Preliminary Road Data For Westbound Highway 401
Preliminary results are available from road surface testing of westbound Highway 401 conducted on May 5, 2019. The full testing commenced at Wonderland Road to Tilbury, Ontario and then the test vehicle turned around and continued from Tilbury back to Highbury Ave in London. The preliminary results shown here are for the short distance at the start of the testing from Wonderland Road to just past Mill Road, or a distance of just over 12 kilometres. This section of highway contained a relatively good asphalt surface from Wonderland to Southminster Bourne Road. At Southminster Bourne Road the surface changed to a new, concrete surface that had been laid in the summer of 2018. Thus it is possible compare the older asphalt surface to the new concrete surface. The preliminary data are shown below.
Table of Preliminary testing of the surface of westbound Highway 401.
The above table also contains a small amount of data (at the top) from testing conducted in February, 2014 and June, 2018. When this table is completed it will display results from all testing conducted on 400-series highways in Ontario. A website article posted a couple of days ago described some of the additional results that will be added as analysis continues.
It can be recalled from previous articles posted on the Gorski Consulting website, a Road Data webpage on this site contains all the road data that has been collected since 2014. That data is divided into separate counties as well as the City of London.
The data describes how the motion of the test vehicle is affected by its travel over a road surface. This motion is described in terms of the vehicle’s rotation, both longitudinally and laterally. Some of the vehicle motion will be suppressed by the vehicle’s tires and suspension. What remains is the motion of the sprung mass, or that portion of the vehicle that is suspended on the unsprung wheels and suspension. Thus, after the vehicle’s suspension and tires have done their job to steady the vehicle, the remaining motion is what is being documented in our data. By using the same vehicle (2007 Buick Allure) in all the testing the variability caused by vehicle differences is removed.
From previous testing it was noted that a “good” road surface would create rotation rates between 0.0100 and 0.0200 radians per second. A road with some imperfections and comfort issues would contain values between 0.0200 and 0.0500 radians per second. A road with major road surface problems would contain rotation rates above 0.0500 radians per second.
So, looking at the present table, all the data are displayed in a green colour meaning that the values are all below 0.0200 and therefore the test vehicle sustained very little disturbance either in the “forward/backward” direction (longitudinal rotation) or in the “side to side” direction (lateral rotation). This would be generally expected for a 400-series highway where the highest level of service would be expected.
We were interested in the fact that the Ontario Ministry of Transportation has been laying a concrete surface along Highway 401 for several years now. It began when three lanes of travel were created just east of Windsor. This has progressed as reconstruction has been carried out toward London. While driving along this concrete surface it was noted that it was etched with longitudinal, likely for drainage, and that the louder sound and a sense of a higher vibration, were evident compared to the asphalt paving. Thus we were interested in comparing that concrete surface to the asphalt. As can be seen in the above table we now have some preliminary data that compares the two surfaces.
First of all, at the bottom of the table we can see the overall averages for the surfaces of Highway 401 is: Lateral = 0.0119 and Longitudinal = 0.0102. Separating the concrete from the asphalt we note the following averages:
Asphalt – Lateral = 0.0134, Longitudinal = 0.0098
Concrete – Lateral = 0.0113, Longitudinal = 0.0111
While this data is very limited it indicates what we expected. The concrete created a little more longitudinal rotation of the test vehicle in comparison to the asphalt. It also shows that the concrete surface produced slightly less lateral rotation that the asphalt.
While this data may not appear earth-shattering, it provides further information for comparison of various road surface conditions. As the Road Data database is expanded it will become more useful in its ability to compare various road surfaces in an objective manner. This data is completely independent of any influences or testing that has been performed by those agencies that construct and maintain the roads and highways in Ontario.
OPP and News Media Sensationalism is Not a Virtue
The public must be able to depend on police and news media to report facts much like Sergeant Joe Friday in the 1950s and 60s TV show “Dragnet”. “Just the facts ma’am” was a popular phrase attached to Jack Webb, the actor who portrayed Friday. While it was a fictional account of police objectivity and unbiased professionalism, such aspects can be used in real life to focus present day police and news media in their communications with the public. Increasingly police and news media appear to be falling into the modern era of stretching the truth to convey some message rather than simply reporting facts. After all, this is the era of Donald Trump and the era of “alternative facts”.
As an example, a collision occurred near Simcoe, Ontario, just after midnight (this morning) involving two vehicles that crashed at the intersection of Concession 14 Townsend Township and Blueline Road. The OPP photo below, was shown on their Twitter account and was used in London Free Press article entitled “Seatbelts likely saved drivers in destructive Simcoe Crash: OPP”.
Without being able to see other parts of this damaged vehicle this OPP photo misleads the public .
Certainly the pictured vehicle has sustained a major impact. But what makes it stand out to the degree that it must be singled out from others? Why is this particular collision representative of a situation where seatbelts worked to save lives in comparison to any other major collision? Looking at all the visible damage the average person would conclude, yes, it must be so because the OPP and the news media said it was so. However the photo fails to show other parts of the vehicle that would give a better indication of the severity of the crash.
There was a second photo shown on the OPP Twitter account and this is shown below.
This second photo of the vehicle from the OPP Twitter account provides a clearer indication of what actually occurred.
This second photo was not used in the London Free Press article yet it would have illustrated the truth more clearly. Yes, there was substantial frontal damage, but the “greenhouse” area, where the occupants are seated, was intact. The roof, A-pillars were not displaced rearward that there was no evidence of structural intrusion into the occupant space.
And a third photo from the OPP Twitter account showed the other vehicle, as shown below.
This third photo showing the other vehicle shows a clear indication of the initial impact to the right front fender followed by a secondary “kissing” contact to the right rear.
It is the second and third OPP photos, that were not used in the London Free Press article, that showed the truth.
This was a typical angle collision that occurs at rural intersections where both vehicles are travelling at substantial speed. In these instances there is a “front impacting” and a “side impacted” vehicle. In other words the front of one vehicle, almost invariably, strikes the side of the other vehicle. In this instance, the front of the white car struck the side of the red car. But the important fact is that the red car was struck in the right front fender. If that impact had been to the right front door massive structural intrusion could have occurred, the upper torso of the driver of the red car could have slipped out of the shoulder belt and the driver could have died from head trauma, regardless of seatbelt use. These are the kinds of details that do not match the simple storyline that seatbelts save lives so they are not discussed.
When an impact like this occurs the two vehicles enter into a rotation after the initial impact such that the sides of the two vehicles “slap” together before being sent toward their separate directions to final rest. This slapping together is a secondary impact that we have coined as “kissing” in the sense that, upon leaving, one kisses to say goodbye.
Invariably this secondary impact is such that the rear of the left side of the “front impacting” vehicle (i.e. the white car) makes contact with the right-rear corner of the “side impacted” vehicle (i.e. red car). After observing hundreds of similar situations one can detect a variety of “points of mutual contact” whereby you can follow the progress of contact between the two vehicles as they move from initial contact, through rotation, into secondary contact and toward separation, with surprising detail.
The point to be made with this collision is that it was not miraculous that the drivers survived. It just happened to be circumstance and, oh yes, it happened because both drivers were wearing their seatbelts, as claimed.
The purpose our comments is not to disparage the notion that seatbelts save lives. This fact has been proven over and over and over again. Seatbelts save lives. They also reduce the severity of injuries. In almost all instances seatbelts are a benefit to all occupants of almost all vehicles. However the present collision shown in the OPP photos is not unique in demonstrating that seatbelts save lives. It is no different than the thousands of serious collisions that are reported each year. When this collision is used as a marketing ploy to generate seatbelt use it can backfire. When the police and news media use situations like these to push a certain agenda, well-intended as it may be, it creates doubts in those conspiracy theorists who have an intense need to detect anything that might be suspicious and those doubts are passed on through social media like a leap-frogging virus that listens to no reason. It is of utmost importance that police and news media report the facts, and the facts only, at times when the public expects just the facts. There can be occasions when editorialising and opinion can be used when it is properly advertised as such and it can be supported by objective fact. Police and news media have a special obligation, unlike other parties, to take care not to stray into the swamps of idle opinion because the reputations of these institutions are so important to the proper functioning of our society.
Roadway Surface Safety Problems Are Not Just Potholes
Influences of the road surface and geometry toward motor vehicle collisions are not easily detected. They are not restricted to the seemingly innocuous reference to “potholes” used in popular, public, news media. While the popular Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) “Worst Roads” campaign may be well-intentioned it leads to confusing the public about what is important to road motor vehicle safety.
Highway surface problems such as this one along Highway 402 are being documented in the Gorski Consulting “Road Data” available on this website.
For the past five years Gorski Consulting has been conducting road surface testing by examining how the road affects the motion of a test vehicle. The motions of the test vehicle are documented using a simple App on an iPhone. This data is then loaded into spreadsheets and posted on the Road Data page of this website.
In fact, with a few simple instructions, anyone can conduct similar testing with their own vehicle. Such activity would generate a large amount of data on the conditions of Ontario’s road. The Province of Ontario and its municipalities all conduct a variety of testing on the roads in their jurisdictions but all that data is held secret. Thus average citizens can only rely on the complaints of others, registered in subjective campaigns such as the CAA’s Worst Roads. The irony is that road surface conditions are a significant factor that lead to injury and death yet those affected by those conditions are not given even basic information that rates the safety of one road versus another. While the data collected by Gorski Consulting has some limitations it is objective. While the Road Data page contains only a small amount of the information that is collected, the public can easily contact us if they need more detailed data on any of the road segments that have been tested.
This spring Gorski Consulting has focused its attention on conducting testing along some of the expressways in southern Ontario. Testing has been completed along the follows highway segments:
-Highway 401 between Woodstock and Tilbury,
– Highway 402 between London and Strathroy,
– Highway 403 between Woodstock and Hamilton,
– and along the Lincoln Alexander and Red Hill Valley Parkway in Hamilton
The gathering of this data is time consuming because it is also accompanied by views from several video cameras that are attached to the test vehicle. Each video segment has to be “shrunk” in its detail so that all the videos can fit within a video-editting program without causing a crash of our computer. With the video segments being synchronized with the start of the iPhone App it is possible to visualize the specific point on the road where a certain disturbance was caused in the test vehicle’s motion.
It has been noticed that the surface of Highway 402 between London and Strathroy has become so deteriorated that there are significant problems (see the photo above) that could lead to a loss-of-control of a vehicle. It is not clear why the Ministry of Transportation has waited this long to deal with the problem. Not all these problem areas can be detected by the iPhone data because the wheels of the test vehicle do not always travel over the specific location of the problem. However the video documentation demonstrates where the problem areas lie and if the test vehicle has missed those targets.
It has also been observed that the Ministry of Transportation has opted to use a concrete surface in the new sections of Highway 401 that it is resurfacing between London and Tilbury. The concrete appears to provide a less-smooth feeling when driving over it. The iPhone data will provide a more objective indication of just how much more disturbance is generated in the motion of the test vehicle.
The purpose of conducting testing along the Red Hill Valley Parkway is because of the negative issues that have arisen there because of a technical report that became missing, and was subsequently found, indicating that the surface of RHVP was substandard. This has to do with the reported slipperiness of the surface and may be unrelated to the motion testing conducted by Gorski Consulting. Never-the-less, because the City of Hamilton will be re-surfacing the highway shortly, and because a class-action lawsuit has been filed against the City, it appeared relevant to conduct the motion testing so that it can be compared to the other data in the Road Data file.
Stay tuned as we hope to have some of our road data released shortly.
London Ontario Proposes 30 km/h Speeds in School Zones
Various persons and groups have resorted to a propaganda campaign portraying a direct relationship between travel speed and safety as the only issue of importance. In London, Ontario for example a local city councillor is petitioning for lowering City speed limits along certain road segments from 50 to 30 km/h because he read a City staff report that related vehicle travel speed to potential pedestrian injury.
The most common scenario is where the speed of vehicles in a school zone is related directly to the probability of injury or death. The saying often goes like this: A vehicle travelling at a speed of 40 km/h is likely to cause a certain probability of serious injury or death while the same vehicle travelling at 50 km/h is likely to cause an increase in that probability by some specific margin. Therefore, in order to create a safe school zone, all we have to do is reduce the speed limit from 50 to 40 km/h.
Many persons will recognize the fallacy in that logic but many also do not. It is the severity of the impact which dictates the consequences of a pedestrian impact, not the initial travel speed of the vehicle. Thus a vehicle travelling at 50 km/h may be braked before impact thus striking a pedestrian at 30 km/h. It should be obvious that the collision consequences would be much different if the same vehicle was travelling at 50 km/h and there was no braking, thus impacting the same pedestrian while still travelling at 50 km/h. Thus it is the “change-in-velocity” of the pedestrian’s body that dictates what injuries will be sustained, not the original travelling speed of the impacting vehicle. And there are other complicating factors in the relationship. The acceleration pulse is another. And the location of the application of the force on the pedestrian’s body is another.
As a further example, there can be a vast difference in the injury consequences to a pedestrian depending on the location of the head strike on the perimeter of the impacting vehicle. It has been known for decades that a head impact to the soft windshield or centre hood of a vehicle can result in less severe head injury than if the head impact is to a stiff portion of the vehicle such as one of the roof pillars or to the windshield header.
The photo below was recently submitted by the Peel Regional Police on their Twitter account, reportedly showing the damage caused by a pedestrian impact that occurred on May 13, 2019 at Winston Churchill Blvd and The Collegeway in Mississauga, Ontario. The damage at the bumper and hood regions does not match the description of a pedestrian impact and is more indicative of a cyclist, or something non-human, causing the lower-level damage. Never-the-less we can see the major impact to the windshield that would typically be caused by the “pedestrian’s” head. While it is difficult to discuss this result as beneficial as this “pedestrian” would likely have sustained life-threatening injuries, it is favourable to cause a head impact to the softer windshield than if the head impact occurred slightly to the right and against the stiff A-pillar. Thus examples like these demonstrate that the initial travel speed, and even the change-in-velocity of the pedestrian, often do not match the severity of injury because of the specific manner of contact that occurs.
In this example recently submitted by police reportedly indicating a serious pedestrian impact the damage at the hood and bumper levels is peculiar. Never-the-less, the head strike to the “softer” windshield is more beneficial to the pedestrian’s survival than if the impact was slightly to the right and against the stiff A-pillar.
Thus failure to inform the public of these complications amounts to providing erroneous information that does not result in any meaningful safety benefits.
Lowering speed limits is school zones to the unusual maximum of 30 km/h may cause a certain percentage of the driving public to reduce their speeds. But that percentage is likely the group that is already law-abiding and not the source of the problem. The group that is the source of the problem are those that are speeding, distracted and impaired, who have a history of disobeying speed limits, and who will continue to drive through a school zone at whatever speed they choose. Unless there is a substantial increase in police enforcement only a very small sample of these problem drivers will ever be captured and fined.
Various costly experiments have been conducted by municipal jurisdictions because travelling salesmen have approached them with ready-made solutions to school zone safety problems. An example of this occurred in the summer of 2017 when the City of London created reduced-speed zones of 40 km/h in various school zones and installed a series of in-road barriers as shown below.
View of one of the in-road barriers installed in a school zone in the hope that it would slow the speed of traffic in the newly reduced speed zone of 40 km/h..
One of the problems with these barriers is shown in the photo below. The barrier was placed at a curve in the road next to a bus stop. When a bus came to a stop at this location the lane was no longer wide enough for vehicles to pass because of the existence of the barrier. So vehicles began to steer into the opposing lane. However, because of the presence of the curve those drivers could not detect whether opposing traffic was coming. Fortunately the slow residential speeds did not cause any major collisions before the barriers were taken down. Yet the potential for a serious collision was induced by the erection of the barriers.
Authorities in London, Ontario placed this in-road barrier on a curve in the road, and next to a bus stop. When a wide bus stopped at this location it caused traffic to cross into the opposing lane in order to bi-pass the barrier.
To test the effectiveness of the new 40 km/h maximum speed limit and in-road barriers Gorski Consulting conducted a multi-video camera analysis in August of 2017. Cameras were set-up in the 100 metre zone approaching the zone of reduced speed and a second set of cameras was set-up through the 100-metre zone of reduced speed. The findings indicated that the average of vehicles in the 50 km/h approaching the reduced speed zone was 49.2 km/h whereas the average speed in the 40 km/h zone was 51.4 km/h. In other words, vehicles travelled faster in the zone of lower speed, where the in-road barriers were located, than in the 50 km/h zone approaching that zone. Clearly the expense of installing the in-road barriers and installing the new signage did nothing for reducing the speed of vehicles travelling through the zone of reduced speed. Yet significant time and money was expended, not just in the City of London, but in several other cities where the vendors of the in-road barrier product moved to sell their wares.
Regrettably, many persons are given the authority to make safety changes in school zones by arbitrarily reducing posted speeds yet they have very little understanding that the environmental characteristics around the school zone may have a greater effect on pedestrian safety than the travel speed of vehicles. Without any training or experience with previous incidents, or how drivers and pedestrians perform, or what are the typical or extreme limitations of motor vehicles, these persons allow dangerous scenarios to continue to exist regardless of changes in posted speed limits.
Posted Speed, Operating Speed and Speed Enforcement
While maximum speeds are posted along almost all roads and highways in Ontario that has little to do with the operating speed, which is the average speed that vehicles are observed to travel. Speed enforcement is the police function of controlling the speed of vehicles so that the operating speed is closer to the posted maximum. In reality the operating speed is never as low as the speed limit and it varies from one road to another. Perhaps the greatest difference between maximum posted speed and operating speed occurs on Highway 401 where the operating speed is often close to 20 km/h higher than the maximum posted speed.
The mix of higher-speed cars and light trucks, and the much slower heavy trucks with governed maximum speeds, means that more traffic conflicts occur on the 400 series of highways in Ontario. This is a safety problem that has been created by Provincial legislation.
Recently the Ontario government decided to increase maximum, posted, speed limits along three sections of 400-series expressways from 100 to 110 km/h. The segments include a portion of Hwy 417 near Ottawa, a segment of the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) between Hamilton and St Catharines, and Hwy 402 between London and Sarnia. Many safety advocates have expressed concerns that increased speed limits result in higher incidence of death and injury.
It is difficult to argue with the statement that speed kills. If the speed of all traffic was reduced to 15 km/h our fatality and injury rates might be near zero. Yet, we would not get anywhere, there would be massive traffic jams and our society would break down. So there is an alternative argument that higher speeds should be maintained as these can provide the optimum between safety and efficiency. It is not clear to everyone as to where that optimum lies.
What is known, but not discussed, is that Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation collects very detailed data about traffic volumes and compositions along the 400 series highways in the Province. Magnetic coils imbedded in the traffic lanes are located between every interchange and these provide information such as the speed, type of vehicle and gap between vehicles passing through the sensors. The location of these traffic counters can be detected by noting a junction box attached to a small post situated on the grassy ditch next to the magnetic sensors.
Typical junction box along side of Hwy 401 at traffic counting station.
As it is possible to collect data 24 hours a day and 7 days a week it is likely that the Province maintains astronomic volumes of data on the characteristics of traffic in those areas where traffic counters exist. Thus the Province should be fully aware that operating speeds on the 400 series of highways are often much higher than the increased speed limit of 110 km/h that is being proposed. They should also be aware that changes in the posted maximum speed has little to do with what speed drivers will select. The obvious example is the current 100 km/h posted speed yet the operating speed of light vehicles often approaches 120 km/h.
The factor that likely has a dramatic change in operating speeds is the extent of police enforcement. Yet it takes additional money to provide that enforcement. It does not take much imagination to observe that the current Ford Government has been slashing spending in every direction and why the maximum posted speed increase is being instituted. With the higher posted speed it is a way of requiring less police enforcement. If the operating speed on the three segments of highway of higher speeds does not increase by 10 km/h then there could be less need for police enforcement and therefore a reduction in policing costs. This is likely why the pilot projects have been introduced, likely to study driver behavior, as well as injury and death rates.
It still remains a hidden secret that police have difficulty enforcing speed limits on the 400 series of highways where traffic volumes are very high and it is difficult, and dangerous, to pull over a speeding driver in the vicinity of these high speeds and volumes. Traffic stops are not a solution often because many segments of highway do not provide a roadside where a traffic stop can occur in a safe manner.
The “Move Over” law is not a solution because in many instances large trucks can block the view of drivers such that a traffic stop may not be visible to approaching drivers. Delayed detection of a traffic stop means that drivers have a reduced time and distance to check their mirrors and conduct a lane change. Sudden brake applications cause further problems when drivers who have not detected the traffic stop are not expecting the braking and various conflicts are initiated. In many instances it can be safer for drivers to remain in their lanes and continue to travel at a constant speed past a police traffic stop. It is the very lane changes and speed changes that are being required by the Move Over law that could be making it more dangerous for those stopped on the roadside.
Ultimately some form of automated speed enforcement similar to photo radar must be implemented if there is any reasonable hope that operating speeds can be reduced to come closer to posted speeds. This can be complicated because some of the most dangerous situations occur when overall speeds are reduced due to road construction, previous collisions, weather, and rush hour traffic jams. In those instances the average speed of vehicles may be well below the maximum, yet a few drivers will travel at a reckless speed that may be at or below the speed limit. The present limits of photo radar cannot capture these drivers yet they may be more dangerous than those who travel 20 km/h over the speed limit but only 10 km/h faster than the traffic around them.
In summary, in many instances safety does degenerate simply because of increased travel speeds. Yes, it is a factor, but of greater importance is the difference in travel speed that occurs when drivers drive exceptionally slower or faster than others around them.
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