Dingman-Highbury Collisions And Persistent Lack of Transparency
The London CTV News agency posted an article on its website on May 7, 2026 containing comments about the safety of an intersection from a resident, Ilan Tipping, who lives near the intersection of Highbury Ave and Dingman Drive in south-east London, Ontario. In part the title of the article included the phrase ‘Municipal laws don’t matter when people are being killed’. The article went on to the resident’s comments that “This intersection is crazy” and “It’s just gotten worse”.
Another segment of comments from Tipping was noted as follows”
“I’ve warned the city about this corner, and they just brush me off about it, they say it’s not that important,” said Tipping. “I talked to the city about the speed here and they said, ‘Oh they follow municipal laws;’ municipal laws don’t matter when people are being killed.”
Comments like these are nothing new. Agencies like CTV News create such articles and post comments of residents at numerous sites across the City of London. In many of these postings the persons making the comments believe the collision site is the worst and most dangerous they have ever seen, or something of that nature. And sometimes the publicity generated by CTV News causes politicians or local police to provide short comments containing minimal or no valuable information related to the safety of a particular site.
In fact, just because someone claims that a site is dangerous does not make it so. It could be just someone given a microphone who has a strong opinion but not necessarily an accurate one. So how does one know whether someone’s comments are describing a factually dangerous site or whether someone is just “broadcasting” nonsense?
The CTV News article continued with comments made by London Mayor Josh Morgan and the focus of the discussion diverted to the fact that there were discussions in place with the Province of Ontario to make this portion of Highbury Ave a provincial highway. Thus the meaning of this discussion is that if Highbury Ave became a provincial highway the safety problems at the the Dingman-Highbury intersection would be solved.
The CTV article indicated Morgan’s belief that“If the plan does not come to fruition, Morgan says the city would consider making safety improvements to the intersection following proper assessment.” And this is where the discussion becomes unreasonable. The Province’s take over of Highbury Ave would take years to complete, even if it became a reality. If there is a genuine safety problem at the Dingman-Highbury intersection actions to deal it cannot be reasonably delayed for many years. As Mr. Tipping properly indicated “something needs to be done sooner rather than later”.
The interview with Mayor Morgan made references to a “proper assessment” and Morgan referred to looking at traffic volumes, collision history and pedestrian movements. Combined with Mr. Tipping’s reference to “municipal laws” it appears both persons were referring to the guidelines contained in the Ontario Traffic Manual (OTM) although not stating so. There are several reference documents that provide guidelines for assessing intersection safety however it is known from the past that officials at the City of London refer to the OTM. Proper assessment must include the gathering of traffic data that must be performed at relevant days of the week, relevant seasons and also relevant times of a day. However this is only the beginning. The assessment must be performed by someone experienced in collision reconstruction because factors that influence the causation of a collision are not readily recognizable. Even when such data is gathered it requires an unbiased analysis that does not always occur. The guidelines in the OTM are not chiseled in stone and their application must be balanced with the unique conditions that exist at every collision site.
In recent years the City of London has begun installing mobile video systems at the intersections of its roadways. This spring these actions appear to have intensified. This activity is low key and not publicly disclosed. Use of such systems often involves an agreement with a private vendor and that relationship between the City of London and the vendor also has not been made public. Accompanied by AI technology such video can capture very detailed data on the activities of any vehicles or pedestrians within its range.
If such a portable video installation was placed at the intersection of Dingman Drive and Highbury Ave a large amount of detailed and useful data could be obtained that could provide the basis for determining the safety of the intersection. Yet this has not been done. Up to now the City of London has not acknowledged the existence of these video systems nor have the City’s employees provided any information about what data it has obtained from these systems.
Some Observations From the Dingman- Highbury Site
Review of historical records indicates that a fatal collision occurred at this intersection of August 14, 2023. Gorski Consulting visited the site later that day and posted a website article shortly afterward on what was found.
Data shows that CTV News posted several short articles about that collision and it also described a Dingman Drive resident “Allan Tipping” whose name is very similar to the name given in the recent CTV News article. At that time Tipping was described as part of a neighbourhood group called the Shaver Brockley Coalition. At that time Tipping expressed similar comments about the roadway “gone crazy now“. Tipping indicated “We’ve asked the city to street lights, we’ve asked them to reduce the speed”. Thus information indicates that problems at the Dingman-Highbury intersection have been known to the City.
Given this news, Gorski Consulting decided to attend the collision site to obtain some information about the unidentified collision that occurred on May 6, 2026. We attended near the evening rush hour on May 8th. The photo below shows a view of the Dingman-Highbury intersection taken at the time of our arrival.
I observed that a memorial had been placed on the north-west roadside of the intersection as noted in the above photo. Closer inspection showed that the memorial was dedicated to Erynn Mariee Organ.
The plac at the memorial is shown below.
This plac seemed to indicate that Organ passed away on May 3, 2020 and the location of the memorial suggested that the death occurred at or near the Dingman-Highbury intersection. I did not recall that I heard/read of this death so I referred to that date in my collection of historical collision data.
The only information I could retrieve was with respect to a news article published by Dale Carruthers of the London Free Press on May 4, 2020, entitled “Two motorcyclists killed in crashes in London”. The only reference to a collision at the Dingman-Highbury site was the sentence in the article as noted below:
“A 30-year-old woman motorcyclist died in hospital after a single-vehicle crash at Dingman Drive and Highbury Avenue about 1:45 p.m. Sunday, police said.“
The name of the deceased motorcyclist was never revealed as it was indicated that police had not released that information. And no information was provided as to how the collision occurred, only that it involved the single motorcycle. The words on Organ’s memorial plac indicated “never forgotten” but it seems she was forgotten to all officials responsible for the site’s safety. If not for the memorial and plac no one would know that this collision ever occurred.
Having arrived at the site it only took me a few minutes to observe the evidence that the collision-involved tractor-trailer had been southbound and travelled into the ditch on the east side of Highbury just south of Dingman. There was a long length of tire skid-marks produced by the tractor-trailer that began in the intersection and progressed towards the truck’s final rest position.
Normally, when a vehicle is struck in an intersection there is an obvious area of gouges which indicates the general area of the point of impact. In this instance I identified several areas of fresh “scrapes” which did not identify a precise point of impact. Such evidence is odd and cannot be resolved without more information from the police investigation.
My next action was to determine if any other vehicle was struck. Typically I would expect that a vehicle would be travelling either eastbound or westbound on Dingman and would have been struck by the tractor-trailer. The actual evidence I observed was more complicated. There was obvious evidence visible along the west roadside of Highbury Ave, south of Dingman, where a vehicle had produced a long, curving, set of yaw marks in the grass, as shown in the photo below.
Such evidence would not be particularly unusual except that it would not be consistent with a vehicle that was travelling on Dingman and crossing Highbury when it was struck.
Because of the long length of tire marks in the grass the vehicle had to be travelling at a substantial speed in a southbound direction. And if it had originally been travelling either east or west on Dingman this high southbound speed could not be explained. So it is my view that the Honda vehicle was not part of the collision with the tractor-trailer or, if it was, then it was not travelling on Dingman Drive before the impact.
There was other evidence of collisions at the intersection as evidenced in the pile of debris near the guardrail shown below.
In summary there is a lack of transparency that continues to plague the functioning of local officials when it comes to assessment of road safety in London, Ontario. At the Dingman-Highbury site there is evidence that major collisions have been occurring but there has been little or no information made public about them.
With respect to the fatal collision that occurred on August 14, 2023 nothing was revealed by investigating police other than that a commercial vehicle was involved, there was a fatality, and that another vehicle was also involved. With respect to the fatal motorcyclist collision that occurred on May 3, 2020 nothing was mentioned by police as to how it occurred and/or whether it was related to the Dingman-Highbury intersection. And with respect to the most current collision of the tractor-trailer on May 6, 2026 nothing was revealed about how the collision occurred. Collision debris at the Dingman-Highbury intersection indicates that other collisions have occurred there and again nothing has been revealed about those collisions. How officials respond, or do not respond, has a bearing on how matters under civil litigation become adjudicated if a civil suit is launched if road safety is not properly addressed.
In a recent (February 9, 2026) letter to her colleagues, City Councillor for Ward 7, Corrine Rahman, made the following request:
“I am looking for your support in requesting that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to take the following actions with respect to petitions and requests for traffic calming measures on neighbourhood connectors and neighbourhood streets:
a) review and report back to a future meeting of the Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee on:
i. a jurisdictional scan of peer municipalities’ processes for receiving traffic calming petitions and requests, including how those processes are communicated to residents;
ii. an assessment of how the City of London communicates with residents who submit traffic calming petitions or requests, with a view to improving clarity around the process and providing timely information updates;
iii. options to improve the quality and frequency of information reported to Council Members regarding traffic calming requests received, studies undertaken, and upcoming projects within their ward; and
b) provide updates to the Councillors and committee on approved traffic calming projects, the completion of a project, and any other pertinent information.
As traffic calming initiatives continue to be a key component of neighbourhood safety, ensuring that residents and Councillors have access to timely, transparent, and easily understood information is essential. Improved communication will help manage expectations, strengthen public engagement, and ensure confidence in the process.“
The wording in the above letter refers to “traffic calming” and does not fully address the issue of traffic safety of which traffic calming is only a partial and potential solution. While this motion was passed by London’s City Council at its meeting of March 3, 2026, I remain skeptical that the true issues will be properly addressed.
School Bus Rollover – NTSB Seat-Belt Recommendation: Theory Versus Reality
The photo below is taken from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report of April 23, 2026, discussing the rollover collision of a school bus on March 4, 2024 near Millstone, West Virginia. Investigations conducted by the NTSB are often of exceptional quality with few of the biases that accompany investigations of other agencies. However there are important issues in the current NTSB report that are not fully addressed. Let us first provide a brief summary of the NTSB report on the current collision and then we will follow-up with our comments.
The best summary of the NTSB report is provided in its opening paragraphs which we attach below.
What Happened
On Monday, March 4, 2024, about 5:50 p.m. eastern standard time, a 2022 IC
77-passenger school bus occupied by a driver and 19 students was traveling south
on State Highway 16 (SH-16) near Millstone in Calhoun County, West Virginia, to take
students home from after-school activities. The bus departed the right side of the
roadway, returned to the roadway, and rolled over onto its right side, coming to rest
across both lanes of SH-16. As a result of the crash, 3 students on the bus sustained
serious injuries, 16 students sustained minor injuries, and the driver was not injured.
In addition, the National Transportation Safety Board conducted a limited
investigation of a multivehicle crash involving a school bus that occurred in Dale,
Texas, to examine occupant protection safety issues. In that crash, a 5-year-old bus
occupant was fatally injured and 43 other preschool students, 10 chaperones, and the
school bus driver sustained injuries of varying degrees.
What We Found
At the time of the crash, the Millstone school bus driver was impaired by
alcohol, which resulted in his loss of control. We found that implementing alcohol
detection systems on school buses can prevent alcohol-impaired driving by school
bus drivers.
We also found that unbelted bus passengers were injured from impacting
other occupants and the school bus interior during the rollover sequence.
Lap/shoulder belts, had they been installed and properly worn, would have provided
the best protection for the students by keeping the occupants within the protective
seating compartment.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause
of the Millstone, West Virginia, crash was the school bus driver’s alcohol impairment
resulting in his loss of vehicle control and the school bus’s roadway departure and
rollover. Contributing to the severity of the passenger injuries was the lack of
passenger lap/shoulder belts on the large school bus.
What We Recommended
As a result of the investigation, we recommended that the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration require all new school buses to be equipped with a
vehicle-integrated alcohol detection system that prevents or limits vehicle operation if
driver impairment by alcohol is detected.
We reiterated Safety Recommendation H-18-10 to West Virginia to enact
legislation that requires new large school buses to be equipped with passenger
lap/shoulder belts. We issued new recommendations to West Virginia to enact
legislation to require all passengers to wear school bus seat belts when they are
available, and to establish enforceable policies and procedures for all school districts
to ensure students properly use passenger seat belts. Finally, we classified Safety
Recommendation H-25-26 Open—Acceptable Response for the Leander Independent
School District issued as a result of a 2025 school bus crash in Leander, Texas.
A diagram showing the collision sequence was shown in the NTSB report and this is reproduced below.
A photo showing the culvert that was struck by the school bus is also shown below, taken from the NTSB report.
And finally, the bus passenger seating positions and their injuries were shown in the NTSB diagram shown below.
Gorski Consulting Comments
There is an important sentence in the above wording of the NTSB report that we highlight again below:
“We issued new recommendations to West Virginia to enact legislation to require all passengers to wear school bus seat belts when they are available, and to establish enforceable policies and procedures for all school districts to ensure students properly use passenger seat belts.“
There is little doubt that, in a loss-of-control collision with rollover, the availability and proper use of seat-belts would improve the safety of school bus occupants. A collision like this evokes lateral and vertical forces and a seat-belt can be very effective in keeping occupants within their seating space while riding down the marginal forces that exist. It needs to be emphasized that during a rollover the bus deceleration would be at a rate in the range of 0.4 to 0.6g and that represents a low level of force. This emphasizes that rollovers can be managed with relative safety if one can be assured that occupants are kept in their seating positions, are not ejected and that there is little or no structural intrusion into the occupant space. However the danger of rollovers is that their injury consequences are often unpredictable.
If one could be assured that most school bus collisions would occur in the manner shown here then there is little argument that seat-belts should be mandated on school buses. But that is not the case. Collisions can also occur where the school bus is not involved a loss-of-control and rollover. They can occur where there is frontal contact of the bus with something of substantial mass. They may occur where an impact occurs with another heavy vehicle or with a non-yielding object such as a large tree or a permanent roadside fixture such as a concrete bridge abutment. Collisions of this type, can create large longitudinal decelerations, that could be of much higher levels than the lateral and vertical forces discussed above. Levels of longitudinal deceleration could easily be ten times greater than the forces occurring in a loss-of-control and rollover.
One might be convinced to conclude that such longitudinal forces should not be a problem because seat-belts are specifically designed to improve occupant protection from these kinds of forces. But the situation for children on school buses is actually more complicated than this.
In modern, light-duty vehicles collision forces are controlled not only by ride-down with seat-belts but there are numerous other safety features that add to the occupant’s protection. Frontal air bags, for example, help in the occupant’s ride-down. Features such as knee-bolsters help in controlling the forces at the legs and lower trunk. Collapsible steering rims/columns, padded dashs and other devices are all used in conjunction with seat-belts to protect an occupant in light-duty vehicles. But essentially none of these devices exist in the interior of school buses. So, on school buses we are asking the seat-belt restraint to do the primary, and sometimes the only, work of ride down in a school bus frontal collision. But there are other issues.
When the NTSB recommends that jurisdictions “establish enforceable policies and procedures for all school districts to ensure students properly use passenger seat belts” the issue is more complex and the NTSB report has not addressed this complexity.
Even in the general realm of seat-belt safety issues, there are common problems with proper usage even before we look at the specifics of children on school buses. Seat-belts are a benefit to reducing injury and death but one must also understand that certain conditions can make seat-belts dangerous and sometimes they can be difficult to wear “properly”.
The first problem is that persons who ought to know better inform the general public that they must wear seat-belts – period, without informing them that seat-belts must be worn properly. And then officials do not inform the public how to wear seat-belts “properly”. And so there are many persons riding in vehicles who are oblivious to the dangers that exist when they do not wear their seat-belts “properly”. In fact those persons who tell persons to wear seat-belts “properly” do not understand what “properly” means. And so they misinform the gullible public who do not question the seemingly authoritative officials.
Seat-belts are beneficial because they apply a force to the occupant’s body at locations that can absorb that impact force with less consequence. So the torso (shoulder) belt applies a load to the collar (clavicle) bone and upper ribs. And the lap belt applies a force to the pelvic bones (below the illiac crests). However, if the seat-belt webbing position strays from these ideal points of application dangerous consequences can occur, particularly at the lap belt. If the lap belt is positioned too high, or if the occupant’s body slides out of position, the lap belt can apply a force to the unprotected abdomen where there are multiple, important organs. Displacement from the ideal points of force application also occur if the seat-belt restraint system does not fit the occupant primarily due to occupant size differences.
And this is a problem with children on school buses because they come with large size differences. There could easily be 10 children on any given school bus route where the children are as little as 4-years-old. However there might be routes where no such children exist. And there could be several children who are comparable in size to adults. This wide variety of occupant sizes must be accommodated with properly fitting restraints. The 4-year-olds may require a forward-facing, child-seat system while larger children may require seating in a booster-type system to increase the angle of the lap webbing from the anchorage. And the adult sized children may only need to wear a restraint that is similar to the three-point, adult-style of seat-belt system. When the type of available restraint does not properly match the size of the child the restraint becomes difficult to wear “properly” and increases in injury levels can occur.
What will happen if the unique composition of child sizes on any given school bus route happens to place some children into seats wear the restraints are not suitable for their size? Will someone prevent some children from riding on that route? Highly unlikely.
There are other safety issues with respect to the type of clothing worn by children and how this changes the interaction between the restraint and the occupant’s body. And this also applies to all occupants in general, particularly in Canada where the weather may be different than in southern parts of the U.S. Winter clothing, for example, can create problems with keeping a restraint system properly applied to the previously mentioned ideal locations on the body. And in some instances the type of clothing material matters. Slippery nylon can create the conditions wear a child’s body could slip underneath a lap belt in scenario historically known as “submarining”. In winter conditions it is important to ensure that a winter coat is unzipped and pushed to the sides of the occupant and to tighten the webbing such remove any slack in the system. But will a 4-year-old child understand that concept, highly unlikely.
Specially-trained, school bus monitors will be required to ride along with the school bus driver to make sure that these essential conditions of restraint systems are met. The addition of such monitors will cost money. And the installation of proper restraint systems will also cost more money. Are those responsible for transporting children on school buses prepared to pay these additional costs?
It is easy for the NTSB to recommend “enforceable policies and procedures for all school districts to ensure students properly use passenger seat belts” however the reality is not that simple. While recommendations of a U.S. safety agency do not apply to what happens in Canada, there is an influence that filters up across the border. What the NTSB has recommended in its current report is important to take into account. However there are complications resulting from these recommendations that are not discussed and ought to be known. As suggested by the NTSB the current reliance on compartmentalization is inadequate for scenarios involving lateral and vertical collision forces. Children are minimally protected from striking the sides of school buses and from striking themselves. Something has to be done to reduce those types of collision consequences.
Fast E-Bikes & E-Scooters Highlight Dangers of Immovable Objects
Essentially no information was provided with respect to a fatal collision in Ingersoll, Ontario on Friday, April 10, 2026 that involved a “scooter-style e-bike” (CTV News London). It was only acknowledged that the rider struck a pole on Charles Street.
In a subsequent news story published by CTV News (“Fatal Ingersoll crash highlights growing safety risks of e-bikes and e-scooters”) an Ontario Provincial Police representative reported that the collision involved “a single scooter style e-bike”. No photos were available of the “bike” and there were not photos of the collision site where the fatality occurred.
It would seem that everyone should know exactly what a “single scooter style e-bike” looks like. And perhaps it may not matter since no one would be able to understand why the fatality occurred. Since police are not required to fill out a MTO “police report” if a motor vehicle was not involved it is not clear how such a tragedy would be coded in collision data.
From observational studies conducted by Gorski Consulting it is known that e-bikes travel at higher speeds than almost all recreational cyclists, many in the range of 30 km/h or higher. A small percentage of recreational riders on road bikes have also been able attain such higher speeds. The difference is that riders of e-bikes do not have to be expert riders or physically fit. Riders of road bikes are able to attain higher speeds because they are physically fit, developed through a long process of riding, and they generally equip themselves with higher end equipment including good helmets, lighting and high visibility clothing. While some high-speed e-bike riders have also been properly equipped there is less chance that they will be a road knowledgeable. Understanding the dangers that accompany higher speeds includes knowing how e-bikes may create violations of expectation in drivers of larger motor vehicles.
Much like e-bikes the riders of e-scooters have also been observed to travel at higher speeds. While e-scooters have not been as common on London’s roads they appear to be increasing in numbers. Key elements to safety including how riders conduct themselves near larger vehicles. And what safety equipment they use to protect themselves and make themselves more conspicuous.
Even though there appear to be a greater number of e-bikes and e-scooters riding on, or adjacent to, public roadways no publicly available data exists to understand where this trend is headed. The CTV News article about the Ingersoll cyclist fatality acknowledged that police are seeing an increase in “electric rideable accidents”, and that the Canadian Institute for Health indicated there was a recent 32 per cent increase in e-scooter hospitalizations. And the best advice was to wear reflective clothing, have proper lighting and to stay riding on bike paths. But the dangers are much more than this.
The persons who installed cycling trails, lanes and paths in the City of London have created many safety traps that most riders would not recognize or understand. When riders of e-micro mobility devices travel on this infrastructure they appear to have no understanding of the dangers they are in because many travel much faster than they should.
The photo below shows a dangerous installation of sign posts that were installed in 2021 on Dundas Street just west of Ontario Street. This track was installed to improve the safety of cyclists yet the designers failed to understand that the sign posts would actually increase the danger to cyclists.
Fast forward five years to the spring of 2026 and we see below that the dangerous sign posts still exist on the edge of the cycling track. In fact one of those posts actually encrouches into the path.
Riders of micro-mobility devices look at such small-looking posts and do not comprehend the danger they pose. These posts are immobile. Meaning that if they are struck they will not move. But the striking object will come to an abrupt stop. This change-in-velocity is what kills occupants of motor vehicles and this is why roadway design standards require a “clear zone”, often about 5 metres, laterally, from a travel lane whereby nothing immobile can be installed. But it appears it is OK to install such immobile objects next to a cycling track. Maybe because designers believed cyclists would be travelling at a slower speed than motor vehicles and collisions would be less severe? But no one can know what the reasoning was. Now that faster e-bikes and e-scooters are riding this track the collision severity could be a different matter – unbeknownst to the riders of the e-mobility devices.
While riders are often victims of their own poor judgment they are often blamed for being exclusively at fault even through certain cycling paths contain dangers by design or poor maintenance. An number of years ago we reported on such design failures on the Thames Valley Parkway (TVP) in London. A new portion of the TVP was built south of Trafalgar Road at the bridge at Pottersburg Creek in 1918. This segment extended to Gore Road and then to the crossing at Hamilton Road. A number safety problems were reported in Gorski Consulting articles on this website. One of those concerns was with respect to the narrow channel of limited visibility that was created when the TVP travelled in an underpass beneath Trafalgar Road. A photo of the underpass is shown below where a young girl decided to lie down, across the cycling path, within the shade of the underpass.
In their wisdom planners had created a steep downgrade on the cycling lane as it crossed over the CNR railway about 300 metres south of this location. This meant that some cyclists came to be travelling very quickly along the downslope on approach to the underpass at Trafalgar, as evidenced by the photo shown below.
Another safety problem that keeps recurring is the installation of concrete barriers or large rocks on cycling paths. An example is shown in the next photo taken in July, 2025 on the south branch of the TVP east of Wellington Road.
In a very recent example, on April 22, 2026, City of London Bylaw enforcement officers parked their two pIck-up trucks at the bottom of the slope of the TVP just west of Richmond Street. This area is shown in the photo below, taken in 2018, showing a cyclist travelling down to the slope. The maximum slope was measured to approach 12% near its bottom. Testing in 2018 showed that average cyclist speeds reached close to 31 km/h at the bottom of the slope.
The two City of London pick-up trucks were parked at the location where the cyclist is shown in the photo below. This is approximately where cyclists would attain their highest speed.
To summarize, e-bikes and e-scooters are becoming more common in the Province of Ontario and this evidenced in observations conducted by Gorski Consulting in the City of London. New safety challenges are developing from the speed of these newer micro-mobility devices. Designers are not recognizing that immobile obstacles such as sign posts, poles, or parked vehicles can pose a major safety problem because of the severe change-in-velocity that can occur to riders even at seemingly lower travel speeds. Micro-mobility riders are essentially unprotected and when they strike something that is immobile their chance of injury or death can be more likely than for occupants of motor vehicles.
Deadly Cycling On Arterial Roads In London Ontario
As spring begins to bring warmer days, cyclists are beginning to re-inhabit the roads in London, Ontario. The dangers that were created in previous years continue to do so and will likely cause serious injuries and possibly deaths to those cyclists.
The above photo is an example of one of those dangers: cyclists riding on arterial roadways. The photo shows that the rider is in dark clothing, he is not wearing a helmet and there no reflectors or lighting on his bike. Furthermore his position is substantially further from the curb inviting a passing motor vehicle to make contact.
The weaving pattern of the cyclist’s travel can be seen in the next photo where his bike is angled back toward the curb. While laws require that motor vehicles give a cyclist at least a 1 metre lateral clearance, this view demonstrates the obvious fact that a cyclists motion is rarely a perfectly straight path and so the lateral distance from a passing motor vehicle is sometimes reduced due to that fact. Riding a bicycle is essentially a balancing act where the rider stays upright by making changes to his body position as well as making slight adjustments to steering. So this is how contact with passing motor vehicles can happen.
In our experience at Gorski Consulting the issue of cyclist safety is not being addressed by all involved. Cyclists, drivers, police, city traffic practitioners, politicians, medical practitioners, news media. All these entities have some involvement in maintaining the unsafe conditions that exist. We have indicated on numerous occasions that the causes of cyclist collisions and how cyclist injuries occur ought to be reported and this is not happening. Repetitive incidents of unnecessary tragedies occur, and could be minimized, if both drivers and cyclists were made aware of the details of those tragedies.
At a minimum, cyclists should be warned, that if no infrastructure for cyclists exists on an arterial roadway they should ride on a sidewalk, regardless of what the law says. Selecting a proper route to avoid such arterial roadways may also be an option. As always cyclists also need to understand that they have a responsibility, while riding on a sidewalk, not to endanger pedestrians, particularly those who are more vulnerable such as the elderly and children.
Will Chinese Imports Become Spy Vehicles Collecting Canadian Personal Data?
Canada needs the U.S. and the U.S. needs Canada. However with President Trump’s threats to crush Canada’s economy and force it to become the U.S. 51st state Canada’s relationship with the U.S. has rapidly changed. Forced to protect itself Canada has been seeking closer relationships with other nations such as China. A recent agreement was reached between Canada and China whereby 49,000 imports of Chinese automobiles will be accepted into Canada.
The threat of Chinese imported vehicles into North America was high-lighted in a recent interview (Bloomberg News) of the CEO of the Ford Motor Company, Jim Farley, who expressed grave concerns over what could take place. An interesting comment was made in that interview where he warns of national security risks of “allowing technology-laden Chinese vehicles to navigate U.S. roads”. He emphasized that “All of these vehicles have 10 cameras. They can collect a lot of data”.
Naturally comments like these are not expected as Chinese imports could be a threat to the Ford Motor Company. However, the issue of data collecting may not be just empty rhetoric. Motor vehicles are evolving rapidly and their capabilities to gather information are also increasing just as rapidly. It is reaching the point that vehicles that were created for the simple purpose of transporting persons and cargo are now becoming super computers that capture data about the personal lives of their occupants. Analysed by artificial intelligence such data can be used for many purposes by foreign and domestic entities. If foreign entities like China can collect personal data then so too can domestic entities like Ford.
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is already proposing rule-making that would require vehicles, commencing in the 2027 model year, to monitor driver behavior/condition to reduce incidents of impaired driving. Details such as tracking of eye movements, pupil dilation and other patterns of behavior will be monitored by artificial intelligence. So is this the type of data that could be captured by Chinese imported vehicles as well?
There is discussion that, in the not-to-distant future, vehicles could be totally controlled by AI software which learns the driving behaviors and preferences of the vehicle owner. As AI learns the driver’s behaviors it actually changes the functioning of the vehicle such that the same two vehicle models could function differently because of what AI has learned.
Whether, when and how these developments will take place is yet to be seen. However Canadians need to be aware that the vehicles they drive are no longer instruments of transportation. They are instruments of personal data collection.
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