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.
Neck Injury of Small Stature Females in Frontal Impacts
Research with respect to neck injury potential can be conducted to provide a variety of conclusions for the purposes of supporting or denying an injury claim. Those in the courts that are presented with the results of such research are neophytes in understanding the details of the methods and procedures used to produce those conclusions. Furthermore, the purpose for conducting the research is not always benign. Special interest groups are known to provide the funds to researchers who will likely develop conclusions that will support the interests of those groups. It is a small wonder that court decisions can be confused by these influences. With respect to soft tissue neck injuries the issue is hard fought. Such injury is notoriously difficult to quantify objectively. Reliance on experts is often in danger of providing substandard assistance on both sides when such experts become friends of the purchasing agents.
A recent research study from the 2015 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV) conference is used here as an example. One of the presented papers was entitled “Are Small Females More Vulnerable to Lower Nick Injuries When Seated Sufficiently Away From the Steering Wheel in a Frontal Crash?” The paper was authored by Chandrashekhar Thorbole of Thorbole Simulation Technologies LLC in the U.S. The study used the well-known MADYMO simulation software to conclude that: “…small females are vulnerable to high lower neck flexion moments with increase in the steering-chest distance (SCD)”. As illustrated in a figure (see below) taken from the study the theoretical flexion moment is increased at lower vertebrae of the cervical spine due to the mass of the head, the position of the seat, the position of the torso webbing and other factors.
The red triangle in the above figure is meant to demonstrate the increased force as we proceed along lower vertebrae of the cervical spine.
The selection of this example paper is not meant to condemn or support the conclusions. But it demonstrates the need to understand the details of how the conclusions were drawn. What methods and procedures were used and whether the conclusions might be appropriately used to support or deny an injury claim in the courtroom. The above illustration is rather simple to understand and provides some basic principles that most judges or juries might grasp. However this process is not always easy and simple . In more complex issues there is not enough time allotted for an expert to take the court from ignorance to expertise. Not due to the fault of the expert, but due to the characteristics of the study involved. The expert’s discussion often involves commencing from the very basics of a technical matter and building from those basics through a complex process that must be substantially understood if the end product is to be appreciated. The reality is that, in many instances, the superior abilities of the adjudicator become insufficient and the adjudicator is simply incapable of grasping substantial and essential portions of the technical evidence. As the complexity or our world expands this problem becomes more and more evident. How this problem can be resolved in a matter for the courts to decide.
Humboldt Broncos – Where are Road Inspectors’ Log Books?
Road inspectors are required to make records of road safety deficiencies. These log books are as important to public safety as the log books filled out by truck drivers. News media have reported that Jaskirat Singh Sidhu’s log book contained 51 violations of trip documentations and another 19 related to provincial trip inspection regulations. But what kind, and how many, violations existed in the road inspectors’ log books with respect to documenting the visibility obstruction that existed at the intersection of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash?
In 1997 six persons died at the same intersection and a Coroner’s Inquest was held. If the intersection was not studied before that time then such a study must have been required for the purpose of the Inquest. Twenty-one years passed between the six-fatal crash in 1997 and the Homboldt Broncos crash in 2018. Road inspectors are typically required to examine highways at the rate of once or twice per week. Thus in 21 years there could have been at least 1092 to 2184 inspections that were required of the noted intersection. Notes should have been made to document the presence of the trees that blocked the intersection sight triangle. Those notes should have been incorporated into a prioritized list of projects that needed to be completed.
Procedures for prioritized listing of future road works were well established for many years before 1997. For example Gorski Consulting has a copy of an Ontario Government manual from 1991 entitled “Inventory Manual for Municipal Roads” that provides strict instructions for filling out “Road Appraisal Sheets” for every road segment within a municipality’s jurisdiction. Such sheets document every possible safety problem. These sheets needed to be completed every five years. This process was not unique to Ontario. Nor has the need to make these documentations changed.
So where are these log books and what was contained in the Road Appraisal Sheets for the intersection of Highways 35 and 335 where the Broncos bus crash occurred? Official news media were quick to distribute the Government of Saskatchewan report that discussed the various documentation infractions by Mr. Sidhu but they provided no information to the public about the road inspectors’ log books or the Road Appraisal Sheets. The Government of Saskatchewan is not a neutral party in this tragedy. By failing to provide sufficient visibility at the intersection they should be held liable for the collision consequences. So why would the official news media be using the report supplied by the government but fail to obtain the additional data about the government’s liability toward the collision consequences?
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