Highway 401 Speeds Reduced by Interference of Speed-Governed Heavy Trucks
When slow-moving, heavy trucks block the highway all traffic slows down. But does that mean that safety improves?
The above photo is a frame capture from one of the video cameras used in a study of traffic conditions on Highway 401 by Gorski Consulting. When heavy truck speeds are limited to a maximum of 105 km/h this can cause all traffic to slow down because those trucks block the passage of faster moving vehicles. That was likely a decision made by Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation to reduce speeds without using police to enforce speed limits. Is this method of speed control a good idea? What happens when slow-moving trucks interact with fast-moving cars? Do conflicts develop? These are some of the questions that may be answered in the detailed study by Gorski Consulting that is presently on-going. Some results from the study will be revealed as soon as they become available.
Unexplained Fatality in Minor Frontal Impact in Brampton
This photo taken by Riziero Vertolli shows the results of a minor frontal impact in Brampton that resulted in the driver’s death.
No explanation has been provided as to why a 53-year-old Brampton man died as a result of a minor frontal impact with a small wall on Garryoaks Drive in Brampton, Ontario this morning. Official news agencies indicate that police have not determined what caused the collision. But clearly the cause of the collision should not be as important as why the death occurred. Police were quoted as saying that the driver may have suffered a medical episode but there was no explanation as to what evidence led to that assumption.
It was only yesterday that a Brampton resident, Jason Ramkishun, was found dead in a car that exited the road and came to rest in a ditch. It was revealed that he sustained a gun shot wound. Surely further information as to how the most recent death occurred would be warranted. While gunshot wounds may not exist, deaths that are not consistent with the severity of a collision should not be dismissed.
Questionable Life-Threatening Injuries in Several Collisions In Past 24-Hours
This vehicle is an example of reported, life-threatening injuries that should not be expected.
Some collisions in the past 24-hours have reportedly resulted in life-threatening injuries that should not be expected.
As an analyst under contract to Transport Canada I studied the mechanisms by which persons sustained their injuries in motor vehicle collisions for 10 years. I was exposed to the detailed injury data of those who sustained fatal or serious injuries. My duties included documentation of vehicle interiors via measurements and photographs and then matching the list of injuries to their sources. Additionally, collision severity was also documented through detailed measurements of the extent of vehicle crush. Through these studies I am able to detect when the reported severity of injuries do not match with the expected severity of a collision. In the past 24 hours several collisions have occurred that do not match what should be expected given the severity of the collisions visible in photographs accompanied in the reports of those collisions.
An example is the vehicle shown above in which an occupant reportedly sustained life-threatening injuries. The collision was investigated by Haldimand OPP and reportedly occurred on Kohler Road. Threats to the safety of vehicle occupants can come from several factors and some can include the frailty of the individual. Thus age or poor health are two factors than can change the survivability outcome of an injured party. However life-threatening injuries are commonly known and reported based on the specific injury. For example the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) has been a widely known coding scheme that defines what injuries should be reported as serious, severe and critical. The rationale why police would report certain injuries as “life threatening” has to be based on some acceptable logic that is compatible with traditional standards such as the AIS. Therefore one has to assume that these reports are, to some degree, accurate and not misleading. Assuming so, life-threatening injuries would not be expected in the type of damage exhibited by the vehicle shown in the above photo.
In older times when vehicle safety systems were not as advanced, the failure to wear a seat-belt, along with the non-existence of air bags meant that a driver could be unlucky enough to sustain life-threatening injuries in this type of collision. This is partly due to the fact that additional damage might exist on the underside of the vehicle that is not visible and could relate to an increase in the level of severity. However the pictured vehicle is of a modern vintage, undoubtedly equipped with a variety of air bags and other interior enhancements. There should be little reason to expect that life-threatening injuries should occur in this collision severity. However there is an exception.
Late air bag deployment and an out-of-position (OOP) occupant have been known to create increased levels of injury in collisions of a minor severity. This is another one of those issues that is suppressed from public knowledge. Again, the reasoning of many is that the public need not know of these problems as such bad publicity is damaging toward the reputation of a safety feature that has been successful in preventing injury and death in so many instances. And this is the suspected issue in several other collisions that have occurred in the past 24 hours.
Another collision was reported on the OPP Twitter account which occurred near Puslinch, north of Hamilton, Ontario, as shown in the photo below.
While the view of this vehicle in not complete, it does not demonstrate a collision severity where life-threatening injuries should be expected.
Once again, there could be damage along the underside of the vehicle which could increase the collision severity. In contrast, the hood of the vehicle is relatively undeformed, there is no displacement of the A-pillars and there is no evidence of structural intrusion into the occupant space. These facts suggest a lower collision severity.
A third example (no photos available) is a collision involving an SUV that rear-ended a Mississauga Transit bus on Bloor Street just after midnight today. The SUV was blocked from view by a tarp and the collision could be of higher severity than the other two mentioned above. Even so, it would appear that we are dealing with a “barrier impact”, a description that is well-known in the collision-safety research community. A “barrier impact” is one that is comparable to the standard tests of government agencies that accelerate a vehicle into an immovable barrier to study its performance for safety compliance testing. Barrier impacts have classic characteristics and vehicles are designed specifically to obtain a “pass” on such tests so that they receive government approval for distribution in the host country. Because of the large distance of crushable structure that is available in such barrier impacts a lot can be done to protect the occupant from harm. So when it is reported that a male sustained fatal injuries in this barrier impact the alarm bells should ring. A properly seat-belted occupant with the modern features of multiple bags and other advancements means that it becomes difficult to cause fatal injuries to an otherwise health occupant who is of average, adult age and size. So what happened?
These are just several examples of collisions where more information is needed to confirm that all is as it should be. Unexpected and unreasonable levels of injury should not be left to pass by without further attention, investigation and knowledge of the voting public.
Fire at 2-Vehicle Collision Is A Warning Of Future Tragedy
The fact that 5 people escaped a vehicle fire with only minor injuries is not something we should cheer. It is only a matter of time when such an incident with become a future tragedy. The above photo taken by Spencer Taylor shows how a fire engulfed both vehicles after they collided at the intersection of Ron McNeil Line and Highbury Avenue just north east of St Thomas, Ontario this morning. The fact that all persons involved sustained only minor injuries indicates that the collision severity was not so great that a fire should have been inevitable. Therefore why did the fire occur? This is not something that police should take lightly. Transport Canada should be notified and a further investigation should be carried out before another fire results in more serious consequences.
Questionable Impact Performance of ET-Plus Guardrail Terminal Near Strathroy Ontario
The purpose for the installation of a guardrail and its terminal is so that it will prevent impacts with dangerous objects such as the struck tree in the background.
Once again an ET-Plus terminal manufactured by Trinity Highway Products of Dallas Texas has demonstrated its questionable safety performance. Yesterday morning, Tuesday, November 6, 2018 police reported that a car was westbound on Calvert Drive, south-west of Strathroy, Ontario. The female driver lost control of her car. The car crossed on the the south roadside where it reportedly hit a “guardrail” and then struck a tree. The female driver sustained life-threatening injuries. Given that guardrails are supposed to prevent impacts such as trees we decided to investigate. Furthermore, given the imprecision of descriptions by news media I was suspicious whether a guardrail was struck or whether the terminal of the guardrail was the actual point of impact.
I attended the collision site this afternoon, November 7th. My suspicions were confirmed, as shown in the above photo, that it was indeed the terminal of the guardrail that was struck and not the guardrail itself. Furthermore, the terminal was an ET-Plus which has had a considerable history controversy surrounding its performance. This continues to be my experience from examining a number of impacts over the past 4 years. There continue to be incidents of jamming of the terminal on the rail and thus preventing it from dissipating the collision energy in the manner it was designed to do.
In this latest incident the guardrail became jammed within the channel of the terminal, like it has done in a number of previous incidents I have examined. The photo below shows what happened in the present case as the ET-Plus terminal rotated past 90 degrees and thus made it impossible for the rail to pass through its throat. Only a very small length of the rail can be seen extruded from the throat of the terminal and this occurred before the system became jammed.
This metal rail is supposed to be squeezed through the throat of the terminal and come out in a flattened and curled shape. This is the process by which the kinetic energy of the striking vehicle is dissipated. Instead terminal has rotated to beyond 90 degrees with respect to the length of the rail and it became impossible for the rail to pass through the terminal.
If the terminal had performed properly a substantial amount of kinetic energy possessed by the vehicle would have been dissipated and thus the speed of the vehicle would have been reduced. Thus even if the car passed through the barrier the severity of the impact with the tree would have been lessened. The extent of damage to the tree can be seen the photo below.
Judging by the extent of damage visible at the tree, the female driver’s injuries were likely caused from this impact, more so than from impacting the ET-Plus terminal.Overall there continues to be evidence of questionable impact performance of ET-Plus terminals.
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