many posts on social media, a very few will insightful and specific details, but by far, mostly a series of uninformed opinions that the collision could have been caused by Martians or unknown terrorists, or something similar. And then there will be silence until some future anniversary where some news articles will remind the public that the victims are sadly missed. Having spent well over 40-years of investigating and reconstructing the deaths of thousands of collision victims I do not need a crystal ball to know that this merry-go-round will continue spinning despite what words I may add to the process.
Just this past May 23rd the one-year anniversary of another traffic tragedy passed related to the deaths of five persons in a collision at the intersection of Thorndale Road and Cobble Hills Road east of Thorndale and less than 20 kilometres north-east of London, Ontario. Police who investigated the collision provided no useful information about it, not even the travel directions of the involved vehicles. The only useful information was that an SUV was struck by a truck and that truck collided with a second SUV. It was the initial impact that killed all five occupants of the first SUV.
In an article posted by Bryan Bicknell of CTV News in London, the comments of a couple of persons were posted will some thought-provoking content. One driver who reportedly drove through the intersection on a regular basis indicated he could not understand “…how this could have possibly happened”. And a resident who owns land at the intersection had the following comment:
“Well, the only thing out of the ordinary is that it has the hill over there, which is a little difficult seeing traffic coming this way,” he explained, referring to drivers coming from the south and checking to their east for any westbound traffic.“
In his article Bicknell referred to some signs near the intersection but made no reference to their relevance.
As a result of the lack of information I attended the collision site on June 1, 2025 and prepared an article (“Poor Reporting of 5-Fatal Collision North-East of London Ontario Has Consequences”) on my findings on June 10, 2025. This article is still available to be viewed on this Gorski Consulting website.
A few days after the collision occurred the official news media announced that local politicians would authorize a safety study of the intersection after the police investigation was completed. But why?
Surely a single motor vehicle collision does not spark a safety study at every intersection. Is it because five persons died in one vehicle? But if there was just a single driver then there might only have been one fatality. So was it just bad luck and nothing to do with the safety of the intersection? The motion for the study was unanimously approved. So did the councillors know something about the intersection that was not publicly revealed?
To this day no information has been made available about charges against the truck driver involved in this collision. Yet there were numerous racial slurs posted on the internet shortly after the collision occurred against that driver. Again, what information has passed under the radar that suddenly these comments have supposedly died down? Is it because the driver of the northbound “SUV” was governed by a stop sign and therefore deemed at fault? But there are many scenarios where such facts do not necessarily mean the driver is at fault. There could be many circumstances that exist that need to be considered. So were those circumstances considered? After a year has passed no one knows or, at least, no one officially knows.
Once Again Body of Deceased Not Found By investigating Police
The public should have a right to know why police fail to locate the body of a deceased in a motor vehicle collision. But such explanations are not being provided.
In a detailed article (“Missing Fatality – But Still No Useful Details Revealed”) posted November 14, 2025 on this Gorski Consulting website we reported on a fatal collision of November 1, 2025 at the intersection of Chinguacousy Road and Queen Street in Brampton where investigating police failed to identify that the body of a deceased was in one of the colliding vehicles. In that article we made the following comment:
“What should be concluded from the above discussion about historical methods of collision reconstruction is that, in order to conduct a properly scientific analysis of a collision, vehicle interiors must be included in that analysis and examined in detail. When a proper examination of the interior of a collision-involved vehicle is conducted there should be no reason for an injured occupant in that vehicle to be unidentified. What led to the lack of identification of a deceased inside a vehicle has not been explained. Beyond police, medical personnel and even fire department personnel have responsibilities for identifying occupants in a damaged vehicle and why their failures occurred also needs to be revealed. Up to now there has been no photo posted of a reasonable quality that could reveal the extent of damage to the Honda Civic and provide some explanation as to why no one detected the deceased passenger.”
Subsequent to these comments the official news media revealed that the body of another deceased driver was also not identified by investigating police in the Ottawa area. The following excerpt is provided from the Ontario SIU report:
“On the evening of January 23, 2026, the man drove a Dodge Caravan southbound on Bank Street. His blood alcohol concentration was more than twice the legal limit. Approximately five seconds before the collision, his vehicle was travelling at about 170 km/h on Bank Street, approaching Morningside Avenue in a 60 km/h zone. The man lost control of the Caravan. South of Morningside Avenue, the vehicle crossed into the northbound lane and shoulder before entering the snow-covered east-side ditch. The man was ejected from the vehicle and suffered catastrophic injuries that resulted in his death. The time was about 8:20 p.m.
At about 9:43 p.m., a passing motorist stopped at the collision and subsequently called 911. Officers were dispatched to the scene at about 10:13 p.m. After searching the vehicle and the surrounding area without locating anyone, they left the scene at about 11 p.m.
The following morning, after receiving a call from the man’s wife reporting that her husband had not returned home from work, the police service dispatched an officer to the collision scene. Upon arrival, the officer located the man’s body partially buried in the snow-covered ditch several metres from the Caravan.
Based on the SIU’s preliminary inquiries, including review of video footage that captured the incident in part and the results of the postmortem examination, Director Martino was satisfied the investigation should be discontinued. At autopsy, the pathologist attributed the man’s death to multiple blunt force injuries, and explained that given the nature of those injuries, the man would have been deceased by the time the first officers arrived at the scene following the collision. On this record, there being no reason to believe that any officer caused or contributed to the man’s death, the SIU was without statutory jurisdiction to investigate the incident.
That said, Director Martino identified what appeared to be evidence of misconduct by the officers who initially attended the scene in connection with their investigation of the collision, in contravention of section 19 of the Police Code of Conduct. Director Martino will be referring the matter to the Ottawa Police Service Chief of Police and, further to section 35.1 of the Special Investigations Unit Act, 2019, to the Law Enforcement Complaints Agency.“
There are obvious problems when “evidence of misconduct” by police becomes public knowledge but no explanation is given as to what the misconduct entails. The details of this misconduct should not be kept within the secretive confines some tribunal. Persons who read or hear of such things come to distrust the the operations of police and those who oversee them. Incidents labelled as “errors” may or may not be so depending on the details of each incident. Leaving the present matter secret and unexplained helps no one.
E-Bike Fatal Collision in London Ontario – Continued Lack of Transparency
Not unexpectedly, another fatal collision involving a cyclist riding an e-bike occurred in London, Ontario on May 15, 2026 and there has been no disclosure about its location, who died, or anything about how the collision occurred. This collision was not publicly reported until May 19, 2026 , or 4 days after the occurrence, when official news media prepared articles from a London Police news release.
The location of the collision was described as in the area of Brydges and Egerton Streets in east London. There are cycling lanes on both of these roads in the described area. Googlemaps views of the area are shown in the following photos.
Some views of the area are shown below, taken the morning of May 20, 2026.
Again, there has been no information released by the London City Police about this collision. Not even basic information such as the travel directions of the involved vehicles. No description was given of the vehicle that was involved in the impact with the fatally injured cyclist. There are public safety repercussions that are created when cyclists and motor vehicle drivers are left in the dark about how such collisions occur.
With the absence of any information about the actual collision, based on our review of thousands of serious collisions, it is possible to consider some of the characteristics at this intersection and to comment on what issues could pose safety problems to cyclists.
Brydges Street has been redesigned in recent years through the creation of new cycling lanes. This is something that has been incorporated from the intersection of Clarke Road which is about 3.7 kilometres east of the collision site. Egerton Street has also seen the installation of cycling lanes in recent years. So there has been an increase in the number of cyclists using Brydges and Egerton as a path to other destinations in the City of London.
There are several safety problems along these roadways that are not unique but are just a manifestation of what goes on whenever cycling lanes are installed, regardless of the specific location. A common problem that is never discussed in official circles is that, whenever there is a change in direction of a roadway or cycling lane, bad things can happen. This is not something new. Decades of investigations of motor vehicle collisions in the vicinity of southern Ontario have shown that, Whenever a horizonal curve exists there is a greater potential of a serious collision. This is just a recognition that drivers of motor vehicles must make adjustments to their steering, braking and acceleration in curves which they do not need to do on a straight and level roadway. Well, for cyclists the issue is no different. Cyclists experience the same difficulties. But when you combine the difficulties of drivers of motor vehicles along with the difficulties of cyclists this magnifies the potential for disaster. These comments are exemplified in the following cyclist observation at the Brydges-Egerton collision site.
The actions of the eastbound cyclist shown in these photos is typical of what often occurs within horizontal curves. Cyclists do not maintain a precise, centre position within a cycling lane and this wandering can lead to a conflict with a motor vehicle approaching from the rear. Drivers of motor vehicles also experience the same difficulties.
While we often believe that roadway markings are straight this is not always the case. As our eastbound cyclist continues travelling to the east we can see, in the photo below, a typical roadway marking that deviates from a straight line. Deviations like these can place cyclists and passing motor vehicles in conflict.
Another emerging problem in local design of cycling lanes is the “Green Zone” shown below. Cyclists travelling westbound on Brydges Street are directed to travel within the exclusive Green Zone if they intend to turn right at the upcoming T-intersection. The obvious problem is that drivers of motor vehicles who intend to turn right must cross through that green zone in order to enter the right turn lane. This places cyclists in dangerous situations where they ride “into the path” of a faster-moving motor vehicle. Such an arrangement is ripe for misjudgment errors both both cyclists and motor vehicle drivers.
One of the key elements to collision causation is the phrase “violation of expectation” and this can apply to the current site. Drivers are rarely taught that their driving (or cycle riding) must be predictable to others. When we violate someone’s expectation of what we do we become a safety hazard. However, in some instances, the design of roadways and vehicles can be the accelerant to violations of expectation.
At the current site there are no restrictions to what types of cycles use the cycling lane. And therefore the speed of cyclists varies. A young or elderly rider using a pedal bicycle may travel at average speeds below 18 km/h and sometimes much lower.
Faster-moving cyclists can sometimes be detected by the style of the cycle and what the cyclist is wearing. So someone riding a road bike with riding gear can sometimes be detected by drivers of motor vehicles as someone who could be riding quickly. And this becomes important when cycles and motor vehicles approach an area where they must cross paths such as at the current site.
However we are seeing more and more riders of e-bikes and some of these are difficult to differentiate from a standard pedal bicycle. Sometimes one must look very closely for some evidence of a battery to recognize an e-bike. However the driver of a motor vehicle approaching from the rear is unlikely to detect whether such a battery exists and so they will find it difficult to detect that they are approaching an e-bike. The problem is that the speed of e-bikes is not correlated with the experience and abilities of the rider. Whereas a rider of a road bike often has greater experience and ability in order to travel at a higher speed, an e-bike rider does not. E-bike riders can be of any age or ability and their speed is only governed by what adjustment they make to their throttle. And this is an emerging problem. Yet our observational data has shown that e-bike speeds are higher than the speed of almost all pedal bicycles. While, officially, e-bike speeds must be below 32 km/h, the reality is that many e-bikes are manipulated to attain higher speeds.
Accompanying this problem with e-bikes, is an additional problem that has existed for decades with respect to differences in motor vehicles. There is no restriction as to what kind of motor vehicle can drive along Egerton or Brydges Street. While some vehicles can be small, some can also be large. With large vehicles there has always been a problem with proper visibility of smaller motor vehicles, cyclists or pedestrians in their vicinity. Drivers of large trucks such as a tractor-trailer or dump truck have special difficulties seeing objects near their right sides.
Numerous examples have been created in past cases where poor visibility has been shown to exist for drivers of heavy trucks. One example is shown in the three dated photos below.
The unfortunate reality is that, unless someone has some experience in driving a heavy vehicle, such visibility limitations are not understood.
Combining these facts we can consider what might happen if an e-bike was westbound on Brydges Street and approaching the Green Zone. At the same time we can consider that a truck is approaching the e-bike from behind. The driver of the large truck does not know that the cycle is an e-bike but a decision must be made whether to pass by the e-bike, cross over the Green Zone and then enter the right-turn lane. And this is where the “violation of expectation” comes into effect. The truck driver may not appreciate that the cycle is an e-bike which could be travelling much faster than a typical pedal bicycle. Believing that there is sufficient time and distance to pass a “slower moving” pedal bicycle the truck driver proceeds to make the passing maneuver and then steers to the right, across the Green Zone, into the right turn lane. The driver of the truck may not have a good view of where the e-bike is located when the two are side-by-side because of the limitations that truck drivers have in observing objects just to the right of the truck. Meanwhile the rider of the e-bike may no be aware that this truck will be crossing into where the cycle is travelling. And so the right side of the truck makes contact with the e-bike. This can result in the fatal consequences to the rider of the e-bike.
We know nothing about whether such a scenario played out in the collision of May 15, 2026. And neither will any other driver in London nor any other cyclist. The officials who know how this collision occurred have deemed it appropriate to keep this information from the public. There are several articles posted on the Gorski Consulting website where it has been shown that, over the years, nothing of substance has ever been revealed in the recent cyclist fatalities that have occurred in London. Nothing of substance has ever been provided to the drivers of motor vehicles or to cyclists about the specific dangers that could involve them in a fatal cyclist collision. And there are numerous collisions involving cyclist injuries that are never publicly reported. In fact police are not obligated to file a collision report involving a cyclist unless a motor vehicle was involved. So there is no public information about how cyclist collisions are occurring. This lack of transparency has repercussions. While the public propaganda refers to catchy phrases such as Vision Zero, it has been said before on this website that the reality is Zero Vision – we chose to keep the public blind about the causes of collisions that are killing and injuring them.
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