Hydro-Vac Truck Fatal Rollover Trial Is Complicated
The complexity of a heavy truck rollover will never be properly discussed in any news media reports of trial proceedings. This is due to the fact that, in many trial proceedings, that complexity is rarely acknowledged or properly evaluated.
A trial is presently underway with respect to a fatal collision that occurred on January 6, 2021 at the intersection of Bradley Ave and Jackson Road in the south-east industrial area of London, Ontario. It has been reported that Christopher Hamilton was driving a Hydro-vac truck which rolled onto a passenger car causing the death of the car driver, 39-year-old, Sarah Jones.
Official news media covering Hamilton’s trial indicate that he was charged with dangerous driving causing death. A focus of the news media was that certain “mandatory safety forms were not filled out on the day of the collision”. While not irrelevant, this fact should have little to do with whether Hamilton’s actions were dangerous and caused Jones’ death.
Not unexpectedly, the official news media also reported that the defense lawyer, Phillip Millar, spent considerable time grilling a health and safety manager for Royal Fence Ltd., Terry Didluck, for his actions in attending the collision site. Millar suggested that the company had sent Didluck to the site to conduct his own investigation. Even if Didluck did precisely that, it can hardly be called an unexpected activity. As an employee and company-owned vehicle was involved in a fatal collision it would make complete sense that a health and safety manager of the firm would attend the collision site to get further information as to how the collision occurred.
Official news media reported the Crown’s contention that the truck had working brakes but that it had “extreme weight” and that Hamilton’s speed was too fast. The Crown Attorney was quoted as saying “He didn’t leave time or space enough to brake”. These comments and allegations cannot be evaluated without more detail. What was meant by the comment “extreme weight”? Was the truck loaded above the provincial legal requirements? That was never clarified. And the comment that Hamilton did not leave time or space enough to brake, was there evidence that Hamilton did not brake? These are very important facts that have not been explained.
The travel direction of the truck was never revealed in the news media articles. However from the evidence at the site it is clear that the truck would have been travelling southbound on Jackson Road and then was in the process of making a right turn onto westbound Bradley when the truck rolled over. Some of the characteristics of the site and remaining evidence are shown in the following photos taken on October 29, 2023.
It would also seem unusual that, upon approaching the intersection with Bradley Ave, Hamilton would not stop for the stop sign since his view to the east would be limited by trees as shown in the two photos below.
Even if he did not come to a complete stop it would seem unusual that Hamilton would travel into his right turn at any great speed since he would need to evaluate the approach of westbound vehicles on Bradley. Many turns performed by drivers of passenger cars are done at speeds of about 20 km/h and a speed of a 30 km/h would be above average. However a heavily-loaded hydro-vac truck would need to make the turn at a slower speed.
The location of the gouges in the centre of the intersection pose an unusual situation because of their location. Presumably these gouges were caused when the Hydro vac truck began to rollover. However, why is the truck rolling over so early in its right turn? In typical rollover scenarios the rollover should begin after the truck has been turned to a critical angle which would be expected to be further to the south and west.
One might conclude that the gouges in the centre of the intersection were caused by the underside of the car that was eventually pushed to the southwest and then crushed by the truck. Since there has been no indication by anyone as to the position of the car before the impact this possibility cannot be nullified. However the gouges begin north of the centre-line of Bradley and it is difficult to believe that the car would have been in the wrong (westbound) lane as the collision unfolded. So it appears more likely that these gouges are from the Hydro vac truck.
One might also argue that the gouges at the centre of the intersection were caused by another major collision. However there has been no news report of a major collision at this intersection since January, 2021. Also if the gouges we caused by another collision it would be a large coincidence that the involved vehicles could have been travelling westbound and southbound and, after impact, they would have to travel into the same area where the Hydro vac truck was found.
Thus important questions about this collision need answers but these have not been provided in any news reports of the trial.
The official news media also reported that “In an agreed statement of facts the court has heard the industrial vacuum truck was travelling too fast in the intersection when the crash occurred”. While that may be the case, the fact that these facts were agreed upon by the opposing lawyers should not leave one with reasonable assurance of reality. Lawyers are not technical analysts and what they agree upon may be totally illogical. There has been no information provided as to how the speed of the truck was determined. The simple fact that it rolled over does not necessarily mean that the speed of the truck was unreasonably selected by Hamilton.
Many modern trucks are now equipped with engine control modules (ECMs) which are capable of retaining collision data, very much like passenger cars. But even when such trucks are equipped the recording ability is often shut off by the vehicle owner/operator. Even when such a recording is available specialized hardware is required to conduct the download and such hardware is less available than a download for a passenger car. So there is strong doubt that police ever conducted a download of collision data from this truck.
Why the truck rolled over may only be partially related to its speed. The propensity for motor vehicle rollover is affected by two parameters, one being the vehicle’s track width and the other being its centre-of-gravity. The track width is the lateral distance measured from the centres of two wheels, the right front and the driver’s tires for example. The centre-of-gravity of vehicle is a vertical measurement of how high the centre of its mass is from the ground. The track width does not vary from one journey to the next, but the centre-of-gravity can change depending on the cargo being carried and this is particularly important with heavy trucks. The news media reported Hamilton’s assertion that “…he had no way to safely check the load he was carrying” and, in a roundabout way, that comment is true. He might have some idea whether his truck was carrying a load close to the maximum allowable but he has to be able to appreciate how that weight would affect whether his truck would rollover. And there is no training or data that could tell him that.
With respect to many light vehicles the track width and centre-of-gravity has been studied for many years to the point that a specific measure, the Static Stability Factor (SSF), has been developed so that light vehicles can be compared to each other for their propensity to rollover. The SSF is determined by dividing the vehicle’s track width by twice the vehicle’s centre of gravity, or SSF = t/2h. Most light duty vehicles possess a SSF somewhere between 1.00 and 1.50. The lower the value of the SSF the greater likelihood that the vehicle could rollover. Agencies such as the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) have published such data to inform consumers about the safety characteristics of the vehicles they might purchase.
But what about vehicles such as Hydro vac trucks? There is no such data available. Certainly neither Mr. Hamilton nor Mr. Didluck would be aware of the SSF for the Hydro vac truck. And more importantly, the SSF value would change drastically depending on whether the truck was full or empty because the truck’s centre-of-gravity would change. But there is more.
The characteristics of the cargo being carried also has a relationship on the propensity for truck rollover. When a solid mass is carried the propensity for the load to shift can be rectified by strapping the load solidly to the truck. But when a liquid cargo is carried it cannot be strapped down and it has the propensity to slosh back and forth within the container in which it is stored. This is why for tanker trucks that carry liquids on a regular basis, baffles, or partitions, are purposely built into the tank to reduce the amount of sloshing and therefore reducing the potential for causing rollover.
But vehicles such as the Hydro vac truck do not necessarily carry liquid cargo. Sometimes the cargo may be substantially liquid and sometimes it may not, depending on what is sucked up. If the cargo on a particular day is more like a liquid it will slosh back and forth no differently than any liquid in a tanker truck. And this is where Hamilton’s comment is correct. How could he know the liquid character of the load he was carrying? He could likely know the cargo’s weight but not the percentage of its liquid form. When liquid sloshes in a holding vessel it has the effect of changing the lateral force that tips a vehicle over. Did the opposing lawyers who agreed “on the statement of facts” understand this? Unless there was an expert there to guide them it is likely that they would know nothing about this issue.
And so what about expert involvement? Will Hamilton’s trial include testimony by competent and unbiased experts who can guide the court through technical issues that they do not have the ability to determine on their own? Even when such expert opinion is available too often it is seen as an impediment to the court’s previous and obvious knowledge of who is innocent or guilty.
And here is the application of “lawn mower justice”. Lawn mower justice is where the justice system rides over top of all persons whether they are innocent or guilty. Without the public’s knowledge and intervention, the lawn mower continues to run because there is minimal accountability. The importance of catching and punishing guilty persons supersedes those instances where an innocent person’s rights are violated.
Why Does Nathaniel Veltman Plead Innocent In Multi-Death Muslim Trial?
With the re-explosion of the Isreali-Palistinian conflict the numerous incidents of hate crimes everywhere pose an even greater danger to all mankind. It exposes the obvious that many do not wish to acknowledge: hate only creates more hate, and intolerance only breeds more intolerance.
The greatest distributor of hate and intolerance in the current time is the internet. Not that it has to be that way. The internet has been a distributor of many good things. But because we refuse to post warnings to all that the internet’s drug can destroy our reasoning it has also become a poison. And the more we take, like any drug, the more damage it has on our critical reasoning. No better example exists than the senseless killing of a family of 4 Muslims in London, Ontario in June of 2021 by a crazed “white nationalist”, Nathaniel Veltman, who lost all sense of reality.
The Veltman murders would not be reported on this website, like so many murders, except for the fact that they occurred by use of a motor vehicle that became a convenient weapon. And so at rare times the reconstruction of motor vehicle collisions comes in touch with the purposeful taking of lives for wicked ends.
Initially, the trial of Nathaniel Veltman in Windsor, Ontario left questions regarding the pleading of the accused. He pleaded not guilty. Veltman, was described as a white nationalist. At the opening of the trial Crown Attorney Sarah Shaikh provided evidence of what Veltman told police: “I thought I needed to send a strong message” and “I was planning on killing” and “I knew what I did. I don’t regret what I did. I admit that it was terrorism”. Given these statements it seemed peculiar that Veltman reportedly pleaded innocent to the murder charges against him. Yet none of the news media attempted to explain this paradox.
Over the years I have been involved in a number of collision analyses where various entities have tried to twist the facts to fit some form of devious purpose. Reconstructionists have tried to twist the evidence to suggest that an unintentional collision was, in fact, purposeful. Police have misreported evidence in order to incriminate some innocent party. Lawyers have been notorious, on both sides, for twisting the facts, and surprisingly, judges have done the same. Therefore I become suspicious whenever someone lays out a theory of intent where a collision has occurred.
However the information coming from the Veltman trial has been compelling. A description of his past history matches the theory that Veltman was purposeful in murdering the Muslim family.
I cannot enter the mind of such a useless creature because there is no mind there to enter. As I’ve observed previously when attempting to reach similarly lost creatures, they do not have a capability to listen. They are merely devices that spew out their indoctrinated views which they have developed over many years of misguided logic. I am reminded of a lyric coined by Bernie Taupin, the guy who writes the words to Elton John’s songs. In the killing of John Lennon, mourned in the song “Empty Garden” Taupin’s lyrics commented “Its amazing how one insect can damage so much seed”, or something to that effect. Its that word “insect” which applies to Veltman. No capability to understand anything except destruction. Yet John Lennon was instrumental in touching the world with many positive lyrics including those from the song by the Beatles entitled “All You Need Is Love”, in which the lyric was repeated over and over again: All you need is love, all you need is love, all you need is love. How much has that advice gone by the wayside in our internet world where: All you need is hate, all you need is hate, all you need is hate.
I understand the importance of freedom of speech and thought. Even those who continually grind on our minds, like fingernails on a chalkboard, must be tolerated because those freedoms are so important.
In the last few days the lawyers from Veltman’s defense began their side of the story by bringing Veltman onto the stand. The news media quickly reported his words: “I was an outcast”. And so began the re-building of Veltman’s character. He was home-schooled by his strictly religious mother from kindergarten till grade 11. The battle with the very strict mother caused him to hate her. He began to recognize he was not normal and his “abnormal behaviour” was attributed to being home schooled. Once he was allowed to attend public school he began hanging out with the wrong crowd, drinking and using drugs. He started to visit extreme websites and started to “constantly watch this conspiracy theory garbage”.
From past experience it will be difficult for the jury, and the general public, to believe that Veltman was somehow not in control of his actions and that it was all because “The devil made me do it”, as if comedian Flip Wilson’s buying a red dress can be of any comparison. Even though there is a defense of insanity, that theoretical concept does not enter the minds of many when they also balance it with the need for vengeance.
But I return to the issue of internet brain-washing and our communal responsibility for its consequences. The internet has allowed the formation of isolated chat groups, much like isolated villages in the Amazon rainforest. There, persons of similar viewpoints, gather to encourage each other’s frustrations, often led by a fanatical shaman or two who possess better skills in inflaming those viewpoints. Misinformation is piled onto more misinformation like a pyramid, growing higher and higher in the minds of those who become less and less capable of separating myth from reality. In the minds of the indoctrinated there is never a belief that they have been indoctrinated, that possibility is out of the question. In such minds there is no such thing. If one were to bring them into a psychology course and spend substantial time describing how persons become brainwashed it would be a difficult task to get them to admit that such a thing is possible, let alone that they might be victims of such brainwashing. There were earlier times, before the internet, when such indoctrination and brainwashing existed only in limited contexts. But that is no longer the case. Now there are vast percentages of the human population that are affected. And few realize it.
Whatever the courts decide to do with Nathaniel Veltman is only one part of the issue. The other part is that we, as a society, are also to blame for allowing such a large number of easily-manipulated persons to become manipulated. As an analogy, in our society we understood the importance of telling our children about simple traffic dangers, such as looking both ways before attempting to cross a road. Now we are simply saying nothing. Let the children be free to discover the danger themselves, and if some pay the ultimate price, so be it. That is not the way it should be. The weaker members of society need our guidance. We need to tell them that crossing the internet “road” can be dangerous and we need to explain why in a manner that they can understand.
Painted Cycling Lane – Changes in Lateral Paths of Cyclists & Motor Vehicles
Further analysis has been completed by Gorski Consulting from the video documentation session of August 29, 2023 on Colborne Street north of St James Street in London, Ontario. The purpose of the research is to document the lateral position of cyclists and motor vehicles in order to provide some objective evidence about the safety of painted cycling lanes.
The research has been ongoing since early April, 2023 and a number of articles have been posted to this Gorski Consulting website. In the spring and summer three video sessions were carried out when a cycling lane had not yet be installed. Then, it August the cycling lane was painted. An additional session was conducted on August 29, 2023 so that this data could be compared to the previous dates when the cycling lane did not exist.
The lateral position of traffic units at the site was enabled by painting orange dots at 5-metre intervals along a distance of 50 metres. The dots were painted laterally across the northbound lane of Colborne at 20-centimetre intervals over a width of 3 metres. The zero point for this dots was the edge of the east concrete gutter of Colborne.
We now have completed documenting the traffic units by separating them into four categories: 1. Cyclists, 2. LTC Transit Buses, 3. Light Duty vehicles and 4. Heavy duty vehicles. The table of all these results is shown below.
This table now contains the data from observations before and after the painted cycling lane was completed.
Along the bottom row we can see the overall averages for lateral paths of all the traffic units. Before the cycling lane was installed the overall average position of all traffic units was 0.94 metres west of the concrete gutter. After the installation of the painted cycling lane the overall average of all traffic units was 1.57 metres west of the concrete gutter. So, overall, traffic was moved further away from the right side of the lane. Yet there are important differences when looking at the categories of traffic.
Looking at cyclists, their paths were moved slightly closer to the right of the lane and this is in contrast to the motor vehicles in the other three categories. Before the cycling lane was created cyclists rode at an average of 0.71 metres west of the concrete gutter. After the cycling lane installation that average was reduced to 0.58 metres. While the difference of 13 centimetres appears slight, it can be noted that the width of the cycling lane includes a junction between the concrete gutter and asphalt surface. This junction produces a potential danger that cyclists could lose control of their cycle when riding along that junction.
With respect to the three remaining vehicle categories their paths were all taken further away from the cycling lane and this is an important improvement. There have been criticisms of painted cycling lanes, particularly by cyclists who consider them of little effect, and some of that criticism is valid. However, it needs to be acknowledged that the findings from the present research indicates that there is some benefit to painted cycling lanes in that they help to separate cyclists from motor vehicles.
However not all painted cycling lanes are the same. Under certain conditions there can be safety problems which do not exist at the Colborne Street site. Situations where there is a curve in a roadway can cause traffic units to wander out of their normal position. Situations of upgrades and downgrades can also cause such wandering. And certain road characteristics such as surface depressions or manhole covers can cause such wandering. Each site and each roadway needs to be evaluated according to its unique conditions and mediation should be applied when necessary.
More broadly it needs to be acknowledged that cycling lane characteristics are not the only causes of danger and conflict to cyclists. In the analysis of motor vehicle causes it has been known for many decades that the acronym “HVE” applies. The Human, the Vehicle and the Environment are all broad categories of influences on collision causation. So too HVE applies to cyclist collision analysis. The Human that operates a cyclist obviously has an effect on collisions much like in motor vehicle collisions. And the cycling Vehicle cannot be ignored. Unusual cycle characteristics such as excessive widths can cause problems even in protected cycling lanes.
The concept of “clear zones” on roadways has been applied for decades so that motor vehicles are less likely to strike an immovable object such as tree or pole. Deformable and displacing barriers reduce the consequences of such interactions. But barriers are of minimal benefit in incidents involving cyclists. Cyclists have minimal protection when contacting anything, even of relatively minor mass, such as a post or a curb. In many instances the initial contact may be less severe than when a cyclist falls and hits their head on road surface or curb. Fatal head injuries, particularly when a cyclist is not wearing a helmet, are not uncommon in such instances.
The collection of objective evidence is a key objective in conducting cyclist safety research. But just as important is the dissemination of that research to the users of the road, the vast majority of whom may be unsophisticated and inexperienced in understanding what is dangerous to them.
Tractor-Trailer Rollover of Median Cable Barrier on Hwy 401 Near Chatham
Police investigating serious collisions in Ontario continually fail to inform the public of dangerous conditions that could result in their injury and death. The latest rollover of a tractor-trailer on Highway 401 near Chatham Ontario is another example of this fact.
A video was posted by the OPP on their Twitter account describing the collision. The video showed the final rest position of the truck that was lying in the median parallel to the travel lanes of the highway. Portions of the median cable barrier could be seen in front and behind the truck. Had the truck been out of control and approaching the barrier at a significant angle the final rest orientation of the truck would not be as shown in the video. Rather, it is more likely that the truck simply rolled over the barrier. For many years there has been no public discussion about issues like these, where a roadside barrier is too low to prevent rollovers of large vehicles. In fact a low barrier can enhance the likelihood that a large truck will rollover and the collision consequences can be increased. But at no time have police made the public aware of this important danger. The latest protocols for proper barrier characteristics are contained in the MASH manual but it is likely that no one in the police community has ever trained investigating police officers about such important requirements. This results in dangerous conditions existing for any occupants of large vehicles, such as tractor-trailers, inter-city buses and similar vehicles. By failing to inform the public the police become enablers of dangerous situations no different than if police simply ignored drivers who drove impaired, or if vehicle maintenance defects were similarly ignored.
The scientific community has known for decades that collision consequences are related to three basic causes HVE: The Human, The Vehicle and the Environment. Conveniently, the Environment, or dangers that exist due to roadway conditions, is often ignored by police because they are paid by those whose responsibility it is to maintain those roads to a properly safe standard. The Ontario government is the agency that is responsible for the conditions existing on Highway 401 yet they are also the same entity that pays the salaries of the Ontario Provincial Police. When such conditions exist checks and balances must exist to insure that this conflict of interest does not endanger the public.
UPDATE: October 6, 2023, 0745 hours
Subsequent photos from other entities suggest the tractor-trailer may have entered the median initially at a significant angle, possibly coming close to opposing lanes, before being deflected back toward its own side of the highway and rolling over. While some benefit would have been gained from this deflection the resultant rollover becomes unpredictable with respect to injury causation. If this had been a fully-loaded inter-city bus where many passengers are often unrestrained ejection could have occurred and the results could have bee catastrophic. Just because the injury consequences to the driver of the truck were minimal only means that rollovers can be unpredictable, but not always benign.
There is no publicly-available tracking of collisions involving the Highway 401 median barrier and therefore much of its performance is kept secret. While police spend a great deal of time documenting the evidence it is never shared with the public that needs to be informed.
How Do Transit Bus & Cyclist Travel Paths Change With Installation Of A New Cycling Lane?
Further analysis has been completed by Gorski Consulting at the Colborne Street site from video documentations completed on August 29, 2023. In a recent article Gorski Consulting reported how cyclist travel paths changed as a result of the new cycling lane. Now additional analysis has been completed which shows how the travel paths of City of London transit buses have also been affected by the new cycling lane.
It can be recalled that the lateral travel paths of four categories of traffic units were reported in recent Gorski Consulting articles. Cyclists, Transit buses, large trucks and light duty motor vehicles were the four categories. This data was from a time when a cycling lane did not yet exist on Colborne Street. Then in August, 2023, the City of London completed installation of the cycling lane. Now we are attempting to compare the travel paths of these four categories of traffic units to determine if and how the cycling lane installation made a difference. Analysis has now been completed on two of those four categories, cyclists and transit buses and the results are shown in the table below.
For example, before the cycling lane was installed the average lateral position of cyclists was 0.71 metres west of the edge of the concrete gutter of the northbound lane of Colborne. After the cycling lane was completed the average lateral position of cyclists was reduced to 0.58 metres. So cyclists appear to have moved closer to the right curb after the installation of the cycling lane. It can also be seen in the above table that the variance in those travel paths was reduced.
With respect to City of London Transit buses the average lateral position was 0.87 metres before the cycling lane was completed. But after completion of the cycling lane that position became 1.57 metres.
An important observation is that, before the cycling lane transit buses and cyclists travelled close to each other (cyclists 0.71 metres, transit buses 0.87 metres) but after the cycling lane installation that gap became approximately one metre (cyclists 0.58 metres, transit buses 1.57 metres). Although there are some negatives with installation of a painted cycling lane this study shows that there are some positive effects on cyclist safety,
It needs to be emphasized that these findings are limited. They only discuss the average lateral positions of these units, not how they behave when they encounter each other. Do transit buses move away from cyclists when passing them and is this avoidance greater when a cycling lane exists? That question still remains to be reviewed. Unfortunately there are very few northbound transit buses travelling through the site so the opportunities of documenting one which is passing a cyclist are few. Our data shows that a northbound transit buses only passes through the site once every fifteen minutes.
Analysis is progressing with the documentation of the other two categories of traffic units: large trucks and light-duty vehicles.
There are actually very few large northbound trucks passing through the site. Instead this category contains over-size delivery vans and some school buses.
There is an over-abundance of light-duty vehicles such that we must take only a small segment of this category. Arbitrarily, we have chosen to commence documentation at a half hour into the video and only through documentation of just 10 observations. Without such limitations we would have far too many observations.
Once this additional analysis is completed we will once again review the findings.
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