Fatal Impact of Unprotected Overpass Pillar on Hwy 402 Near Glendon Drive
With a 2016 traffic volume of 21800 vehicles, why was the overpass pillar on Highway 402 at Glendon Drive not protected by a barrier when its impact resulted in a fatality earlier this morning?
It is being reported that at approximately 0200 hours this morning an eastbound SUV struck the “overpass” at Glendon Drive. While no other details are presently available a quick glance at the site using GoogleMaps shows the two views shown below.
Eastbound view on Highway 402 approaching the Glendon Drive overpass.
Whether by barrels or guardrail or any other device, why were the concrete pillars of this Glendon Drive overpass left unprotected on Highway 402?
Clearly the concrete pillars of the Glendon Drive overpass are not protected from impact by wayward vehicles. It remains to be seen whether the fatal collision that occurred earlier this morning involved an impact to one of these pillars. But even if this did not happen, why are these pillars not protected by Fitch barrels, guardrail or any similar device?
Gentlemen, Start Your Computers!
Will your computer car become a thief?
The unnerving reality is that your new car is a computer on wheels. Do you have anti-virus protection?
A March 7, 2019 article by Jim Motavalli of the New York Times entitled “Locking More Than the Doors as Cars Become Computers on Wheels”, gives us an insight of what is now, and what is likely to come in the near future with automotive information systems and computers. One of the points made in the article is that an average car has over 250 million lines of computer code. It also informs that it is estimated that, in 2018, 330 million vehicles vehicles were connected to the internet and that number is likely to jump to 775 million by the year 2023. In 2015 a hacker was able to build a device for under $100 that could take control of any General Motors car using its OnStar communications system.
Automakers have been working hard at improving their cybersecurity but nothing is foolproof. As we advance forward cars will begin to communicate with each other and also with infrastructure existing along roadways. As these systems become more complicated the opportunity for problems to occur is increased. In the future of autonomous vehicles what has not been emphasized is that removing a human driver opens a pandora’s box with new challenges in determining how the vehicle functioned and whether it functioned as it should. The typical automotive technician will have no idea as those details will be within the propitiatory computers and modules of the manufacturers.
Yet, there are solutions.
For short range travel a simple device called a bicycle might help. Many alternatives to the typical bicycle can be incorporated including hybrid bikes that use small engines to increase travel distances and offer help to less athletic riders who are challenged by active transportation. It is not clear whether bicycles will also be required to be computerized in the future so as to communicate with cars, but nothing is on the horizon, yet.
In the meantime drivers need to consider how they will protect their privacy and personal identification in this wild west of evolving technology.
Do we Move On, Until the Next Highway 401 Fatality, No Better Informed?
A fire and two collisions, one involving a fatality, that occurred on Highway 401 near Chatham, Ontario on March 4, 2019, have now been given some scant publicity by local news agencies. The Chatham Daily News newspaper has been the most prominent and the London Free Press has also made mention of these incidents. But essentially nothing has been reported by the CTV News which informs a large sector of the public through its TV coverage throughout Canada.
A photo provided by the OPP shows the aftermath of a fatal rear end collision on Highway 401 west of Victoria Road on March 4, 2019.
Despite these mentions in the news media nothing of substance has been learned. Certainly the public knows that a truck caught fire somewhere east of Chatham. This prompted a shut down of the busy Highway 401. This eventually led to two collisions, one of them resulting in a fatality. That is about the extent of what is known.
It is important to examine why two major collisions occurred on Highway 401 after it was closed due to the truck fire. The information provided by police during this, and many previous similar incidents, is that drivers were not paying attention and this led to the two collisions. But no evidence was provided to support that conclusion. Someone may have discovered that a cell phone was being used in one of the vehicles, or something else that is specific. But we do not know. Very often investigators will simply make the observation that traffic ahead had stopped and, because the road is flat, and environmental conditions were reasonably good, drivers should have been able to see the traffic ahead. That could be the extent of the evidence. Reviews of past investigations have shown that this lack of depth in understanding and analysis is not uncommon.
A vast number of police officers do not have an in-depth education in human behaviour. So it is not uncommon for them to draw conclusions that appear to them to be common sense. Yet how and why humans perform like they do is far more complicated. What may appear to be common sense to the untrained investigator may be far from reality. This is vitally important because, in recent times, police are the only ones who gather the collision evidence and report their conclusions to the news media. There is no independent checking and balancing to make certain that whatever the police do or say is correct and accurate. Whenever we rely on a sole entity to perform a function without accountability, regardless of what it involves, our society suffers from that unhealthy monopoly. That fact has been proven many times over through history.
In fact there is a vast amount of research that has been carried out that could be helpful to investigators in determining whether a driver performed inappropriately or was simply performing in a way most humans do. But the proper application of those research findings requires that the collision be documented thoroughly for those factors that are important in the assessment. When an investigator is not properly trained he/she will not know what those important factors are that need to be considered.
Based on the limited facts, a truck caught fire around 1100 hours. This truck as located in the eastbound lanes of Highway 401, somewhere near Orford Road. Then, at approximately 1430 hours a fatal, rear-end collision occurred between two trucks, somewhere west of Victoria Road. There are interchanges at both Victoria and Orford Roads but no interchange between them. The distance between this two interchanges is about 7.5 kilometres as shown in the GoogleMaps image below.
A truck fire at 1100 hours at Orford Rd (Upper right) was followed by a fatal rear-end collision at 1430 hours at Victoria Rd (Lower left).
It would stand to reason that, if the eastbound lanes of the highway were closed, eastbound traffic would be diverted from the highway at the Victoria Road exit and this is near to where the fatal collision occurred.
The problem with such closures is that they are often not well announced with respect to signage and other warnings. Drivers are used to being informed for several kilometres ahead before such closures because a high percentage of such closures occur due to road construction which is planned for many months in advance. It is not uncommon to see signs of upcoming lane or highway closures for at least 5 kilometres in advance, or further. But when an unplanned incident such as a fire or collision require shutting down of the highway there is often not enough time or resources to place warnings like is done for pre-planned construction. When drivers see warnings well in advance of road or lane closures this develops an expectation that these warnings will exist whenever such closures occur. When those warnings unexpectedly do not exist a driver’s expectations are violated and a collision may occur.
Driver expectation is one of the key elements in road safety that need to be understood. As discussed in a detailed text by Dewar & Olson, 2007, entitled “Human Factors in Traffic Safety”:
“The term (Expectancy) refers to a predisposition on the part of persons to believe that things will be configured or happen in a certain way. Drivers operate with a set of expectancies. For example, freeway exits will be on the right side of the roadway…advance warning will be given of hazards on the road, and other drivers will obey traffic rules. If these expectations are violated there is an increase in driver perception-response time, more driver errors and increased potential for an accident. Therefore, information from traffic control devices, the roadway environment, and so on must be provided when and where it is expected. Advance warning signs, as one example, are intended to create in the driver the expectancy of a potential hazard on the road ahead.”
Police investigators also need to understand how typical drivers drive along Highway 401. Studies by Gorski Consulting in the fall of 2018 showed that, out of 532 vehicles observed travelling in the right lane, the average time gap between the rear of one vehicle and the front of a following one was about 6.3 seconds. However, in 98 instances, or about 18.4 percent, the time gap was less than 2 seconds. Many persons would comment that such “tailgating” is performed by the drivers of heavy trucks. However in our studies 58 of the 98 tailgaters, or over 59%, were drivers of light duty vehicles like passenger cars, SUVs, Pick-up trucks and vans. While police may say that this tailgating is a sign of drivers’ lack of judgment such comments are often made because there is a lack of knowledge about how traffic volumes relate to following distances.
For example, traffic volume data from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation show that, in the road segment between Orford and Victoria Roads, the volume (AADT) of traffic in 1988 was 15,100 vehicles. By the year 2016 that volume had risen to 23,000, or a 52% increase. This increased traffic volume can only mean that, at any local point, the number of vehicles has increased resulting in a lowing of the time gap between those vehicles.
At the same time the Ontario government instituted a law causing the limiting of maximum speeds of heavy trucks to about 105 km/h. It was believed that this would improve traffic safety. Yet no such governing occurred for light vehicles. The result is that, while today’s heavy trucks are travelling close to the maximum of 105 km/h, the rest of the traffic is travelling much faster. Data from our studies indicate average speeds of light duty vehicles in the median lane are in the range of 116 to 119 km/h. This leads to conflicts where the faster-moving, smaller vehicles attempt to pass the slower-moving, heavy trucks. During those conflicts the time gaps between the vehicles is greatly reduced. Studies by Gorski Consulting also show that heavy trucks have a propensity to wander and veer out of their travel lanes because of their wider width but also because environmental conditions such as wind have a greater effect on the large areas of truck trailers. Combined with the fact that drivers of heavy trucks have poor visibility of smaller vehicles around them it means that truck drivers must pay particular attention to their mirrors and lane position rather than to the road ahead.
These are just some of the facts that need to be considered, but the issue is even more complicated than that. This is why it requires some detailed knowledge and training to study collisions on Highway 401. Not only to make proper decisions about who was at fault but in identifying the root causes of collisions and how those factors might be changed.
A lack of publicity and information about crashes and other incidents such as what occurred on March 4th does not help to improve the situation. When the public remain uninformed of the important issues that may lead to their death they cannot apply the proper pressure to the system to make corrections. Indeed the direct opposite occurs. Without sufficient information members of the public make judgments and conclusions based on whatever scant information is available. They apply pressure to make adjustments to the roadway system that is not based on scientific fact. This could actually degrade safety rather than improve it. Yet there is nothing inherently important about maintaining the level of secrecy that currently exists other than to protect Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation from being found liable for deficiencies that may become publicly known.
The Godfather Returns?
The new government has been sworn in.
Why is it that we have this feeling about current politics of not waking up from some nightmare where the family of Don Vito Corleone has taken over?
What is a Poor, Bumpy or Rough Road?
“Roll-Up-The-Rim” has a different meaning when, every spring, Ontario drivers pay thousands of dollars to replace rims damaged from striking roadway “potholes”. The meaning conveyed to the public is that this is some kind of God-sent, but innocuous, plague that we can only curse at when we are the lucky ones who hit the jackpot. The reality is not so cute.
Those potholes occur when road surfaces are beyond the threshold of minor repair. They are not just isolated dots in an otherwise safe and smooth road surface. They are comparable to a World War II minefield in which we play: rarely do we blow up, but when we do it can be deadly. The deadly aspect of road surface problems, where you could be the unlucky “Roll-Up-The-Rim” winner, is simply not discussed.
But what can you do when your vehicle is damaged from a road surface problem? Many drivers cannot file a claim with their insurance company because that could lead to an increase in their premiums. They might also chose to file a claim with the municipality that is responsible for the road’s maintenance. But Risk Management departments of municipalities are not isolated bodies living in a cave. Risk Managers talk among themselves and know precisely what has been successful in past incidents and in other localities. Their procedures are fine-tuned so that denial of a claim is most likely to wear down most claimants. Often the erection of a “Bump Ahead” or “Rough Road” sign is all that is necessary to deny the claim even though a driver may not be given any useful information from such signs to distinguish a minor surface problem from a damaging one.
This (Sunningdale Road) is a rough road, as the sign says. But how rough? Is it safe for 40 or 70 km/h? Does if make a difference if it is nighttime or the surface is wet or snow-covered?
The Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) has developed a well-publicized campaign to allow drivers to vent their frustrations by electing roadways with the prized “Worst Road” designation in Ontario. The program requires drivers to submit their complaints to the CAA which then tallies up which roads received the most. Then the road with the most complaints receives the Worst Road designation. This would work well if the number of complaints could reliably differentiate between a bad road in Ottawa from one in Windsor. But subjective comments from participants with unknown intentions or hidden motives is simply a bad way to decide which roads should be fixed while others remain unfixed.
Yet there is a simple way to obtain a scientifically reliable description of the quality and safety of a road surface. By simply using the spying features of a smart phone. Almost everyone carries a smart phone yet few are particularly concerned that these sensing and tracking devices can detect every detail about the user’s actions and where they are located. As an example, the Apple Iphone senses every minute detail about its motion and location in the guise that this data is needed by computer gamers who often communicate their scores over the internet. It does not take much imagination to conceive how such data can also be used to track what a person is doing just from the motions of the Iphone that are detected when it is located on the user’s body. Data can differentiate whether the user is walking, running or travelling in a vehicle.
Those abilities to illegally snoop on everyone’s private actions can be turned into a useful asset. The detailed motions of a person that are sensed by the Iphone can also be used to detect the motions of a vehicle as the principle is exactly the same. Details about the position of the Iphone within the axes of space (x,y,z) can be a direct descriptor of a vehicle’s position when the Iphone is attached, with reasonable security, to the body of the vehicle. Since the Iphone also detects the rate of change in its angle this also provides a very useful descriptor of the rate of change in the motion of a vehicle, and this is where the road surface comes in. By knowing the rate at which the vehicle angle changes we can know how the qualities of a road surface have caused a vehicle to be “bumped around” in space as it travels along a roadway.
At Gorski Consulting we have chosen to use the rate of change in the lateral and longitudinal motions of a vehicle to describe what the road surface must be like in order to produce those reactions. Given that a cyclical motion can provide angles that are either negative or positive it was decided to take the standard deviation of those data as a way of describing the magnitude of that motion regardless of its direction. Through our testing on a variety of roads in South-Western Ontario we have developed a set of guidelines for the interpretation of the data. The rate of rotation of the vehicle is expressed in radians per second. One radian is equal to 57.3 degrees. We have observed that the following descriptions apply for the following, data ranges:
Below 0.0200 radians per second = A good, smooth road surface,
0.0200 to 0.0500 radians per second = A range of relatively good surface at the low end and approaching a poor surface at the high end,
Above 0.0500 radians per second = A poor road surface that may be a safety risk depending on the type of vehicle and the existing environmental factors.
These guidelines are for situations where a vehicle is travelling at a typical speed for the road in question and the data are an average over time of at least 20 seconds. As an example, at a highway speed of 80 km/h a vehicle travels about 22.2 metres every second. So a travel time of 20 seconds would result in a travel distance of about 444 metres, or almost a half a kilometre. The purpose of using such longer distances is so that the judged quality of the road surface is not dominated by an isolated defect on an otherwise, good-quality road. Although the data is reported for such longer distances it can be appreciated that the raw data is always in its original form and any shorter or longer segments can be selected to a user’s preference. Descriptors for shorter distances may be preferred for those instances where an analyst is examining a specific road feature.
As an example, the standard deviation of a lateral rate of rotation of 0.0500 radians per second would be equal to a rotation of 2.9 degrees per second. This means that the vehicle’s body could be moving up or down, alternating on each side, in a cyclical fashion such that the speed of that lateral rotation results in a change of lateral angle of 2.9 degrees every second.
The type of surface that would produce that type of lateral motion has been found on Sunningdale Road between Highbury Ave and Clarke Road in the north-eastern outskirts of the City of London, Ontario. This road segment of about 2.5 kilometres long and has a posted maximum speed of 80 km/h. A large amount of testing has been done at this site at speeds ranging between 40 and 90 km/h. A number of articles have been uploaded to the Gorski Consulting website in 2014 and 2015.
This view of Sunningdale Road taken in February, 2011, shows one of the many depressions in the surface that resulted in excessive motion of the test vehicle.
While these discussions may appear to be detailed, the procedure to obtain reliable, scientific data that identifies the character of a road surface is not that complicated. Usually an app is purchased at a nominal price that allows access to the Iphone data. A location in the test vehicle is found which is preferably in the centre and at a low vertical level. The Iphone needs to be attached securely to the vehicle body and that can often be accomplished with Velcro tape. A button is pressed in the app which starts the recording and the same button is used to stop. The recorded file is then sent in an e-mail to the user’s office computer. At the office the file is transferred to an Excel spreadsheet where changes are made to remove unneeded data while making changes to the format so that it can be easily displayed in Excel charts. Finding the columns containing the “X rate of Rotation” and the “Y rate of Rotation” data is straightforward as the titles will be displayed at the top of each column. Excel proves a variety of formulas that allow a selection of a subset of the recording and display of statistics such as standard deviations.
At Gorski Consulting the capture of the Iphone data is also accompanied by the use of multiple video cameras. The instrument panel cluster is videotaped to document the vehicle speed and the value of other instruments. A camera may be positioned at the brake/accelerator pedals. A large protractor is often attached to the steering wheel and a video camera documents the steering inputs. Views of the underside of the test vehicle may display the motions of the vehicle suspension. External views of the roadway enable a visual record of the surface conditions that resulting in the Iphone data.
None of these videotaping procedures are essential to the average person unless there is a need to demonstrate how the data was captured for official purposes such as potential civil or criminal litigation. Whatever data is captured can be compared to what is uploaded in the Road Data page of the Gorski Consulting website and we would be pleased to cooperate with such ventures if asked. Up to now a single test vehicle (2007 Buick Allure) has been used in gathering the data. Some maintenance procedures such as the replacement of all the struts had to be made to make sure the aging of the test vehicle did not produce confounds in the data.
In the end, the objective data that is obtained via a smart phone in a test vehicle can be a reliable way of comparing the severity of problems with one road surface versus another. The utility of the procedure is in the fact that almost everyone carries a smart phone and no special equipment needs to be purchased to obtain the road data. Similarly, any roadworthy motor vehicle can be used in the testing although consideration needs to be given to how the data might change if the vehicle characteristics are largely variant. Thus a passenger car with a cruising-type of suspension may provide different data from a sports car with a tight suspension and possible low-profile tires. Obviously a truck test vehicle is likely to produce different data from a passenger car. A car with small diameter rims may produce different data than one with large rims. And so on.
For collision reconstruction experts procedures like these can be used to compare the data that may be captured in an Event Data Recorder (“Black Box”). The newer vehicles are often equipped with modules that may capture the tri-axial accelerations as well as the vehicle motions. As these data are generated from proprietary sensors and algorithms it is not always possible to understand how the EDR data was generated even when general descriptors are provided. Using an independent method of capturing data while travelling over the same collision site may provide additional insights into the meaning of the EDR data. This is particularly so with the use of the additional equipment such as the multiple video cameras and steering wheel protractor.
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