“Tires were smoking and engines were screaming” – But did it happen?
Can a Mazda3 produce smoking tires and a screaming engine while accelerating from a stopped position?
Evidence at trials can be complicated and not always accurate.
A trial is taking place involving a dangerous driving charge against a young Cambridge woman, Jasmine Henning, with respect to a collision that reportedly occurred on June 11, 2017 on Water Street in Cambridge. A witness claimed that Henning’s Mazda3 was accelerated from a traffic signal along with a Hyundai Genesis and the witness claimed that “As soon as the light turned green they were gone. Tires were smoking and engines were screaming. They were a couple of pretty fast cars”.
The performance of small engine cars such as the Mazda3 can be altered and that needs to be revealed. However a typical Mazda3 cannot perform the type of accelerations described by the witness. A 300 horsepower Genesis would easily have not problem outracing the Mazda3.
As an example, testing had been performed by Gorski Consulting in June of 2014 involving maximum accelerations of a Mazda3 from initial speeds of 10 and 20 km/h, with the transmission set in 2nd gear. The results of one of the 20 km/h tests are shown in the chart below.
Results of a brief, maximum acceleration from in initial speed of 20 km/h by a Mazda3
In three tests from 20 km/h the average accelerations, over a time of about 3 to 4 seconds were 0.186, 0.177 and 0.188 g. Similarly, two tests performed from an initial speed of 10 km/h produced accelerations of 0.200 and 0.197 g. These are not massive values. Although the tests were not from a stopped position like the situation reported by the witness, it is highly doubtful that the Mazda3’s performance would be comparable to the Genesis and would not match the witness’s observation of “tires smoking and engines screaming”. That description may be more appropriate for the Genesis.
What actually caused the Mazda3 to travel out of control into opposing traffic needs more study than the small bits of information reported by the news media. Police reported some form of road surface “hump”. That road abnormality may be unrelated to the crash, just as was the opinion of the investigating police.
However, too often, roadway humps, bumps, depressions or subsidences are ignored and untested as possible causes of crashes. This is why Gorski Consulting conducts testing of various road surfaces and road characteristics so that one road can be compared to the next. Without the results from actual, objective testing, the opinions provided by collision reconstructionists and investigators may be inaccurate. The Road Data database is available for public viewing on the Road Data page of the Gorski Consulting website.
When a driver insists that no racing occurred and that some form of unexplainable malfunction occurred this may simply be a way of defending oneself from a serious charge. However when witness information sounds unusual, and police confirm the presence of a road surface abnormality, further study is prudent.
Rear-Ended Taxi Could Result in Fatalities
Given the extent of rear crush and the fact that five occupants were reportedly in this taxi suggests that fatal injuries to at least one of the occupants could be possible.
OPP have just uploaded the above photo on their Twitter account showing a taxi that was rear-ended, at an undisclosed location, by a pick-up truck. Given the extent of crush at the rear of the taxi, the difference is speed between the vehicles was likely “at highway speed”. Thus the crush does not indicate how fast each of the vehicles as travelling it just indicates the difference in speed between the vehicles. This is also referred to as change-in-speed, change-in-velocity or Delta-V.
Generally, vehicles are not tested for safety compliance in high-speed rear-end impacts therefore the safety performance of the struck vehicle cannot be guaranteed. What is known is that previous severities of impact in this range have led to fatalities for the rear occupants.
There is frontal damage to the taxi and that needs to be explained.
No word yet from the OPP as to what occurred, where or what injury consequences ensued.
The striking vehicle, shown below, does not show anywhere near the extent of crush as the taxi and this is common. Never-the-less it has sufficient crush that additional energy would have been dissipated by its structure. Undoubtedly OPP will download the crash data from the pick-up truck and its impact speed should be known.
The front end of the striking pick-up truck shows far less crush and this is typical for collisions like this. The stiffer front end of the truck generally over-rides the softer rear of the struck vehicle and there is this vast difference in crush between the two.The background of the photos suggests the collision site is in a rural area but on a higher volume highway which does not readily explain why a vehicle such as the taxi might be stopped or travelling slowly. In total there will need to be an explanation why there was such a large difference in speed between the vehicles that would lead to this extreme impact. Details from the OPP are likely to follow.
New Road Data Available For Highways Near London Ontario
The Road Data webpage of this Gorski Consulting site has been updated with new data from testing along Veterans Memorial Parkway, Highway 401 and Highbury Ave in London, Ontario.
As expected the data indicates the relatively smooth surface conditions along southbound Veterans Memorial Parkway from Tartan Drive up to Highway 401. This is partly due to the recent repaving of that section of road in 2016 and 2017. Similarly, smooth surface conditions existed along westbound Highway 401 between Veterans Memorial Parkway and Highbury Ave.
It has been well known that Highbury Ave is not very pleasant to drive between Highway 401 and Hamilton Road, either southbound or northbound. Part of the discomfort is due to the uneven concrete surface. Testing southbound between Hwy 401 and Commissioners Road confirmed those perceptions as the lateral motion of the test vehicle was substantially greater than along the other two highways. This is despite the fact that the worse area, located southbound from just south of the Thames River bridge, has not yet been tested.
The results of the testing re-affirm the accuracy of the testing procedures. Multiple video cameras continue to be used to document the specific surfaces where the motion data is being sensed. This allows for very specific information on what disturbances to the test vehicle have caused that motion. This greater detail is not included in the Road Data file for obvious reasons that its complexity and detail cannot be uploaded to a website. However the additional details are available to the public who want to know those details. Simply contact Gorski Consulting via our website or on Twitter (@crashologist).
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.
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