Merry Christmas to All, From the Tall to the Small
Let us all feel the enlightenment of children, like Mr. Scrooge and Mr. Grinche. That we have the capacity to bring good to our world if we allow a change to take place within us. Vengeance, anger, disrespect and intolerance are the four horsemen that have ridden across our paths too much of late. Let Empathy, love, understanding and respect for others carry you through into the New Year and beyond.
Merry Christmas to all, may we all see the light.
School Buses Catch Fire But Little Concern Because They Were Parked
A “malfunction with the electrical wiring” was blamed for the start of fire which destroyed several parked school buses in New Minas Nova Scotia on Saturday morning, December 22, 2018. The photo below shows the extent of the blaze.
This Facebook posted photo by Matthew Eager shows a row of school buses on fire near New Minas Nova Scotia.
This single phrase, a “malfunction with the electrical wiring”, would seem to have satisfied everyone involved such that no post-incident strategy was discussed in the CBC News article about the incident. Maybe it was because the buses were parked and there was no one inside them that made the incident appear of minor importance. But if the fire occurred when the bus was loaded with child passengers would that suddenly become a very important issue?
The point is that many vehicle fires occur, often with little consequence as the occupants of the vehicle are able to escape. But that can sometimes be a matter of luck. If for some reason occupants are not able to escape a burning vehicle the consequences could be deadly.
While the cause of a fire may be accurately identified to a specific fault, sometimes a generality such as a “malfunction” means that the investigators have located a point of origin but the specific cause may be unknown. This becomes more likely when vehicles become ever more sophisticated in their electronic components. How various modules and other electronics components function is increasing being claimed as proprietary information that is only known by the manufacturers. Even government agents who are supposed to be monitoring various safety issues are sometimes clueless about an increasing complexity and secrecy in automotive systems. Sometimes they have to appear to demonstrate that they have matters under control while actually they may be handcuffed in terms of being given sufficient information from manufacturers. It is a problem that is unlikely to go away soon. And it is problem is that is likely to become greater.
The outcomes of fires will not always be favourable. Whenever they occur it is an opportunity to document them thoroughly before the next outcome becomes much more tragic.
Kenessarie Road Location Added To List of Videotaping Locations Along Highway 401
On December 19, 2018 Gorski Consulting completed another videotaping session along Highway 401 at the Kenessarie Road site just east of Chatham Ontario. This now completes four sites that have been videotaped this fall. The site locations are shown in the figure below.
A fifth site was videotaped on November 15, 2016 at the Elgin Road interchange, however the procedures were not fully developed especially with respect to using cameras mounted on the overpass of Elgin Road. We have now developed a procedure which is able to document a wide range of traffic motions.
Cameras have consistently been set up at 100 metre intervals, commencing from the reference overpass, at zero, 100, 200, 300 and 400 metres respectively. These views point directly across the highway and they document the precise time when a vehicle passes a reference cone placed at the edge of the shoulder. Other cameras are typically placed at 420 and 320 metres pointing diagonally across the travel lanes such that we can observe the relative positions of vehicles in the right and median lanes. We also mount two video cameras on the overpass to look directly along the length of the highway. Finally cameras are sometimes positioned at 100 and 200 metres past the overpass to provide further documentation of vehicle positions. The figure below provides an example of the view taken from one of the cameras mounted on the overpass of one of the sites.
The figure below shows another view from the Kenesserie Road site where the line of cameras and reference cones are visible along the north side of the westbound lanes of Highway 401.
View from the overpass at Kenesserie Road showing the line of video cameras and cones placed along the north roadside of the westbound lanes of the highway.
As always Gorski Consulting is considerate of the privacy of individuals travelling along this public highway. As such we purposely adjust our GoPro video cameras to a low resolution such that details such as license plates and the identity of persons in the vehicles cannot be deciphered. All we are interested in is knowing basic facts such as the size of the vehicle (car, SUV, heavy truck, etc.), what motions those vehicles have conducted and at what speed. Unfortunately some large trucks contain various advertising along their sides which cannot be wiped from the video. However during documenting of those vehicles in a spreadsheet we do not refer to their specific identity but only by a general description such as “White tractor with a white semi-trailer”.
We understand it is important that all persons who conduct any surveying need to be considerate of other persons’ privacy especially in this developing age when technology can become unacceptably intrusive into our private lives. Yet it is also important that research be conducted that may improve the transportation safety of the public.
As with previous videos the content will be examined and reported in a future series of news items on the Gorski Consulting website. It is hoped that this data will be of help to the general public in understanding the general character of the traffic on this super-highway and thus enable that public to voice informed opinions as to how we can make this important transportation artery as economically safe as possible.
Reporting of Highway 401 Median Crossover Collisions Needs More Clarity
The installation of a High Tension Cable Median Barrier (HTCMB) in the 118 kilometre distance of Highway 401 between Tilbury and London Ontario has been controversial in that some groups have been lobbying for the installation of a concrete, Jersey-type barrier as exists along the rest of the super-highway throughout southern Ontario. The reporting on the latest truck collision that resulted in a median crossover is lacking in the clarity that is needed to properly inform the public on the performance of the cable barrier.
In an article by Laura Broadley of the St. Thomas Times-Journal newspaper the title read “Cable barriers stop transport truck from crashing through Highway 401 median”. The incident involved a westbound tanker truck carrying “flammable fluids” that passed through the median, struck the cable barrier and came to as stop partly in the north shoulder and partly in the eastbound passing lane of the highway just east of Downie Road. The only photo available of the incident is shown below. Red circles were inserted by Gorski Consulting from a previously posted discussion.
OPP photo with red circles highlighting points of interest.
The cable barrier was likely helpful in redirecting this tanker truck and may have prevented collisions with eastbound traffic. However the newspaper title indicating that the cable barrier stopped the truck from crashing through the barrier is obviously incorrect. The cable barrier was located only on the far (south) side of the median and therefore the truck made first contact with the barrier after it had already passed through the median.
Furthermore it was mentioned that two eastbound vehicles sustained “minor” damage from “colliding with debris from the truck and tension cables”. It is important to understand that even small debris can be dangerous when high speeds are involved. An eastbound vehicle travelling at 100 km/h striking a piece of small debris moving in the opposite direction at 50 km/h means that this debris could be striking that eastbound vehicle at a closing speed of 150 km/h. Debris that is small and/or narrow can make contact in a small location where the force may be focused in that small zone thus increasing the possibility that it might pierce through the structure of a vehicle. (The analogy of spear penetrating a warrior’s armour is not a bad example). This is particularly true of an impact to a windshield. Thus it is very important to explain what debris made contact and where that contact occurred on the eastbound vehicles. These details may appear trite until an incident occurs where someone is badly injured or killed.
Further analogies come from many years of examining head-on collisions where seemingly small and harmless objects have been stored on the back parcel shelf of a passenger vehicle. This parcel shelf is the flat area located under the rear window. A typical example is the installation of an after-market audio speaker which often contains a small but solid magnet. Unsuspecting drivers do not understand that in a major frontal impact such an after-market speaker can become dislodged and can come flying at the head of an occupant and cause a serious head injury. This is not a comment made without experience but comes from years of study of occupant injuries with the University of Western Ontario Multi-Disciplinary Accident Research Team in London.
It is important to document such details of a collision not only because it explains what happened in this single case. It is important because the findings from such collisions will be used in the future by policy-makers in their decisions about what installations will work best. The reason why the current cable barrier was chosen for installation is because of previous studies conducted in Europe and North America where it is assumed that the reporters of those findings made properly detailed documentations of the relevant consequences. The experience documented along Highway 401 will also be used by policy-makers in other parts of the world. Thus it is a important matter to report these incidents properly.
Highway 401 Safety Issues – Veering Out of a Travel Lane
An unintended veering out of a travel lane can be the cause of traffic disruptions that ultimately lead to a collision. Collision Reconstructionists who examine the post-collision evidence are rarely able to detect the physical evidence of such an action because, for the vast percentage of cases, no physical evidence exists.
To get a handle on how often such veering occurs Gorski Consulting has examined the videotaped observations of traffic from four sessions at three sites along Highway 401 in South-western Ontario. As mentioned in previous posts, these videotaping sessions were conducted this past fall using multiple video cameras over a period of 2 hours in each session.
During an initial session on October 30, 2018 it was observed that a substantial number of vehicles were veering to the right, out of the right lane, the drivers would then react and bring the vehicle back within the right lane. An obvious example of this occurrence is shown in the following sequence of still frames taken from the video of a camera positioned on the overpass of Westminster Drive and looking into the westbound lanes of Highway 401.
Frame 1 – A westbound car is seen in the background of the right lane approaching the camera.
Figure 2 – The westbound vehicle begins to veer into the terminating lane adjacent to the right, through lane.
Frame 3 – The westbound vehicle establishes itself fully in the terminating lane.
Frame 4 – Within 100 metres of the end of the terminating lane the driver begins to return the vehicle to the right, through lane.
Frame 5 – The vehicle continues to travel back into the right, through lane.
Frame 6 – The vehicle returns fully into the right, through lane.
Frame 7 – The vehicle leaves the view of the camera while continuing to travel in the right, through lane.
Thus this became the reason to look at the other sessions and document all those incidents where such veering was observed. The table below is a summary of those observations for the three sites and four videotaping sessions.
Generally one could conclude that about 1 to 2 percent of vehicles in the right lane of Highway 401 will veer out of the lane in an observed distance of about 400 metres.
This can also be expressed in terms of the actual numbers of veering vehicles observed per hour. As noted in the table above the session at Graham Road provided the least number of observations of veering per hour. Only 15 vehicles were observed to veer out of the right lane in a time of two hours. So the frequency would be about 7 to 8 vehicles per hour.
In contrast the two sessions at the Westminster Ave site provided between 36 and 43 observations for two hours or about 18 to 21 veering motions per hour.
The Westminster Drive site is interesting because there is a curve that terminates between the 400 and 300 metre markers of our testing. Historically loss–of-control collisions have been more prominent at the end of such curves. Thus it is not surprising that the Westminster site would generate more veering vehicles because of the presence of the curve.
We have now discussed a number of issues relating to the safety of Highway 401 between Tilbury and London, Ontario. This length of highway is where the new High Tension Cable Median Barrier is being installed by the Ontario Ministry of Transport. In earlier posts we have shown how many large trucks drive through area. During weekdays the percentage of transport trucks may approach 50%. During weekends and holidays that percentage is less. We have also examined the difference in speed between trucks that are limited to a maximum of about 105 km/h and non-trucks that travel at an average speed of 116 to 119 km/h. And we have also presented data indicating that over 18% of drivers allow a gap of less than two seconds between the front of their vehicle and the rear of the vehicle they are following. These are some of the data that provide a glimpse of the safety problem on Highway 401.
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