The latest findings from an eight-year-long research study conducted by Gorski Consulting has revealed that 96% of vehicles that go out of control and slide through the opposing lane while travelling around the curve of an 80 km/h highway are never documented in any police data. While these results may appear astounding they are fully supported by actual photographic evidence documented from detailed examinations of the test site where the research has been conducted.

These disturbing results may be related to the specific site where the research is being conducted and it may be questionable how these extreme results may be generalized to other sites. Yet, without anyone conducting research of a similarly detailed nature the specific extent of the problem has to raise some alarms.

The site of the research is located on Clarke Road north of Fanshawe Park Road and Gorski Consulting has reported many previous findings on this website. One of the findings reported in April of 2017 indicated that over 80% of loss-of-control collisions and incidents were not found in the police data of the London City Police Service. That may not be as alarming because one could imagine that there could be many, minor, loss-of-control incidents in the Gorski data that may not warrant reporting. Many of these would not involve the crossing of a centre-line into opposing traffic. While that comment may be partially true, it fails to recognize that many significant incidents were documented in the Gorski data that should have been reported to police but were not.

This latest data is even more compelling because it only looks at the specific incidents where the loss-of-control vehicle was out of control when it crossed through the opposing lane. Twenty-six incidents or such occurrences were documented and only one of these was documented in police records which leads to the 96% value that has been indicated. Five of the most current cases have not yet been verified with police data however examination of the physical evidence indicates that these five vehicles left the collision site without evidence of police involvement.

It is possible that many of these loss-of-control incidents may be occurring at night-time when there are few vehicles travelling through the site and this could be why there have not been any vehicle-to-vehicle impacts in the 26 incidents. While that is a possibility it remains unknown, and cannot be known, without further resources that can monitor the site more closely during night-time hours.

This research raises the question whether police, researchers and government policy-makers are relying on an accurate data-set that allows for a proper understanding of the vehicular loss-of-control problem on our highways.

You know this could end badly!

There are many policy-makers who trust their data and researchers to conclude that something is a good idea. One such good idea was the limiting of truck speeds in Ontario to just over 100 km/h.

That seemed fine because these trucks could be used as road blocks to slow down traffic, particularly on expressways such as Highway 401. There would be less need to send police onto this busy expressway as many serious rear-end impacts have occurred when police make a traffic stop. The fact that speeders might run into the back of a slow truck would also be OK because it would be the speeder who would lose their life or limb and not the slow trucker – or so could be the logic. The additional chaos that might be created as large differences in vehicle speeds became created would be difficult to prove and there would be no need generated to do something about it. Certainly police reports would not high-light the fact that this chaos would exist and this would not reach the traffic data or the analysts who advice the policy-makers. The only fact that would exist is that major rear-end collisions would keep occurring and this could be blamed on irresponsible drivers who were distracted. Truck drivers would be easy targets because they are the ones who would have the greatest difficulty in slowing down when traffic chaos exists.

Certainly the trucker is at fault in many instances but is that the only factor? As an analogy, for many early years there were many machines that cut or crushed material that were fed by an operator who would push the material onto some kind of conveyor belt which would drag the material into the compartment where the cutting and crushing would occur. The obvious advisement to those machine operators was “don’t stick your hand into the crushing/cutting compartment!”. Well, yes, that would seem to be sage advice. But in the environment where the worker is conducting this feeding process repeatedly over many days and months something unintended eventually happens. The worker reaches too far, the worker’s clothing gets caught on a conveyor belt… and so on. And for many years it was deemed to be a worker’s fault. Not paying enough attention. Not until later were various safety devices installed to prevent workers from being dragged into cutting and crushing devices and these accidents were greatly diminished. Is there not a parallel here with the traffic scenario?

Yes, drivers become drowsy and inattentive when subjected to a long time of the mundane task of driving, but is there no way of creating safeguards, much like the crushing/cutting scenario, where persons who make simple mistakes do not have to pay for them with their lives? Limiting truck speeds can be dangerous in some situations where truck drivers get into a situation that requires an immediate and drastic evasive action to avoid disaster. When we take away that driver’s ability to take that evasive action is that no different than removing the safeguards that keep the non-attentive machine operator from being cut or crushed to death? Also, when a heavy truck is involved in a collision it is not always the drowsy truck driver who pays the price, it could be many other innocent drivers in that truck’s vicinity.

Yes, this truck driver made a mistake. But could a fatal collision be avoided if his maximum speed was not limited? The trucker is not the only person who might lose their life in this circumstance.

Ontario’s new Police Act bill has been passed but it is uncertain whether its changes will be beneficial. Increasing the power of certain oversight bodies does not necessarily increase the benefits to society when monitoring and evaluating police actions. The question still boils down to an improvement in justice to all, including the police.

Ontario’s new Police Act bill has reportedly been passed and this marks a major overhaul that has not taken place in over 25 years. What it means exactly is not clear. While certain bodies such as police chiefs, the Special Investigations Unit and the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIRPD) may have greater power, that does not necessarily translate to greater justice and fairness which must be the ultimate goal of any changes. The importance of transparency was discussed in a report by Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Michael Tulloch but it is not clear how this transparency will be improved by the new bill. Will justice be seen to be done or will the public be asked to continue to stumble in the dark while improper decisions are withheld from their evaluation?

Why bother with more studies and statistics and data and ….We are all experts on why pedestrian collisions and their associated injuries and fatalities are on the increase. And there lies  the problem. We always knew what the problem was and we were just waiting for something to back up our preconceived conclusions. This is good science and policy.