Heavy Rescue 401 Favoured While Professional Journalists Excluded
There is nothing wrong with an entertaining television show that highlights the dangers and hard work that police, rescue and towing personnel deal with on a daily basis. It is a question of exclusion of other journalists who are there not just to entertain an audience.
On December 11, 2018 an eastbound tractor-trailer entered the median of Highway 401 just west of the Merlin Road overpass, just west of Chatham, Ontario. This is where a controversial cable barrier had been recently installed instead of a typical, concrete Jersey barrier. There was no cable barrier to prevent the truck from entering the median since the barrier only existed on the far side of the median. As the truck reached the barrier it was launched upward and rode over top of the barrier – a result that should not have occurred. The truck then crashed into two westbound trucks. The cab of one of the westbound trucks was crushed so severely that it was miraculous that a fatality did not occur.
The results of the destruction as the eastbound truck struck two westbound trucks on Hwy 401 near Merlin Road.
This was an important event that needed documentation. The failure of the cable barrier needed to be explained to the public. Yet Highway 401 was closed by the police for several kilometres east and west of the collision site and therefore no one was allowed into the area.
It is standard procedure for police to close roadways around a collision site. It is understandable that some degree of control is required to enable investigators to document the collision evidence before it is destroyed. But the extent of the road closures is often beyond reason. In many instances the closures existing for several kilometres around a site prevent journalists from conducting their work.
Journalists, like police, also have an important role in a democratic society through their independence. They provide the balance that keeps the public informed about matters that special interest groups may want to withhold. The danger in allowing a single entity to tell the public what they should know should not be difficult to understand. Yet in many instances journalists are unable to perform that independent function because they are completely blocked from any view of a collision site. In many instances journalists use high-powered lens to photograph a site that may be several kilometres away, but that only provides general features while distorting the view due to the effect of the high-powered lens. Some journalists have come too close to a collision site and have been charged with a criminal act. Even when such charges are dismissed in court it lays a foundation that discourages others from their inquiries.
While Highway 401 was closed for several kilometres around the Merlin Road site it was fortunate that the collision occurred near the overpass. Thus journalists, and others, could stand on the overpass and obtain a better perspective. But looking from the overpass one could detect something different. Unlike previous instances, an actual film crew could be seen positioned at the accident site as shown below.
Unidentified film crew working at the site of the collision on December 11, 2018.
There was no identification on the clothing of these persons to indicate who they were. Their reflective clothing made them appear no different that the towing personnel that were working at the site. Were these persons part of the police investigation? One would expect so since no other persons should have been allowed onto the closed site.
The extent of the free reign these persons had can be seen in the two photos below. They could actually come close to the damaged vehicles and obtain very detailed views of the evidence, if they so desired.
View of film crew walking around the collision site without supervision.
View of the unidentified film crew taking an unsupervised examination of the collision evidence.
If these persons were in danger of obstructing the operations of towing personnel it did not seem like it. Communications could easily be made when potential obstructions might occur: ” Can you just step back for a moment as we have to hook up to this truck?”. That’s all that was necessary and the film crew would likely cooperate. Similar conversations could easily be had between police and journalists at any accident site. Knowing the important role that journalists perform it could be possible for police to work around them just as they work around the police.
So what was so special about this particular instance where the film crew was allowed free reign while everyone else had to stay many kilometres away? The difference was that this film crew was part of the TV series “Heavy Rescue 401”. This TV series documents the actions of towing operators as well as emergency personnel as they perform their official duties. It is obvious that the show has caught the attention of many viewers. Various police and towing operators have become “hollywood movie stars” as the show has become good entertainment. The OPP even advertise the show on their Twitter accounts.
It is no wonder that the Heavy Rescue film crew was given free reign at the Merlin Road accident site. But is that all that was needed? Was it just a case of providing celebrity status to the officials at accident sites? Were regular journalists previously prevented from documenting these accident sites because they did not provide that celebrity advertising?
Although the producers of the Heavy Rescue series focus their audience on dramatic instances where large trucks are pulled out of various “dangerous” predicaments it demonstrates the potential of what other issues could be addressed. It could be possible to use a similar template to discuss more important issues related to collision causes and injuries.
As an example, there are times when the TV crew documents how vehicles pass by an accident site at high speeds and close to where the towing, police and rescue personnel are located. Comments are made about the recklessness of drivers who endanger those around the accident site. Why these incidents occur is a complicated matter. It is not as simple as the commentators in the series make it to be. Obviously those comments are coming from those who are directly affected and endangered and the opinions are understandably one-sided. What is not reported is how the situation is viewed from the common driver approaching such a site and why such dangerous situations are created. What is perceived is relative to the observer. Why drivers drive a certain way, what they perceive and how they react is far more complicated than demonstrated by various irritated judgments being made by those endangered by those actions. There is a need to examine such issues in a more scientific manner. Unfortunately the commercial nature of the entertainment business conflicts with this need for public education. This conflict can be injurious in providing a platform for uninformed fake facts to be distributed.
Similar educational opportunities are lost in possible discussions about how collisions were caused or how persons sustained their injuries. These discussions remain taboo for the obvious reasons that they could become part of the evidence in any criminal proceedings or civil lawsuits. This is perhaps one of the greatest liabilities in how our society functions. That information that could educate the public about important matters related to their survival, cannot be discussed because of these criminal and civil proceedings.
Professional journalists have some degree of immunity when they approach these delicate matters. They must be the whistle-blowers as there is no one else who has a legal access to the whistle. However professional journalists need a base of quality evidence to be gathered so they can study a situation and develop an informed plan of action. There is often little sympathy for journalists who get it wrong. Yet it is difficult to write or broadcast a news story when the base of it is made up of speculation and conjecture. Boots need to be put on the ground. The journalist needs to be out in the field, where the event has taken place, and document the evidence. When journalists are excluded from that activity it can be argued that this affects the freedom of the press.
The example of the Heavy Rescue 401 crews at accident sites demonstrates the truth that journalists can work next to official investigators and workers at accident sites. Exclusion of journalists from documenting collision events is an artificial excuse for controlling what information is available to the public for their independent consumption. The true reason why journalists are kept away from accident sites becomes questionable when entertainment crews such as Heavy Rescue 401 are given free access while others are not.
Red Hill Valley Parkway – MTO Or Commercial Confidential Document
Revelations regarding a hidden 2014 technical report authored by Golder Associates with respect to low pavement friction data on the Red Hill Valley Parkway (RHVP) in Hamilton, Ontario, are continuing by the hour. According to the latest news provided by the Hamilton Spectator Newspaper, former Hamilton Director of Engineering Gary Moore provided seemingly misleading information at a December 2015 public works meeting when asked about concerns from drivers about the slipperiness of the RHVP’s road surface. The Spectator suggested that further misleading comments were made as part of a 2017 Spectator investigation into the numbers of collisions occurring on the RHVP.
The Spectator indicated that Moore referred to friction tests that were also conducted by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO). The Spectator had requested that data from the MTO as far back as 2016 but was told at the time that the study was a “commercial confidential document”. While the apparent hiding of the Golder Associates report has raised much alarm, this latest position of the MTO continues to demonstrate that the problem with secrecy over roadway safety issues is larger than that.
The latest trend in transportation secrecy involves the use of commercial entities to perform various public functions. As a result, the work of those commercial entities are said to be confidential and not publicly available. But if these commercial entities are performing the functions that would normally be provided by the government the argument can be made that their activities, reports and functioning must be made available to public scrutiny.
The issue must be whether the many millions of trips taken every day, on any and all roads, by any an all citizens in Ontario, requires that the public be informed of potentially fatal safety problems. This is a much broader issue than the simple hiding of one technical report. The MTO conducts numerous studies and pays for them through the public’s taxes. Yet those reports are only available to be seen by a select few persons whose identities are not even known. Similar reports are likely prepared by other government agencies and municipalities some of which may contain critical information about the safety of the roads on which the public travels. It could be accepted if the safety condition of roads was a matter of national security that must be kept away from foreign governments and terrorists. But clearly such an argument is ridiculous. Many of these studies are requested for matters of safety or efficiency of the public road system and have no relevance to national security. Thus the need to keep these documents secret must be questioned.
The broader question relates to how the public’s safety may be manipulated by keeping the public in the dark. Clearly there are monumental difficulties and complexities in a modern society ranging from health, housing education etc., that require a delicate balancing of societal systems so that we do the best we can, with the resources we have and the contradictory needs that we have. Keeping matters like the safety of our roads a secret causes an unneeded headwind on the proper functioning of our society.
Red Hill Valley Parkway – No One Ever Releases That Type of Information
Gary Moore, Hamilton’s previous engineering director gave the most honest assessment of what truly goes on in the engineering departments of many municipalities in Ontario. In an interview with the Hamilton Spectator (the interview date was not disclosed) a request was made for the report of Golder Associates which contained the road surface data on the Red Hill Valley Parkway in Hamilton. Mr. Moore was quoted by the Spectator: ” No one ever releases (that type of) information…because it’s the first thing anybody (would use in a) lawsuit”.
Mr. Moore’s understanding that no one releases that type of information demonstrates the true issue at hand. That many road safety problems are kept from the public’s knowledge. And the reason for that secrecy is to protect a municipality from a lawsuit. Does this comment include instances where there is a genuine risk to the public’s safety and the municipality’s representative knows that someone might be killed? Is it the practice to cover up those problems because the protection of the municipality from a lawsuit is more important than the protection of human lives? Is this not a circumventing of the courts’ role to determine which lawsuits hold merit? When staff of engineering departments withhold evidence a correction of a problem cannot occur and, just as importantly, persons who have suffered due to the existence of that problem cannot obtain the justice that they deserve.
Hamilton’s municipal politicians have claimed that they knew nothing with respect to the hiding of the Golder report. That may be so, in this instance, and further investigation may clarify that. But in general there are many instances where municipal politicians meet with engineering and risk management representatives behind closed doors and no one knows what conversations are had. Such a system is ripe for misuse as both entities have a stake in protecting the corporation that either employs them or that they represent. The public is not able to see when unethical decisions are made and who has been responsible for those unethical acts. Checks and balances can be put in place which could avoid the hiding of genuine safety issues in the future. However this requires an understanding of the harm that presently exists and a willingness to find an unbiased solution that benefits society as a whole.
It has been reported that Mr. Gord McGuire, the City’s new Director of Engineering, was the one who uncovered the Golder report. If this holds true then Mr. McGuire must be commended for his actions. This is exactly how a person with integrity ought to function. However there are repercussions for such actions and Mr. McGuire could easily find himself unpopular and unwanted when pursuing his career in Hamilton and elsewhere. Those who understand the value of employing persons of Mr. McGuire’s calibre ought to make sure that his career does not suffer for his righteous act.
Red Hill Valley Parkway – Will Rest of Secrets Be Revealed?
Staff at the City of Hamilton have apologized for keeping a damaging report hidden with respect to surface conditions of the Red Hill Valley Parkway. But will they now release the other reports and data that remain hidden?
CIMA is a well-known municipal defense engineering firm that has been retained by the City. While the news media are quoting heavily from its February 4, 2019 report, no one has asked how many times CIMA has been retained on the plaintiff side on a roadway assessment case. If CIMA does work primarily to defend municipalities would it not seem prudent to report its findings with caution?
Furthermore, in their February 4, 2019 report CIMA indicated that it had filed “reports” to the City of Hamilton including a report of 2015 where they “made a number of recommendations regarding the safety of the RHVP”. The CIMA report referred to a January 2014 Golder Report that contained the road surface testing data. CIMA indicated “The Golder report was not part of the materials available to CIMA when completing the above-mentioned reports”.
Not available? How much sense does that make? CIBA completes a comprehensive report on the safety of the RHVP in November 2015 but it does not have access to the Golder report that was prepared almost 2 years earlier? Both Golder and CIMA were supposedly retained by the City of Hamilton but CIBA was not given access to the Golder report?
Will the staff of the City of Hamilton release the contents of the 2015 CIBA report to the public?. Certainly the taxpayers paid for that report. If not, why not? What other details are contained in that CIBA report that have not been revealed to the public?
In March of 2016 Gorski Consulting conducted a survey of impacts to roadside guardrail terminals along the RHVP and these results were uploaded via a March 12, 2106 article entitled “ET-Plus Terminal Impacts – Evaluation of Their In-Service Performance”. Concerns were expressed regarding the performance of these terminals along several locations of the RHVP.
Vertical and horizontal curves, inconsistent roadside barriers, narrow medians and high traffic volumes are just some of the problems that could be plaguing the safety of the Red Hill Valley Parkway in Hamilton, Ontario.
In a January 2, 2016 news article we discussed the results of an incident the Queenston Road ramp of the RHVP where a vehicle became impaled by the guardrail terminal.
In a further news article of May 7, 2017 entitled “Red Hill Valley Parkway Crashes in Hamilton Remain a Topic of Non-Discussion”, Gorski Consulting discussed several safety issues that appeared to be ignored.
There was no indication whether the City of Hamilton was aware of some of these developments.
The problem that exists now is not so much about the specific road surface data for the RHVP, but that the report and data were kept from the public’s awareness. What the public is not aware of is that this sort of manipulation is not just related to the staff of the City of Hamilton. The hiding of safety-related roadway problems occurs on a regular basis, throughout Ontario and this hiding has been occurring for many years. It occurs when police fail to document that a safety-related issue with a roadway was a factor in the cause of a collision. It occurs when road crews remove a safety problem before it can be documented as relevant to the cause of a collision. It occurs when police supervisors give instructions to their staff about what kinds of incidents will be investigated and how they will be documented. It occurs when high-priced experts are retained to defendant municipalities and those experts have a biased relationship with those defendants. It occurs when the courts turn a blind eye to factors that may have influenced the cause of a collision in favour of punishing the driver who made a mistake or who was obviously negligent is some manner. These are all issues that are not being addressed.
Vehicle Fires Continue Without Much Attention
Vehicle fires that occur in minor impacts, or from no impact at all, are occurring without any attention. These are potentially life-threatening events if an occupant is not able to escape.
In a Twitter post earlier today, police stood before their camera and expressed a warning about losing control on the icy highways. A passenger vehicle had lost control and spun out into a Jersey barrier on Highway 401 near Winston Churchill Blvd. In the background of the Twitter video was the vehicle that had caught fire after being struck by a transport truck. While the impact was not insignificant it should not have resulted in the fire that occurred.
While police express concern about loss of control on icy roads no one warns of the fire that erupted.
The fire was sufficient such that a fatality could have occurred if the driver was unable to exit the vehicle. Thus this was a significant danger that needed to be highlighted.
The fire was sufficient such that, if the driver was unable to escape in time this would have been a fatality.
Meanwhile at another location along Highway 401 near Windsor another vehicle had caught fire without any apparent impact. It was reported that the vehicle had just be newly purchased but no explanation was provided as to why the fire erupted.
A newly purchased vehicle caught fire on the side of Highway 401 near Windsor without much concern.
In another incident that occurred a could of days ago in Toronto, a vehicle burst into flames while just sitting in the owner’s driveway. Similarly no information was provided as to how the fire could have started.
This vehicle erupted into flames while just sitting in a Toronto driveway.
Meanwhile, in an earlier post of January 25, 2019 we showed the result below where a minor collision with a transit bus in London, Ontario resulted in a similar eruption of flames for no known reason.
A number of parked school buses were destroyed in Nova Scotia without any indication of the cause.
These events have been documented even without much searching in the various news media. Yet no one appears to what to address the issue.
You must be logged in to post a comment.