Worst Roads Season – Evaluation Fails to Use Objective Facts
Every year a province-wide evaluation of road problems is publicized based on subjective complaints. Why does the evaluation not use objective data instead?
An example of road surface problems on Wonderland Road near London, Ontario where Gorski Consulting conducted testing to determine the extent of the problem.
Every year the official news agencies publicize the results of a Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) “Worst Roads Campaign”. The custom asks citizens to report complaints to the CAA about roadways that, in their opinion, are the worst in their area. The CAA complies the data and the news agencies publicize it. The claimed benefit is that this process applies pressure on various politicians and road agencies to repair the roads and keep them safe. The problem with this campaign is its subjective basis. It means that, if enough persons in a specific locality complain about a specific road then it will be advertised as the worst road, regardless of whether it is the worst road. In fact, there is no indication that the CAA actually follows up with the complaints and conducts some form of objective testing to confirm whether the complaints are legitimate. One could see it theoretically possible for a group of “conspirators” to flood the program with complaints, simply for the fun of it. While such a action could seem amusing it could have real consequences.
Road repairs must be prioritized based on standardized procedures. Prioritization looks at the severity of the road deficiencies as well as the frequency of usage of the road. As an example, a safety problem on a high speed freeway like Highway 401, that could experience a 100,000 vehicles a day, would be prioritized for repair quicker than if that same problem was observed on a local, rural lane than experiences minimal traffic. When public campaigns interfere with that scientific process of prioritization bad things can happen that could affect the public’s safety.
Yet there is a simple correction that could be made to the CAA’s Worst Roads Campaign. Citizens could continue to make their complaints however, after those complaints are tallied objective testing could be conducted to determine if the top 3 or 5 roads merit the label of Worst Roads. While the CAA may believe that they do not have the ability to conduct such testing, there are simple remedies available.
For the past 5 to 6 years Gorski Consulting has maintained and updated a “Road Data” system on the Gorski Consulting website. This road data is gathered using a test vehicle that is driven along a road and the motion of the vehicle is sensed using the sensors of an iPhone. While one might think that a “cell phone” cannot be very accurate or reliable, that is not true. The iPhone is used around the world and its sensors must be capable of reliable operation with various gaming, computer programs. The test of their reliability is in the success with which such gaming activities are conducted without complaint or competition from other manufacturers. The iPhone is able to sense the tri-axial acceleration of the unit as well as its motion is space. This means that when the iPhone is attached securely to a test vehicle it will also sense the acceleration and motion of the test vehicle. This is the basis of the Gorski Consulting Road Data. Multiple video cameras are also attached to the test vehicle when the testing is performed so that very specific information is stored about the qualities of the road, not just the numerical data.
The iPhone is capable of sensing and storing a vast amount of data from a surprising number of parameters. Whenever it is used in a test vehicle all this data becomes stored and then sent to a spreadsheet. Yet it would be impractical to display all these mountains of data in the Road Data file. Thus Gorski Consulting has chosen to display the values from just one parameter in the Road Data file. That parameter indicates the rate of change in the vehicle’s longitudinal and lateral motion. In simple terms the test results indicate how much the test vehicle is “bounced around” as it proceeds along a road segment. While the remainder of the stored data is not reported it is available at Gorski Consulting should someone have a wish to study it. The data that presently exists in the Road Data file can be used as a comparison to the data obtained from any future testing.
Thus a testing procedure like the one conducted by Gorski Consulting could provide the objective facts to either support the subjective complaints of citizens or deny them. This could provide the legitimacy to the CAA Worst Roads Campaign. Without such objective facts a program based on subjective complaints can be of limited benefit while also being potentially harmful to road users.
Cycling Safety Top Priority In London Disagreements
Much like many North American cities London, Ontario is dealing with a transition from single-unit, automotive priority to mass transit and “active transportation”. The past one hundred years has seen the birth of the North American road network based on relatively uninhabited territories that existed over long/wide distances, new advancements in mechanization and mass production of automotive units operated on a vast supply of cheap fuel and a lack of concern for efficiency and environmental consequences. That period has been slowly evolving due to changes in all these factors.
Urban cycling should not be a life and death decision.
Mass transit and active transportation are seen as the future methods of transport. Yet, due to the quick evolution of the digital age, there is a parallel development of inter-connectivity and artificial intelligence that will revolutionize transportation as well as all of what we do. In the present and near future it becomes difficult to plan for what is upcoming because no one has a good grasp of how rapidly-evolving new technology will affect us and what path we will eventually follow.
The City of London Ontario provides an example of this struggle with prolonged debates over the planned development of a bus rapid transit system while also dealing with the need for increased infrastructure of active transportation.
Within the narrow issue of providing an efficient and safe environment for those wishing to use a bicycle, there has been much concern over how future paths for that motion will be developed. To date there has been a patchwork of incomplete paths that either follow the lines of previous roadways, or move along natural areas such as the forked Thames River. Whichever path system is considered, one can only observe that it is patched, incomplete and therefore substantially inefficient.
While all these upheavals continue, the most compelling matter has to be the safety of cyclists. Primarily this must mean keeping cyclists separate from larger cars and trucks but also ensuring that the paths of motion are sufficiently signed, maintained and designed so that cyclists are not involved in single cycle crashes or crashes with pedestrians or other cycles.
Sudden changes in direction and vertical slope at blind corners are not safe on highways and there are standards for that. Why are such designs deemed acceptable on paths carrying bicycles and pedestrians?
The signage, maintenance and design are of lesser expense and more easily rectified. Yet, in the City of London, there still remains a medieval understanding that cycling involves small tricycles being ridden by children in the vicinity of a household like it did before the 1960s. It has been more than 50 years ago, since the Arab oil crisis of the 1970s, that those children have jumped off their tricycles and onto their ten speeds and eventually discovered modern cycling. Cycling speeds and travel distances have increased such that they provide true competition to motorized vehicles in urban transport. In fact the grand tours of European racing have recently demonstrated that is it very feasible to develop cycles that are hybrids, with “engines” hidden in small crevices that make them semi-motorized and could become helpful to the mobility-challenged population of the future. It is time therefore to revisit the tricycle mentality and produce proper signage, maintenance and design that is current with the times.
OPP Make Correction To Erred Conclusions
In a news item published on December 27, 2018, Gorski Consulting questioned the OPP conclusions with respect to a fatal collision that occurred on Southminster Bourne Road. Those conclusions have now been corrected.
Southminster Bourne Road is located just south-west of London, Ontario. It was reported that on December 24, 2018 a pick-up truck travelling around a left-curve went out of control and struck a “bridge barrier”. The driver of the vehicle was reported to sustain fatal injuries. Gorski Consulting examined the site on December 27th. From that examination it was revealed that the vehicle made initial contact with a guardrail which caused the majority of the harm. A subsequent impact with a bridge railing was of minimal consequence. Given that the counter-clockwise rotation of the vehicle would have exposed the right front occupant to the greatest harm, we could not agree with the initial police conclusions that the deceased was the driver of the vehicle.
View of the collision site where the pick-up struck a guardrail and bridge railing. The obvious sign that the vehicle entered into a counter-clockwise rotation is in the visible “yaw” marks on the pavement leading to the guardrail impact on the opposite side of the road in the background.
The guardrail was struck just before the vehicle reached the bridge. The rail was displaced as it is designed to do.
View of the metal bridge railing where the rear of the rotating vehicle made contact after its initial contact with the guardrail.
In a subsequent statement released by the official media on February 21st, 2019, it was revealed that the police had changed their opinion. They believe that another individual was the driver and that person has been charged with dangerous driving causing death, operating a motor vehicle while impaired by alcohol and impaired operation of a motor vehicle causing death.
Although Gorski Consulting cannot confirm or deny whether the newly-identified person was the driver, the altered opinion that the deceased was not the driver is satisfactory based on the physical evidence that was available.
Example of a Relatively Safe Police Traffic Stop
Police traffic stops near busy or high speed roadways are a genuine danger. Mainly to the officer, but also to all traffic in the vicinity. A “Move Over” law has been enacted in Ontario that is an attempt to make such stops safer. Unfortunately new dangers are created when vehicles move over and slow down on the approach to a stopped police cruiser. There has always been a need to study these incidents and improve them.
A recent photo shown on an OPP Twitter account showed a reasonably safe instance, as shown below.
This example of an OPP traffic stop is about as safe as can be. But such stops can never be viewed as sufficiently safe.
There are several features in the photo that merit mention. Firstly, the van that was stopped moved over substantially to the right such that there is almost a full vehicle width between its driver’s side and the painted, white edge line of the road. Such lateral clearance from moving traffic is always desirable for obvious reasons.
Next, the OPP officer’s vehicle is an SUV and the large mass of this vehicle makes it better “blocking vehicle” than a typical police cruiser. The officer has also done the proper action of placing his SUV closer to the edge line than the stopped vehicle. This is an important safety issue because, as can be seen from where he is standing, he body is protected, to some degree, from potential passing vehicles that might veer toward him.
The faster that vehicles travel the more difficult it is for them to change their lateral position and angle in a given distance. Thus the police officer was correct in placing his SUV rather close to the back of the stopped vehicle because this will lessen the opportunity for faster-moving vehicles to penetrate, laterally into where he is standing. If he had placed his vehicle further back then there would be more opportunity for such faster vehicles to move laterally into where his is standing.
There would have been some advantage gained however if he had placed his SUV further back. This is because, if the SUV was struck, it would require that the SUV be pushed a longer distance before reaching the officer’s location. During that post-impact travel distance the SUV would be slowing down and, if the officer was struck by the SUV, the impact would generally be less severe. So there are trade offs to be considered.
By placing the SUV closer to the rear end of the stopped vehicle there is an advantage in that, if the SUV is struck, it will have less chance to rotate and miss contact with the vehicle ahead. It is important to recognize that, by striking the vehicle ahead the SUV loses its post-impact speed. This results in a lessening of the impact severity should the officer by struck by that SUV. In a sense it is adding additional mass to the blocking effect of the SUV and thus helps in protecting the officer when an impact occurs with the vehicle ahead.
In many instances when the two stopped vehicles are positioned as they are, there is a benefit gained when the impact force is not applied directly at the centre-of-gravity of each vehicle. This benefit is in creating rotation of each vehicle and this rotation helps in reducing the post-impact speed of each vehicle when the wheels of each vehicle have a “sliding sideways” component. If the wheels each vehicle are simply rolling forward that “rolling resistance” is very small and there is often very little slowing of the vehicles post-impact. So this non-central impact to each vehicle is another safety benefit. So it is important for the officer to have positioned the SUV at the offset position that he did with respect to the vehicle ahead.
Looking at the composition of the traffic in the lanes, it is obvious that this is an arterial roadway and not a high speed freeway. While some arterial roads may have posted speeds of 80 km/h, most have lower posted speeds. So this is an advantage. If this had been a high-speed freeway then the danger to the officer would be exponentially higher.
Furthermore, looking at the composition of the traffic one can see that it is made of passenger cars and LTVs (i.e. Light Trucks and Vans). That is a safety benefit. Generally the vehicle that might strike the police SUV would be of a similar mass and that makes a huge difference in the post-impact results in terms of the post-impact speeds of the SUV and the other stopped vehicle.
The lack of any heavy trucks in this view is of great benefit, not only because of the mass issue, but also because of the visibility blockage that occurs whenever large trucks are in the vicinity. The driver of a passenger car or LTV who is travelling in regular traffic conditions is often positioned too close to the rear of heavy truck and that driver’s vision is greatly reduced with respect to events that may be occurring or existing ahead. In some unfortunate incidents the drivers of such vehicles change lanes to the right without realizing that a police vehicle is stopped in that right lane resulting is potential deadly consequences. Similar issues arise when the driver of such a smaller vehicle is positioned adjacent to the large truck in the lane beside them. When there is a high percentage of heavy trucks on the road they can be bunched together and create and effective visibility wall preventing the driver of any smaller vehicle from seeing anything beyond that wall. Overall, visibility obstruction is a major issue whenever smaller vehicles are mixed with heavy trucks.
For many previous years there were major concerns with respect to the safety of police officers when their vehicles have been struck while stopped along major roads and highways. When police cruisers were primarily of the Ford Crown Victoria type there were many incidents of a rear-ended police cruiser catching fire as the gas tank was ruptured. Installation of protective bladders and other adjustments reduced those occurrences. However it is difficult to protect any passenger car occupant while it is stopped and struck by a heavy truck travelling at highway speed.
Ultimately a police traffic stop next to a high speed highway or freeway is never a safe situation in the scenarios that presently exist. Some safety benefit can be obtained by making every effort to position stopped vehicles as far away from the through traffic lanes. Unfortunately that is not always possible as police sometimes must place a cruiser in a live lane, for example, to protect persons that may be in that lane from a previous collision. Whether it is a struck pedestrian or a person trapped in a heavily damaged vehicle, there are instances where police cannot move persons off the travel lane into a safer location. In the early moments when through traffic has not built up to a stop or crawl the situation can be very dangerous. Lights and sirens may not be sufficient. As mentioned earlier, in the vicinity of heavy trucks visibility can be blocked. Sirens may be difficult to hear in the noisy realm of a busy highway.
It needs to be recognized that the danger posed to officers at a traffic stop are great. More education and publicity focused on the general public’s appreciation of the dangers may be of some assistance. However police also need to be properly trained and understand those potential dangers. When those dangers are too high they must consider aborting such a stoppage or make quick adjustments to the scenario to create a safer situation. The lives of those officers depend on an informed knowledge about the unique circumstances that each scenario may present.
Changes To SIU Forthcoming
News media have indicated that changes to Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) will be announced this week. The Ford conservative government stopped earlier Liberal legislation that would have improved the functioning of the SIU. That earlier legislation was in response to the detailed Tulloch Report in the spring of 2017. Justice Tulloch was a member of Ontario’s Court of Appeal and his recommendations for change were deep and broad. It remains to be seen what new changes will be made by the Ford government and whether it will follow the Tulloch recommendations.
A recent visit by Gorski Consulting to the SIU website has demonstrated that a large improvement has been made with respect to its transparency. That is hardly a compliment as any change could only be better than the secretive functioning of the past. However, the major, improved difference is the public availability of the Director’s full report. Such a report contains the details of the SIU investigation such a photographs, measurements and diagrams. Previously no details of an investigation were ever made public, just a summary of the SIU’s conclusions.
The public availability of the Director’s report means that any independent party, such as Gorski Consulting, can examine the details of an investigation and a public comment or rebuttal can be made thus providing an additional input that the public can consider. While there are many aspects to the SIU investigations that are praiseworthy, it remains the continual problem that much of the conclusions are affected by the bias of the investigators. This is not to single out the SIU specifically, but bias is a continual problem that exists in all investigations that have been encountered over the four decades of our involvement in such matters.
Is this investigator a specialist in computer crime, forensic accounting or accident reconstruction? How does the public know?
One of the significant problems that still remain uncorrected in the SIU was never addressed in the Tulloch report. That problem relates to the transparency of the backgrounds, experience and education of its hired investigators and how that hiring took place. While the Tulloch report considered the sensitive issue of whether to allow persons with police backgrounds to become members of the SIU, it was never recommended that the backgrounds, education and experience of all members of the SIU should be made public. This continues to be a serious drawback to the SIU’s operations. Upon reading several of the Director’s reports it became clear that some conclusions were suspect and it came to the question of who made those conclusions and were the experience and training of those investigators sufficient to allow those conclusions to stand. The problem is that no one is able to examine the credentials of these investigators. Judging by some of the conclusions that were made in the reviewed Director’s reports it is our opinion that some investigators were lacking in those essential areas of training and experience. This shortcoming needs to be corrected by identifying the specific backgrounds of the investigators who were assigned to a specific investigation.
The process of how a person was hired to become a member of the SIU is also critical to the proper functioning of the SIU. It is through this knowledge of the hiring process that the public can be assured that individuals were not selected because they possessed a specific bias. Just because an individual possesses a police background, or any background, does not mean that they will necessarily operate in a biased fashion. However, given the very great importance of selecting unbiased individuals, there is a lack of focus by the SIU toward providing the essential public perception that it is doing all it can to remove any potential bias in its membership.
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