Fire & Fatality Involving School Bus Near Simcoe Ontario
Fires continue spread in an unusually high number of incidents over recent years. News media report these outcomes as simple footnotes without much concern.
The most recent fire occurred on Windham Road 12 near Simcoe, Ontario. It was reported that an 80-year-old driver was travelling westbound which involved a requirement to stop at a stop sign. Judging by the southward location of the final rest positions of the vehicles it is likely that the driver was not travelling at highway speed and may very well have come to a stop at the stop sign before proceeding into the intersection with Nixon Road. Both vehicles travelled essentially south, or along the travel path of the school bus. This outcome would be expected because of the much larger mass of the school bus. However there was very little influence of the car’s mass in re-directing the bus’s post-impact motion and therefore a slow speed of the car would be a preliminary conclusion.
There was substantial crush to the side of the car, as would be expected, due to the speed of the bus. However there is no explanation why the fire commenced or from which source the fire originated.
In a significant collision it is uncommon for two striking vehicles to maintain contact throughout their post-impact trajectories to final rest. It will happen when the impact force is directed through the centres-of-gravity of the vehicles or, rarely, if there has been some snagging in the contacting structures.
Because of the danger to life that is created whenever a fire starts the Canadian and U.S. Federal Safety Standards provide a test of a vehicle’s fuel integrity and vehicles cannot be sold in North America if they fail that standard. Obviously federal agencies such as Transport Canada and the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) cannot test every vehicle therefore there are a lot of vehicles on the road whose fire performance in crashes is unknown. That is why it is essential for police and other agencies who investigate such incidents report any fires to the federal agencies so they can be tracked. It is this tracking which can inform the federal agencies that a safety related problem may exist. Without that reporting the public is at risk of being badly injured or dying needlessly from a fire that should not have occurred.
It becomes the responsibility of news media to inform the public of the existence of the safety standards and to report any incidents that appear suspicious. They should also be asking the investigating police whether they will be reporting these incidents to federal agencies who monitor public safety on the road and they should be reporting to the public what was the result of that discussion with police.
In the present case the cause and source of the fire is not clear and therefore suspicious. It was reported that the bus was filled with passengers that go out of the bus without incident. And it was also reported that police were able to extricate the deceased from the burned vehicle such that the fire reportedly did not cause his fatal injuries. But the situation could have been much different if extrications were not possible, particularly for the many passengers on the school bus. Thus the matter cannot be taken lightly.
Embarassingly Sarnia Observer Newspaper Is Correct That Highway 401 in Sarnia is Closed
Yes, the Sarnia Observer Newspaper is correct when the title to its news item read: “Highway 401 closed in Sarnia following crash”. The obvious error is that Highway 401 does not travel near Sarnia. The news item was with respect to the rollover collision of a truck on Highway 402 at Sarnia, not Highway 401.
Everyone makes mistakes. Those mistakes are eternally engrained in electronic storage when shown on TV, published in print media or uploaded on the internet. Various mistakes have occurred on the Gorski Consulting website from time to time and those are corrected when noted or when time allows.
What is different about the current developments in the news media is that, progressively, there appears to be less and less checking of the content for errors. In the golden decades of the newspaper era there were many eyes checking facts and, particularly, searching for typographical errors. Now, with the shortage of ad revenue and the decline of human resources to send out original and correct information, errors are becoming more frequent. That may be OK for small websites like Gorski Consulting that reach a small segment of our society. It is different when an error coming from a large news organization reaches thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of viewers/readers. We expect these large organizations to be dependable but they are beginning to unravel.
So we can feel sorry for the Sarnia Observer’s embarrassment. Your problem is not unique and it happens. We also hope that the person(s) involved in the reported truck rollover on Highway 402 are safe.
Did OPP Say 800 % Increase in Fatal Truck Collisions?
What are the real facts regarding heavy truck fatalities?
It is an eye-popping number. But there is the headline: There was an 800 percent increase in fatal, heavy truck collisions in the North-East region of Ontario compared to last year. Wow that is frightening, a crisis is at hand. At least that is the number attributed to an OPP media release and picked up my most major news outlets in Ontario. But what does that really mean?
North-eastern Ontario may have a large percentage of heavy trucks travelling through selected highways like the TransCanada route which is not a controlled access freeway such as Highway 401. And it is known that two-lane, or non-controlled highways can experience more complicated collision scenario including higher rates of fatality and injury collisions. But there is more…
What does 800 percent mean? If the north-eastern sector of Ontario experienced 1 fatal collision in 2017 and 2 in 2018 that would meant there was a 100 percent increase. Does that mean everyone should be pulling off the highways for fear of being killed by these massive demons?
Further information from the news release provides some concern over what has been reported. The numbers for 2018 compared to 2017 for the various regions of Ontario were included:
Central region, 2 collisions or no change from 2017.
North-west region, 2 collisions or a decrease of 60 percent from 2017.
East region, 8 collisions or an increase of about 33 percent from 2017.
Highway safety division, 3 collisions or and increase of 50 percent from 2017.
West region, 9 collisions or an increase of 12.5 percent from 2017.
The above numbers are all very small. The fluctuation from year to year could simply be the randomness of everyday life and could have nothing to do with whether there is reason for alarm. But the flashy numbers displayed to the public is creating a message in the mind of the public that is passed on from one person to the next: Something must be done with this tremendous crisis!
No doubt there may actually be increases in truck collisions and fatalities in the last couple of years. There are also likely increases in pedestrian, cyclist and motorcycle collisions. But the purpose of police and news media has to be to report factual information that is not misleading. That is the greater problem. Misleading numbers amplify the need for action, any action, regardless of whether it is mindless and unreasoned.
New Test Data From Veterans Memorial Parkway in London, Ontario
Roads can be the cause or influence of some collisions. Objective evidence is needed to compare the characteristics of a road to what should be expected and accepted. Gorski Consulting has been conducting testing of various road surfaces and road features for the past 10 years. The results have been published on the Road Data webpage of this Gorski Consulting website.
The latest data comes from testing conducted on June 2, 2018 on Veterans Memorial Parkway in London, Ontario. An instrumented test vehicle was driven southbound from Trafalgar Road to Highway 401. As typical, the magnitude of the motion of the test vehicle was captured in terms of the average longitudinal and lateral motion. Some motions can be too extreme and undesirable because they can cause a vehicle’s loss of control or other unintended consequences. These two parameters have been previously selected as a basis for further discussion.
The results of this latest testing are reported in a new Article uploaded to the Articles page of this website. The data will eventually be added to the Road Data datafile.
Humboldt Broncos Truck Driver Charged With Dangerous Driving
The truck driver in the Humboldt Broncos crash in Saskatchewan that killed 16 members of the hockey team has been charged with “dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death”. The driver, Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, had been travelling westbound and failed to stop at a stop sign at an intersection when a collision occurred with the northbound bus carrying the hockey team. Despite comments from many that the charges were warranted there has been no information released from the police investigation.
Evidence that could increase the charge to dangerous driving should not be solely based on the fact that Sidhu mistakenly passed through a stop sign. Any driver can experience a momentary lapse in concentration or attention that could lead to such a result, often with little consequence. Therefore the charges most likely have to be based on additional evidence that has not yet been made public. A heavy truck of modern manufacture would undoubtedly be equipped with some form of event data recorder that would store information such as the truck’s speed for several seconds before impact. Some truck EDRs might store data for much longer times.
There is the possibility that high speed might have been one of the factors leading to the up-graded charges. However, judging by the short, post-impact travel distance from impact to rest it would be highly unlikely that the speed of the truck at impact was anywhere close to the 100 km/h speed limit for the highway. In fact, from a preliminary observation, the impact speed of the truck would be substantially lower that the posted speed. Thus there could have been some pre-impact braking, or other unknown factors may have existed that have still not been released from the police investigation. A common possibility is that the driver could have been distracted by use of some form of electronic technology such as a smart phone and this could be detected by the police. There are many possibilities that remain unknown.
What is known is that a stand of trees was located at the south-east quadrant of the intersection which, from a preliminary viewpoint, may have contributed to the lack of visibility, by both drivers, of each others’ presence. It is for this reason that there are standards set in place for roadway maintenance personnel to cut back any vegetation or other obstructions to visibility at roadway intersections. This fact has not been discussed in any detail in most new coverage. Police have not been asked, nor have they voluntarily commented on the relevance of that factor.
While much news coverage has focused on more truck driver training it has not been explained how additional training could prevent a driver from making simply errors that all drivers make, regardless of their training. Driver training has not been demonstrated as effective in preventing such momentary errors as failing to detect the presence of a stop sign. Indeed, driver training is often a test of one’s “performance” on a particular time of the testing but does not reflect the driver’s attitude or diligence in maintaining safe driving habits once the driver testing has been completed. Changing long-lasting attitudes and habits is much more difficult and requires the participant’s willing involvement in making that change. Official driver testing does not guarantee that the tested driver will be committed to what has been learned.
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