Resident Traffic Concerns Continue In London Ontario
Concerns about traffic safety have been a key issue in North America for well over 100 years. In that time there have been great strides toward improving public roadways and motor vehicles. Our roadways contain advanced designs that few persons in the public domain are aware of. Signage and roadway markings have been standardized for decades. Vehicles have improved tremendously through numerous federal motor vehicle safety standards. And recent technological improvements have greatly increased collision avoidance. It is rarely understood that, since the mid-1970’s, the numbers of fatalities on public roadways have fallen year after year. That is the good news.
The bad news is that the general public has not kept up with their knowledge of road safety. Very basic facts that ought to be known are, for bazaar reasons, kept from public awareness. This may appear innocuous because no one can see how a lack of knowledge can be life-threatening, but it is. What is a life-threatening incident? And what is something that may appear dangerous but is likely to cause only minor injury? Knowledge of these basic things could change behaviors but that will not happen.
In the vicinity of London Ontario there are many transportation issues that pose safety concerns. But there is no reliable source that can publicly differentiate the really bad things from those less dangerous. Officials in the Province of Ontario do very little to create this awareness. Municipal representatives do little because they themselves do not recognize how to prioritize safety concerns. Local police are more tied up with dangerous criminals and have far less resources, or focus, on programs that prevent accidental injury and death. And official news media are so concerned with the threats of social media that they have shrunk in numbers and influence. All these representatives of our society seem very incapable of providing any useful knowledge to the public about what safety issues are important.
As the CTV News news agency in London Ontario has essentially become the only official news-reporting group in the City, whatever it reports is widely distributed. Recently CTV news has made several reports on citizen concerns about traffic safety.
In an article published on February 28, 2025 CTV news reported on concerns expressed by residents after a collision occurred on the curve of Western Road just north of Oxford Street. Quotes from several persons demonstrated that the collision site was unacceptably unsafe.
In another CTV News article posted on March 24, 2025 residents were quoted again about their safety concerns after a fatal pedestrian collision occurred at the intersection of Bradley Ave and Ernest Ave in the White Oaks area. One resident stated: “It’s ridiculous how many incidents there are, and I really hope something improves, so this area is a lot safer.”
In an article published on July 9, 2025 CTV reported on concerns expressed by residents about safety concerns in the Old North neighbourhood north of the City’s downtown.
A week later, on July 15, 2025, CTV reported once again about citizen complaints with respect to safety at the intersection of Wortley Road and Emery Street in the Old South neighbourhood.
On July 21, 2025 CTV News posted another article about concerns expressed by residents with respect to the intersection of Hyde Park Road and Fitzwilliam Boulevard in south-west London. This was after a fatal collision involving a motorcycle occurred there on July 16, 2025. Once again several residents indicated this site “…has long been a safety concern…”
On July 31st CTV reported on complaints expressed by a resident about dangerous driving in the SoHo neighbourhood south-east of the City’s downtown.
On August 13, 2025, CTV news reported that the intersection of Viscount Road and Steeplechase Drive was “extraordinarily dangerous”. The article indicated that a pedestrian was struck at that intersection “earlier this year” but that collision was not reported by any news agency.
Some of these resident concerns may reveal genuine safety problems but it is difficult to be certain. This is because there is absolutely no objective data provided either by the City of London, nor by the London City Police, as to where safety problems are revealed in their collected data.
The old adage “The squeaky wheel gets the grease” is a cute way of saying, if you want something just shout loudly. In terms of road safety that type of functioning should not apply. For the benefit of all, roadway improvements should be based on solid objective data, not on who shouts the loudest. However, very often, it is those loud shouts that are the canaries in the coal mine that reveal a safety problem long before it is officially recognized.
Unfortunately those officials responsible for road safety are not the best gatekeepers of the public’s interests. The litigious society in which we live is full of plaintiff lawyers who make money by submitting claims and taking a percentage of the money. In response there are lawyers working for the defendants against those claims. Plaintiff lawyers pad their case wherever possible and defendants hide themselves from plaintiff discovery whenever possible. This combination emphasizes minor safety problems while also hiding important and legitimate ones. The public does not recognize how this legal interplay prevents legitimate safety problems from being identified and corrected.
Amongst the many things held in secret, the number of traffic complaints processed by the City of London is unknown. So again, those citizens complaining about their traffic problems are unaware whether their concerns are unique and important or whether they are one of many competing demands from across the City.
While official news agencies such as CTV news ought to be informing the public about legitimate safety problems that is often not the case. As investigative journalists have been moving toward extinction their objective assessments also move in that direction. Articles that are published about road safety should be based on a thorough knowledge of the subject matter, however, with the increased complexity of our society, journalists cannot be experts in every field being reported. And in terms of road safety substantial expertise is needed to properly inform the public. Journalists cannot just report on the “squeakiest wheels” but on whether those wheels actually need fixing. That is difficult to do when you have little expertise in the matter.
Increasingly, the public receives its news from internet social platforms where anyone can post anything and the success of those posts depends on whether enough of the public is accepting of the sermon being preached. This fake news is built on a fake foundation which jeopardizes the proper functioning of a democratic society.
It has been the long-standing opinion of Gorski Consulting that many traffic complaints could be satisfactorily resolved if there was greater transparency in official circles about what the objective data says about those complaints. Educating the public is key to removing frivolous complaints while strengthening the public’s voice when a genuine traffic safety issue has not been officially recognized.
How Aware Are OPP Of Creating Dangerous Traffic Conditions?
There are times when police must act swiftly to react to situations where the public, or other emergency personnel, including themselves, may be in grave danger. At times this puts a police officer in harm’s way until proper reinforcements and equipment can arrive. Regrettably that can be a circumstance of policing. However each circumstance needs deep evaluation as some decisions can needlessly create dangers that need not occur. An example of this occurred on Monday, August 18, 2025 on westbound Highway 403 on approach to Highway 401 on the outskirts of Woodstock, Ontario,
A single vehicle rollover occurred causing a passenger car to come to rest in the median of Highway 403. Upon approaching the site from a westbound position it was observed that an OPP police SUV had come to a stop in the westbound passing lane, as shown in the dashcam photo above. Although the overhead emergency lights from the police vehicle could be seen from a distance, due to the curve in the highway, it was not possible to obtain a clear understanding of where the police vehicle was located, with respect to the travel lanes, until a driver was relatively close to the police vehicle. As traffic slowed that unusual position became evident and westbound vehicles successfully passed the stopped police vehicle.
But such successful scenarios do not always unfold as expected. The traffic volume at the time that the above photo was taken was relatively light and, given the Sunday afternoon, the volume of heavy trucks was much less than on a weekday. However that traffic volume, and its composition is important. If traffic volume was higher and if more heavy trucks were present the ability of approaching drivers to see the stopped police vehicle would be hampered. Heavy trucks have the tendency to block the view of other drivers of highway conditions that lie ahead. So much so that, given the uncommon conditions of several heavy trucks in the vicinity, visibility ahead could be greatly obscured. Also heavy trucks cannot change lanes on a dime, especially when other smaller vehicles are in the vicinity and changing lanes cannot be done immediately.
Two other dash-cam photos are shown below which demonstrate what existed in the westbound lanes on approach to the collision-involved vehicle. As can be seen, there is nothing in the westbound passing lane that would create an immediate danger to westbound drivers. And there are no longer any emergency personnel in the median. So this collision had to have happened some time earlier. So why was the police vehicle still stopped in the westbound passing lane? Was it not possible to call the Ministry of Transportation to bring a blocker truck to block the westbound passing lane instead of using a police vehicle?
What becomes evident in the photo above, and in the photo below, is that the eastbound passing lane on the other side of the highway has been closed by pylons and there is a blocker truck positioned in that lane along with some Ministry of Transportation vehicles. These are the types of resources that should have been applied in the westbound lanes if the passing lane was to be safely closed. But why did this not occur? Was a second blocker truck not available?
Decades earlier another incident took place in the westbound lanes of Highway 401 near the Putnam interchange which is less than 30 kilometres west from the present site. In that incident a collision-involved vehicle had come to rest in the grass median (this was before a concrete median barrier had been put in place). In darkness a police officer attempted to divert traffic out of the westbound passing lane by using the flash light that he was equipped with. This could have been the best equipment that the officer had on hand but it was insufficient and a second collision occurred. At that time the deficiency could have been observed and steps could have been put in place to ensure that more traffic-diverting equipment was available. But that did not happen for many years until blocker-trucks eventually began to be used. However, how often are such trucks available in current times? If a blocker-truck was not available at the currently-mentioned site, why not?
“Cargo” Biking With No Brakes?
The above photo was taken in August of 2025 on Dundas Street in east London Ontario as a cyclist decided he could carry a large box on the handlebars of his bicycle. Controlling the loose cargo means that his hands are not available for other purposes, like braking. While approaching a pedestrian crossing he is unable to brake for a pedestrian who thought she had the right-of-way, as shown below.
The only thing that saved him from striking the pedestrian is that he planted his right foot on the ground and used that as his brake.
Carrying cargo by bike is efficient in many circumstances but dangerous when it interferes with basic actions needed to control the bike. In many instances there is little or no attention paid to bike braking even when the bike is a genuine cargo bike. And the same point holds true for other vehicles such as e-bikes and e-scooters. The ability to apply braking is a fundamental and essential matter that must be considered before any vehicle, motorized or not, is allowed on a public roadway.
Clarke Road Traffic Bottleneck Causes More Than Just Resident Complaints
High volumes of traffic, including many heavy trucks, have come to plague local residents along Clarke Road in the north-east end of the City of London. Gorski Consulting has become aware of one of those complaints made to the City and thus additional analyses have recently been conducted. This site contains a long history of study by Gorski Consulting for a number of reasons. That history will be reviewed before details of the latest analysis will be presented.
Site Features
Clarke Road in an arterial roadway that runs north/south at the north-east edge of London, Ontario. Presently the site of concern is an extension of the Veterans Memorial Parkway (VMP) which is described as a north-south municipal expressway at the east end of the City. It is convenient for heavy vehicle traffic to travel from the Highway 401 expressway, onto the VMP and then northward onto Clarke Road to locations north of the City. Similarly southbound trucks can use the same convenient route to reach the VMP and then onto Highway 401 or destinations to the south.
A variety of heavy trucks also originate from the City of London itself. Specialized traffic can include trucks hauling dangerous chemical and explosive materials. A large fuel storage facility has existed from many years at the intersection of Oxford Street and Industrial Road. Many fuel tanker trucks use Veterans Memorial Parkway and pass through the curves of Clarke Road north of Fanshawe Park Road on their travels to and from north of the City. It is imperative that trucks hauling these dangerous materials travel along safe routes designed for their use. The curves on Clarke Road are clearly not designed for such use.
Background
Gorski Consulting has been aware of the special traffic problems at the curves on Clarke Road north of Fanshawe Park Road for many years. Before the year 2005 this portion of Clarke Road had the worse road surface conditions in the area and this prompted Gorski Consulting to conduct some preliminary evaluations of instrumentation that could detect those surface deficiencies. Such experimentation eventually led to formalized procedures involving multiple video cameras along with the sensors of an iPhone attached to a test vehicle that objectively exposed those surface problems.
Another reason why Gorski Consulting was interested in the curves on Clarke Road is because, over many years of reconstructing motor vehicle loss-of-control collisions, it became obvious that roadway curves were an important causal factor in those events. Furthermore, roadway edge drop-off was another causal factor in these loss-of-control collisions and it became known that a prominent edge drop-off continued to reform, despite the City’s regrading efforts, because of the features of those curves.
In the year 2008 the surface of Clarke Road was repaved. However the edge edge-drop continued to redevelop. This was not a surprise because vehicles continued to drop off the pavement surface regardless of the pavement condition. This was a matter of the higher speed of vehicles and the presence of both vertical and horizonal curves forming an unusual road character. Attempts to make the public aware of these potential problems were unsuccessful as no one in an official capacity wanted such safety issues to become public.
Early in the studies it was expected that loss-of-control events would be occurring at this site and this was confirmed by the finding of physical evidence along the roadsides. Yet nothing was ever officially reported about these happenings. As a result Gorski Consulting began documenting the physical evidence that was found and this continued for a full 10 years between 2009 and 2019. The documentations took place only within the curves which existed for only about 300 metres. The result of this work showed that 121 loss-of-control incidents were documented in that 10-year period, or about 1 incident per month.
Early attempts were made to examine where these events occurred and if a repetitive pattern could be established. These events were plotted on an aerial view of the site, shown below. This data shows the events up to the end of the year 2012.
No obvious pattern was observed in the location of the loss-of-control events as they appeared to be scattered randomly throughout the curves.
Attempts were also made to inquire from the City of London about what knowledge they had about these incidents. A Freedom of Information request was made of the City and they replied that no knowledge existed and the inquiry should be made to the London City Police. A further inquire to the police was complicated but eventually the police data was released. The result of comparing the Gorski Consulting data with the London Police data was reported in a Gorski Consulting website article in April of 2017. A passage from that article is reprinted below:
“Gorski Consulting has been monitoring the occurrence of collisions and loss-of-control events at the S-curve of Clarke Road north of Fanshawe Park Road in London, Ontario since the fall of 2009. Comparing our data to that of the London City Police, it has been found that over 80% of the collisions and incidents that occur at this site are not officially documented and therefore no knowledge exists as to how they occurred and what relevance they may have toward a proper understanding of the safety of the curve.”
In 2019 Zygmunt Gorski was appointed to the City of London’s Transportation Advisory Committee and in about a similar time City Staff reports became public about studies on widening of Clarke Road and the building of an extension of the Veterans Memorial Parkway to connect with Clarke Road.
It was at this time that data became available about traffic volumes at the intersection of Clarke Road and Fanshawe Park Road. This intersection was only about 500 metres south of the curves where considerable data was gathered by Gorski Consulting. Additional video sessions were commenced by Gorski Consulting at the curves to understand the current traffic volumes and speeds at the site. In preparation for an upcoming meeting of the Transportation Advisory Committee Zygmunt Gorski asked that an agenda item be attached wherein the data from the curves at Clarke Road could be discussed with committee members. The City Clerk refused to allow the insertion of this item. As a result of this action Zygmunt Gorski submitted his resignation from the Committee. And it was only a few years later when essentially all citizen advisory committees were disbanded by the City.
The video sessions completed by Gorski Consulting in 2019 revealed that a very large increase in traffic volume had developed in comparison to the earlier data commencing in 2009. For northbound vehicles the traffic volume had increased by 50.5%. For southbound vehicles the traffic volume had increased by 46.0%. While this fact was posted in Gorski Consulting articles only a small number of visitors actually accessed those articles. None of this information was made available for the general public to consider.
The last data on the Clarke Road curves posted on the Gorski Consulting website was in the spring of 2020. At this time the Covid-19 pandemic was in full effect. It became of interest to know how traffic volumes and speeds were affected. So on March 27, 2020 another video session was conducted at the Clarke Road site and the results were combined with three other sites, as listed below:
Hamilton Road west of Gore Road in London
Highbury Ave at Commissioners Road in London
Highway 401 at Westminster Drive, south-west of London
The results for Clarke Road were in relation to a half hour time segment between 1600 and 1630 hours. This showed that the 2020 traffic volume had decreased marginally compared to the 2019 data. Similar effects were observed at the other sites so it was no just a unique situation at Clarke Road.
Vehicle speed data was also reported in the spring 2020 website article. In the year 2009 a 60 km/h speed advisory sign was posted at the curves. By October 2019 that speed advisory was lowered to 50 km/h. The data showed that the average speed of vehicles at the curves was 75.18 km/h in 2009 and the average speed was lowered to 72.75 km/h in October 2019. The data from March 27, 2020 showed an average speed of 74.57 km/h. All these speeds are obviously higher than the advised speed.
The site at the Clarke Road curves continued to be monitored by Gorski Consulting until the spring of 2022 when the study was finally discontinued.
Current Status of Clarke Road Site
On July 7, 2025 Gorski Consulting received the copy of a notice of complaint to the City of London from a resident who was responding to a collision on Clarke Road just south of Fanshawe Park Road. The general concern was about the traffic volume, including heavy trucks, and the resulting unsafe conditions at his residence. Gorski Consulting was notified because the complaining resident was aware that a substantial amount of data had been collected. In response to the notification Gorski Consulting attended the collision site and then re-examined the curves of Clarke Road. A large number of trucks were observed such that it appeared that the truck volume had increased from five years ago. We therefore made arrangements to conduct more video sessions to evaluate the current status of the site. Four, 1-hour video sessions were conducted at the following dates and times:
July 30, 1600 hours
July 31, 1300 hours
August 5, 0930 hours
August 7, 1100 hours
The data was summarized to determine the traffic volume and the volume of heavy trucks in each of the video sessions. Again, the summaries were with respect to one-hour time frames. The results are noted below:
July 30, 1600 hours: Total traffic volume = 1139 vehicles, Heavy truck volume = 80 trucks
July 31, 1300 hours: Total traffic volume = 595 vehicles, Heavy truck volume = 120 trucks
August 5, 0930 hours: Total traffic volume = 661 vehicles, Heavy truck volume = 129 trucks
August 7, 1100 hours; Total traffic volume = 676 vehicles, Heavy truck volume = 149 trucks
The 1139 vehicles observed on July 30th was the highest ever recorded in all the previous sessions going back to the first sessions in October, 2009. The 149 trucks observed on August 7 was the second highest ever recorded, surpassed only by the 152 trucks observed in a session commencing at 1357 hours on October 24, 2019.
However there were more details to these results. While completing the analyses of the video sessions it became apparent that the characteristics of the traffic units had changed. In the 2025 sessions there appeared to be many more dump trucks towing pup trailers. Also there appeared to be many more non-trucks, such as pick-ups, vans and SUVs that were hauling large trailers. Thus further analysis was conducted to explore these apparent changes.
A comparison was made with the data from July 30, 2025 commencing at 1600 hours with the same start time on October 27, 2009. We focused our documentations just on dump trucks. We counted how many dump trucks travelled through the site as single unit, without a trailer, and those dump trucks that were hauling a pup trailer. The results are noted below:
October 27, 2009: single unit dump trucks without trailers = 17, dump trucks hauling pup-trailers = 6
July 30, 2025: Single unit dump trucks without trailers = 7, dump trucks hauling pup-trailers = 17
So a reversal of characteristics occurred. In 2025 there were many more dump trucks hauling pup trailers while in the year 2009 it was the reverse.
We then did another comparison whereby we searched for a session completed in the month of July that would match the month of July in 2025. The found session took place on July 13, 2011 commencing at 1105 hours. The results from that session are noted below:
July 13, 2011: Single unit dump trucks without trailers = 13, dump trucks hauling pup-trailers = 1.
So the results were even more dramatic. Only one dump truck was observed hauling a pup trailer in the 2011 session. Yet in the 2025 session 17 dump trucks were observed hauling pup trailers.
Once again we conducted another comparison by looking at the data from August 7, 2025 where we observed a large number of trucks. The results are noted below:
August 7, 2025: Single unit dump trucks without trailers = 31, dump trucks hauling pup-trailers = 22.
Thus on August 7th there were many more observations of dump trucks and more of them were without pup-trailers. Yet 22 of those trucks were hauling pup-trailers which is higher than the July 30th data.
The comparisons also demonstrated a dramatic difference in the traffic volumes at 1100 hours between August 7, 2025 and July 13, 2011. Only 312 vehicles were observed passing through the curves in 2011 whereas in 2025 676 vehicle observations were made. So well over twice as many vehicles passed through the curves in 2025 in the same one-hour (1100 to 1200 hour) time frame.
Over the years residents at the noted curves have also had to deal with vegetation that continually blocked their view when exiting their driveways located on the east side of the road. Looking to the north bushes blocked the view and made it precarious to attempt a left turn. A number of years ago the City of London cut back those bushes but now they have reformed. It is clear that the City has neglected this problem for a number of years now.
Discussion
Overall, it can be said that the numbers of trucks in general increased during the 2025 video sessions but also that the trucks that were observed were also hauling more cargo because of the additional payloads of truck trains and pup-trailers. It is probable that further analysis will reveal that more cargo is also being carried by “non-trucks” hauling trailers but that analysis has not been done. Although no specific analysis had been completed, a review of the video sessions also suggested that there were many more “non-trucks”, such as pick-up trucks, vans and SUVs hauling various trailers, some of them large, through the curves in 2025.
During the long time of documentation of loss-of-control collisions at the Clarke Road curves no official mention was made by news media about any significant collisions. And to the present date Gorski Consulting is unaware of any official reports of significant collisions through the curves. Exploration of police reports and comparing those to the Gorski Consulting data showed that more than 80% the collisions/incidents documented by Gorski Consulting were unknown to police. It is possible that the results of some of the collisions on Clarke Road are only reported in Hospital emergency records but those are not available.
The very large number of cargo-carrying vehicles travelling through the curves of Clarke Road is unlikely to be affected by attempts to change transportation behaviour toward mass transit and active transportation. Regardless of how successfully the City of London manages to divert the population away from climate-changing, personal, motor vehicles there will always be a need to transport cargo, sometimes in very large quantities at once. So if cargo-carrying vehicles are diverted off of the Clarke Road curves they will have to go somewhere else; you cannot just make them disappear.
The City of London has had decades to consider how it should react to the existence of vehicles entering and exiting the Veterans Memorial Parkway at its north terminus and therefore where it meets with Clarke Road. Plans were publicized in 2019 about twinning the Clarke Road bridge over the Thames River just south of Fanshawe Park Road and therefore creating four lanes of traffic. But those “improvements’ will terminate at Fanshawe Park Road. Nothing has been mentioned about traffic problems developing on Clarke Road north of Fanshawe Park Road and particularly at its curves near there. Widening Clarke Road will only entice more traffic onto it and escalate the problems at the Clarke Road curves. A decision awaits but it cannot wait forever.
Many Involved In Suppressing Information About Cyclist Safety
Many persons and organizations in the region of London Ontario are working hard to suppress information about cycling dangers that exist on local roads. Why this is happening is complicated. While there is considerable propaganda distributed throughout official circles that cyclist safety is an important matter, when it comes to actually implementing real solutions, that propaganda falls heavily short.
The example shown in the two photos in this article demonstrate the lack of recognition by cyclists to the dangers around them. Note that the cyclist in the above photos is not wearing a helmet and is carrying some kind baggage suspended from the left handlebar. Above all, cyclists need to understand that they need as much clearance from a passing motor vehicle as possible. Suspending baggage from a handlebar will reduce that clearance. And if the baggage becomes snagged with the passing vehicle a dangerous result will take place. But many cyclists do not comprehend that something loose and soft like a handbag could become snagged. And they do not appreciate that such limited snagging could have dire consequences. Such basic information is not passed onto unsuspecting cyclists because those who investigate cyclist collisions do not pass on their findings to the cyclists who need to know.
Many cyclists develop a blind faith in the belief that the government is there to protect them. So when the Ontario Provincial government introduced legislation a number of years ago that required motor vehicles to stay a lateral distance of 1 metre away from a cyclist this was one of the ways in which cyclists were lulled into a sense of imaginary safety. Cyclists would now be protected because if a motor vehicle driver killed them the driver would be in the wrong. And the driver could go to jail. Too few understand that the value of the door prize won by being right and dead is not worth dying for.
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