School Buses and Seat-Belts – The Issue Is Not So Clear-Cut
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has recently broadcast a documentary (The Fifth Estate) and published articles discussing its investigation into an alleged improper decision by Transport Canada to prevent school buses from being equipped with seat-belts. An article published on the CBC website on October 14, 2018 claimed that “thousands of injuries” and “numerous deaths” would have been prevented if school buses were “on school buses”.
While I respect the CBC’s many admirable documentaries that enlighten Canadians about important issues, this latest discussion has missed the mark and may be more misleading than it is helpful.
As an example, the CBC website article showed photographs submitted by Kirsten Hodgeson of a 2008 school bus collision near Rimbey, Alberta where the bus was rear-ended by a gravel truck resulting in the death of a 17-year-old passenger. Two photos of that rear-ended bus are shown below.
In this 2008 rear end impact it was claimed that the deceased passenger of the school bus would have been saved if she was not ejected from the bus and it was the ejection that was the cause of her death.
Keenen Clark, a student who survived this crash, claimed that it was his ejection from the bus that caused his major injuries.
Keenen Clark, a student who survived the crash was quoted as saying “if seatbelts would have been on the bus, Jenny (Noble) probably would have stayed on the bus. Everything that happened to me happened after I fell out of the bus”. Referring to the crash the CBC seemed to agree, noting “..the need for seatbelts seems obvious”.
The need for seat-belts is a separate issue, but the discussion of this rear-ended school bus incident is misleading and harmful to the understanding of the important issues. The school bus was reportedly stopped in fog when it was struck by a gravel struck which glanced off the right side of the bus and came to a stop a short distance ahead. The impact was of a narrow offset such that one can see that the main structural components of the bus, such as its frame, were not deformed and were not involved in the dissipation of the truck’s kinetic energy. In short, the collision was not one where the bus sustained a large change-in-velocity. Change-in-velocity is what is used to determine the severity of an impact and its potential to cause injury. The primary issue in this crash was that the relatively soft structure of the bus was crushed resulting in substantial intrusion into the passenger compartment. This intrusion can be seen in the above photo where the seats of the bus have been deformed and displaced. The fact that some passengers were ejected from the bus was not the primary issue as their ejection from the stopped bus should have been at low speed and of minimal injury potential. For this collision the important factor that would lead to injury/death is the structural intrusion and not the change-in-velocity or the ejection. Seat-belts are often of minimal effectiveness when there is substantial structural intrusion into where the occupant is seated, as was likely the case in this school bus crash. While Keenen Clark may have an opinion he is not an expert in injury caution and his understanding of what caused his injuries is in error.
Never-the-less the issue of whether seat-belt use by children on school buses is an important one and not easily or clearly resolved.The authors of the CBC study suggested that Transport Canada deliberated hid the the fact that seat-belts on school buses could have prevented many injuries and deaths. That statement is true but it is also false. It is false because it fails to underline the important cautions in the Transport Canada study: that seat-belts can also be the cause of injuries and fatalities to children. The CBC authors failed to understand and properly inform the public just how precarious it is to restrain children of various sizes and ages into standard seat-belts than may not properly accommodate their anatomy. Even if there was a properly trained adult on board a bus who could initially place a seat-belt into a proper position on a child, anyone ought to know that children will not stay seated in an ideal posture for any extended time. Yet this is what is needed to ensure that the restraint system will function as it should. The CBC authors failed to understand why it is that booster cushions are required for certain ages of children – precisely because adult restraint systems do not fit a child properly. The authors fail to understand the large danger when the lap portion of a restrain system is not sufficiently tight and is not positioned below the child’s illiac crests (the frontal bony structure of the pelvis below the soft abdomen). Those who are familiar with injury assessment and seat-belt effectiveness know the tragic results when a child suffers fatal abdominal injuries in relatively moderate crashes because the lap belt was not in a proper position and the child “submarined” under the lap belt. The installation of 3-point restraints will not guarantee that such submarining will be prevented as the primary issue is the initial position of the lap with respect to the pelvis and the ultimate geometry of the restraint system.
I am not surprised that Transport Canada officials remained tight-lipped about discussing their findings or that they appeared to be hiding their research results. I am certain that they are aware of the dangers that could be introduced if un-monitored seat-belt use became prevalent on school buses. It would only require one incident where a school bus sustained an impact involving a major change-in-velocity and the bus was fully-loaded with a wide array of children of different sizes “wearing” their seat-belts. We would see the tragedies that would unfold. Numerous children would suffer abdominal injuries, some of these fatal, and there would be an outcry about the dangers of seat-belt use. If you could pick which collision a bus would be involved in then it would be simple to select the safety measures that could protect the occupants. But reality is not like that. Knowing the dangers of mis-used seat-belts researchers attempted to minimize the problem by introducing the idea of compartmentalization, that is, keeping children within the confines of where they are seated and using designs to minimize the injuries resulting from children being “bounced around” during an impact.
What the CBC authors failed to understand is that there has been substantial research into identifying the typical collision in which a school bus is likely to be involved. While not fool-proof such research has identified that in most cases a large school bus is more likely to be involved in an impact with a smaller vehicle such as a passenger car or light truck. Therefore the expected change-in-velocity of the bus is likely to be low because of the large mass difference between the striking vehicles. Seat-belts are helpful in reducing the forces in such larger changes-in-velocity but they are of less need for lower severity impacts such as rollovers. Rollovers can be dangerous if occupants are ejected however they can be of moderate injury potential if occupants are confined within the cage of the vehicle interior because in a rollover the change-in-velocity is very gradual and far less severe. Yes, children can be injured while tumbling inside a bus that is rolling over but this is a matter of severity of injury. It is the difference between sustaining lacerations, contusions and less severe concussions from tumbling versus sustaining potentially massive tears of major adominal organs from a mis-positioned seat-belt. When multiple children sustain those major injuries it would be virtually impossible to transport them in time to surgery and deal with those injuries when there are immediate requirements of multiple patients and only a limited number of surgeons. These are the types of complex issues that are involved.
I have no doubt that researchers have explained the issue to administrators at Transport Canada and these persons recognize that they car caught “between a rock and a hard place” such that there are no easy alternatives. The issue of abdominal injuries caused by seat-belts has been a difficult one even for adult occupants. When there is no easy solution yet you are the administrator or researcher who must make a difficult decision it is often believed to be best if the problem is not discussed. Thus the reason for Transport Canada’s apparent silence. Full disclosure of the real problems is complicated when the explanation requires a substantial technical understanding of the details that cannot efficiently passed onto a public that has a short attention span and is more interested in an explanation that is simple and fits their biases .Thus when these issues are often misrepresented to the public there is no guarantee that the correct message will be delivered as it should be.
While I am not in a position to know for certain, a compromise might be reached with improving the compartmentalization of children by equipping school buses with air bag curtains much like those in passenger cars. This might improve the chances that children might remain contained inside the school bus interior when it is involved in a side impact or as it rolls in a typical, lateral fashion. I am certain that researchers more familiar with the issue have already thought about this possibility. The potential costs of fitting a large school bus with sufficient lengths of side curtain and the subsequent costs of re-fitting a school bus after the bags go off would appear to be major drawbacks to this idea.
Regardless, this discussion outlines the extreme importance of conducting thorough documentations of school bus collisions by unbiased experts who can also properly and fully pass the results of those investigations openly to whoever needs to know. This is a continual problem that prevents many safety issues from being resolved promptly and efficiently.
Higher Severity Ambulance Fatal in Brampton Unusual Considering Typical City Speeds
Close-up of OPP Twitter photo of ambulance accident scene.
It is unusual that an ambulance would be involved in a significant head-on collision on a typical arterial roadway in Brampton, Ontario, resulting in the death of an occupant of the striking car. Yet this occurred last evening on Queen Street West and McMurchy Avenue. One would expect the various lighting on the ambulance, which was reportedly on call, would be sufficient in night-time conditions to provide warning of its presence. It was reported that the ambulance was stopped, waiting to make a left turn when the impact occurred. An obvious task of investigating police would involve looking at the pavement and documenting the location of gouges and tire marks that would place the positions of the vehicle at the time that the crash occurred. As the ambulance was reportedly pushed rearward tire marks leading from the impact to rest should have been created. This would quickly confirm what was initially reported by police, that the ambulance was waiting, and not turning into the oncoming vehicle’s lane. While event data recorder (“Black Box”) data should quickly establish the speed of the vehicles for several seconds before impact, it will not explain how the driver of the on-coming vehicle managed to direct his or her vehicle into the left turn lane and strike a fully illuminated, stopped, ambulance at such high speed.
We normally have an appreciation of the severity of an impact by simply looking at the amount of damage existing on both vehicles. It is important to look at the crush on both vehicles because, when there is a large difference in the stiffness of them, there can be considerable damage to the soft structure of one and very little to the stiff structure of the other. The idea is to consider how much kinetic energy was dissipated in the whole impact not just in one vehicle and this is often an interpretation problem when investigators make conclusions about impacts with transport trucks or trees. In the case of the ambulance it would have a relatively stiff front end yet we see substantial crush so, even though we cannot see the crush of the car, we would suspect even more crush at its front end.
The obvious mass difference plays a large role in reducing the potential of injury to the paramedics. There is also a slight benefit by being higher off the ground than a typical passenger car. The off-set of the direct damage is quite typical of what would expected as most head-on collisions involve such “left-to-left” contact on the front ends.
In the end there is some mystery here as to why this collision occurred in the manner that it occurred.
Aylmer Express Newspaper Journalists Acquitted
It was a test of Canada’s freedom, democracy and the public’s right to know. On this occasion the test was passed.
Early reports indicate that Aylmer Express journalists Brett and John Hueston have been found not guilty with respect to charges of obstructing police on June 24, 2017 when they passed through a road-closed sign in order to attend the location were a vehicle had reportedly driven off a cliff into Lake Erie. The driver died in the incident. Questions centred around the actions of police and whether their chase of the vehicle played a role in the death. The Ontario Special Investigations Unit (SIU) subsequently concluded that the driver committed suicide and police were not blamed.
The Hueston’s had an encounter with police wherein they were asked to leave the site of where the deceased’s vehicle was being pulled out of the water. As a result of a disagreement in which the Huestons indicated they had a right to be present, police charged them with obstructing their investigation. The resulting trial commenced in the summer of 2018 and a verdict was reportedly reached today, although the details of the judge’s decision are not yet known.
The case raises some important questions. It is paramount that police be able to perform their duties in an unhindered manner. One can understand the importance of preserving evidence and documenting it before it is destroyed. On the other hand it is also important that the actions of police be made available for the public’s scrutiny, as best as reasonably possible. Thus the need for specialist and independent journalists who can report on those actions.
The details of the actions of police and the journalists on the day of the occurrence are unlikely to be made publicly available to the degree that one can definitely conclude that a proper understanding has been gained. Hopefully, such a detailed account was properly developed through the introduction of evidence by the prosecution and defense, resulting in the court being able to make a judgment on a sound, objective basis. What information had been made publicly available led me to believe that the Huestons were wrongly charged and that police over-steeped their authority. Whether in fact that was the case still remains not fully revealed, but the court’s decision would suggest so.
What remains is how the future will unfold. The Huestons will likely remain to report on local issues and they will likely encounter the same police officers who were involved in this incident. A satisfactory solution cannot be gained by the simple judgment of the court alone. It relies on both, the journalists and police, to come to an understanding of their important and independent roles. On the part of the police, there has to be an understanding that the seemingly irritating presence of reporters and cameras must be endured as part of everyday police work. It cannot be escaped because of the importance that has to be placed on the public’s satisfaction that police are performing their duties as they should. This is not always pleasant as one can imagine instances where a photograph or video taken at a misleading occasion can lead to difficulties to police who must commence a difficult explanation of why something is not what it appears to be.
On the part of journalists there is also a responsibility to focus their work on providing a truthful account of what they have documented and to fairly portray the actions of police even when they have documented something that might appear to be inappropriate. The question must be, was the action truly inappropriate or is this simply an occasion to gain a good headline and more readership/viewers.
Finally, there is a responsibility in we, the public, to be cautious in our quick judgments and biases. Perfection is only in the viewing of a snowflake. Police, like all of us, are not snowflakes and not perfect. Rather than focusing on an individual incident that has caught police in a poor light, we must consider imperfect police actions throughout their undocumented career.
Non-Alcohol Drug Impairment Not Detected In Motor Vehicle Collisions
What has been revealed about the ability to detect non-alcohol drug impairment now that legalization of cannabis has taken place in Canada? For decades there has been a focused attention placed on alcohol impairment and various statistics have shown its relevance to major-injury and fatal collisions. Yet essentially nothing was mentioned about non-alcohol, drug impairment. It is only now that a discussion is developing because of concerns expressed that police may have limited ability to detect driver impairment due to cannabis use.
How many drivers were driving “stoned” for decades without detection?
In a recently publicized letter from Ontario Premier Doug Ford to Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the reality was noted that only a single piece of drug detection equipment, the Drager DrugTest 5000, has recently been made available to police. But how recently? How many of these machines were available to police 2 years ago, or 5 years ago, or 10 years ago? The truth emerges that likely very little, if any, objective testing was available even a short while before cannabis legalization. So what was the public being told during these many years and why was this problem not made more widely known?
Even though cannabis can be detected a further discussion is revealing that it is difficult to determine what levels of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, constitute impairment. However this cannot be a new finding. Surely this was known since the decades of use in the well-known activities of youth in the 1960s and onward.
If nothing more, this discussion reveals how important factors in the causation of motor vehicle collisions are officially withheld from public knowledge. There are many unpleasant realities, like non-alcohol drug impairment, that do not have an immediate solution. The hiding of these problems become of way of not having to face them in the public domain. Yet their hiding is also the mechanism that prevents their resolution.
Mandatory Truck Driver Training – An Expensive Bandage For A Cancer?
There is a developing belief that privately-administered, mandatory, truck driver training will create reductions in the frequency and consequences of truck collisions. These reductions must out weigh the generated costs that are monetary but will also include a reduction in the numbers of available truck drivers and a reduction in the numbers of smaller, independent trucking firms. This belief cannot be based on a naive belief that the data collected on truck collisions can be relied upon to accurately identify the true cause of truck crashes. These are some of the issues that need consideration.
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