Cyclist Fatal Collision In Oakville – No Information of Educational Value
First, a cyclist died, and now we turn your attention to more important views of pretty flowers. As Charlie Brown said “Don’t you know sarcasm when you hear it?”
Albeit, our sarcasm is not exactly appropriate, as a death of a cyclist occurred on Thursday, morning, March 9, 2023, on Upper Middle Road and Eighth Line in Oakville, Ontario. What leads to this sarcasm is that this loss of a life is going to be just another statistic, in the long line of many, because we do not share crucial information about its occurrence, thus ensuring that another similar death will occur.
While it is early, there is little doubt that investigating police will reveal no further evidence as to how and why this collision occurred. No photograph of the collision site has been provided by police. The only mention of the occurrence is in the Twitter post by Halton Regional Police that goes as follows:
ROAD CLOSURE: Eastbound Upper Middle Rd from Golden Meadow Tl to 8th Line, Oakville (eastbound lanes only) Investigators on scene for cyclist struck by vehicle. Anyone with dash cam or who witnessed incident is asked to call 905-825-4777 ext 2210.”
No context is provided. While readers will argue that this is because this is very early in the investigation, this is not the point. Two months from now it is very likely that nothing further will be provided by police expect whether a charge has been laid against the car driver that struck the cyclist. We know this because this is how the process has functioned over and over again.
There is some help in that news media attended the site and some photos were uploaded to their various digital sites. Of particular mention is that DR @Media371 provided some very good quality photos showing the rest positions of the damaged cycle and the car. But these photos cannot be shown here. What is clear in these photos is that this was a multi-lane roadway and there was absolutely no provision at the right edge of the right lane for any cyclist to ride safely.
The rest positions of the cycle and car suggest that the impact may not have occurred at the right edge of the lane. But this is difficult to say with certainty without being at the site and being able to look at the details of the evidence – details that only the police have access to. And these details will never see the light of day.
The obvious question is this: Why was this cyclist riding along this road? Who do you blame? Had anyone ever informed this cyclist of the danger of riding on this road? The Ontario Ministry of Transportation and municipalities in Ontario have all stated that cyclists should ride on the road and not on the sidewalk because this is the safer alternative. But where are the data? Where is the data, for the last 10 or 20 years for example, which confirms the correctness of this policy? Where is the data that demonstrates how many fatalities of cyclists have occurred from riding on the road versus riding on a sidewalk? There is no solution that fits all, and risks exist in all situations, but surely why is such basic data not available?
As we publicize the economic and climate-change benefits of active transportation we are likely to place more and more cyclists on roadways where they are not safe. Yet we refuse to educate those cyclists with basic facts about how previous cyclist fatalities and occurred. This is simply unethical.
Missing Signature on Charge Exposes Failures of Justice System
In an area of such importance as the justice system a reasonable society would make extra sure that its functioning is transparent. While that is not the case, now and then its failures become exposed.
The most recent case that has created the exposure relates to a fatal head-on collision that reportedly occurred on May 17, 2022 near Caledon, Ontario. In that collision 18-year-old Milo Yekmalian was killed and 67-year-old Tomislav Roki was charged with careless driving causing death. The charge was dropped however by the Justice of the Peace, Neil Burgess, who noted that the charge sheet had not been signed by the charging officer. This outcome turned into a slap in the face to the Yekmalian family because, according to standard procedures, a charge cannot be re-laid if more than six months have passed since the offense.
Many justice system dysfunctions like these fall undetected like autumn leaves; in the archaic system that prevents its functioning from being observed by the general public. Court proceedings remain generally undiscoverable to the general public. While it is said that members of the public can attend an ongoing trial the impracticality of that possibility is glossed over.
The only way a person can obtain detailed information about the proceedings of a trial is to buy a court transcript. Such documents can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars depending on the complexity of the trial. These costs cannot be borne by a typical person who is directly involved in a trial and equally not by any general member of the public. If dysfunctions are found in those proceedings there have been time limits applied to when a complaint can be made and so this represents another way in which these dysfunctions fall by the wayside.
Technology exists where every trial could be on video, and fed to whoever would wish to observe its proceedings, but that change still remains an unexplained impossibility. So dysfunctions, of an unknown magnitude persist, not only in the courts but in other areas of the justice system.
Body cameras on police have been possible for a long time now, yet they still remain experimental and not fully applied.
No single statement can encapsulate the complexity of this issue but there is a genuine fear by many in the justice system that transparency will be detrimental to them. Rightly so as evidence that someone has acted inappropriately or in error often leads to a dismissal or worse. This fact is mixed with an assortment of others where those guilty of multiple misconducts successfully evade detection even though there is a history of their previous guilts. The reality is that sometimes it becomes difficult to separate those multiply-guilty persons from those who made a mistake from unfortunate circumstance. And this leads to the reason why transparency is so difficult to achieve. Once a fault has been identified our society demands strong punishment and accepts minimal leeway for human error. In the present case of the police officer who failed to sign the charge sheet his or her career could be in jeopardy. And the crown’s office will have its own explanations to do, possibly with career-ending results. But we don’t know and may never know because there is minimal transparency in the justice system.
Correction of the status quo must be a two-step process. Number one, the functioning of the justice system must become much more transparent. But number two, and almost as important, our society must look in its mirror and recognize its blood-thirsty nature in demanding unreasonable vengeance where a failure has been exposed. Frustration over a failure to bring guilty persons to their rightful consequence cannot be the basis for painting everyone with the same brush. Sometimes isolated errors need to be considered and compared if an individual has demonstrated a long line of proper behaviour. A strong incentive is created to cover up an error, regardless of a person’s exemplary character, if a person perceives that they will not be treated fairly, or with a reasonable level of understanding.
Now and then, in the crumbling of professional journalism, a journalist uncovers a story like this and successfully presents it to the public in a proper context. While CTV News has its own history of failures the author of its article on this matter, Phil Tsekouras, has done something right in exposing this story. Unfortunately, with the collapse of many independent news organizations it has become easier to bury many such stories as control over what becomes public is reduced into the hands of fewer editors and news media owners.
Building Collapse After Impact Complicates Cause of Death
Readers may remember the article we posted on December 19, 2022 involving a building collapse in Boston. The building was struck by a car and we showed the photo below from Boston’s Fire Department.
In part we provided the following comment regarding interpretation of collision damage:
“The internet is full of experts who use false information to confuse, and sometime defraud the public. The realm of collision analysis is no exception. A common theme is to use false evidence to support a false claim. There are many examples where collision evidence is misinterpreted, sometimes on purpose. The classic case is one of using the existence of collision damage as an indicator of collision severity and vehicle speed.
A building may be very strong in terms of holding itself upright but it may be brittle and may not be able to withstand the vibrations of a lateral force. The evaluation must involve the examination of the collision partner, the car, to determine the magnitude of the force that was involved.“
Subsequently we have become aware of another similar incident that reportedly occurred on February 8, 2023. Video released by the Maryland Attorney General’s office showed an intersection collision in Baltimore involving a Hyundai car that was attempting to escape police. The Hyundai struck another car in an intersection and both vehicles then travelled off the road and struck a building. The façade of the building collapsed. Unfortunately a pedestrian was involved who sustained fatal injuries. Frames from the video are shown below.
The sequence of frames shown above demonstrate the complexity of injury causation, and fault.
In scenarios like this it is important to understand that our opinions about fault can be coloured by our wish to blame the fleeing driver of the Hyundai for the death of the pedestrian. This can distract from the additional fact that the building collapse was also a likely factor in cause of the pedestrian fatality. There is the added matter that buildings that are at a higher risk of being struck by traffic should be of sufficient structural soundness that they should withstand a certain level of impact force without falling down. Providing some form of roadside barrier could also improve the risk of building collapse.
In many instances dangers that exist to the general public are glossed over because official investigations seek the prosecution of a guilty party. When the revelation of additional factors could weaken the case against a guilty party police and other agencies tend to hide those additional factors. This allows dangers to continue to exist without correction.
Characteristics of Cyclist Sidewalk Riders in London Ontario in 2022
The large and obvious elephant in the cycling realm is difficult to ignore, yet ignore it we do. In Ontario cyclists ride on sidewalks of urban roadways. They have done so for years, despite provincial and municipal laws that prohibit it. Cyclists who ride on sidewalks are supposed to be dangerous to pedestrians and to themselves. At least that is the official judgment. So it would seem that officials should be enforcing the laws that prohibit this action.
Gorski Consulting has conducted an analysis of the 1030 cyclist observation made in the year 2022 that were carried out along the streets of London, Ontario, to see what some of the characteristics might be of the subgroup of riders who ride on sidewalks. The table below shows some of the results.
Of the 414 observations, 313 were male, 52 were female, 34 were children and in 15 instances the gender of the cyclist was unknown. The percentage of female versus male riders was small, about 14.2% but slightly greater than in the overall 1030 observations of all cyclists where females represented about 13.1%.
The number of children riding on sidewalks was observed to be about 8.2%. Given that officials allow children to ride on urban sidewalks this number seems rather small.
In 280 observations it was confirmed that a cyclist was not wearing a helmet. Thus the percentage of riders not wearing a helmet on sidewalks was about 67.6%. This percentage appeared to be higher than the percentage of non use amongst observed cyclists which was previously determined in a study of the first six months of 2022.
For example, pervious analysis was reported on this Gorski Consulting website for the first six months of 2022 wherein 501cyclist observations were made. In 26 instances the gender of cyclist could not be determined. Looking at helmet use, 248 of the 417 males were not wearing a helmet. This amounts to 59.5 % non-usage. There were 58 observations of female cyclists and of those 29 were observed not to be wearing a helmet, or 50.0 % non-usage.
The following photos were selected to provide a general indication of the types of riders that were observed riding on sidewalks of London roads in 2022.
Discussion
If riding a bicycle on a city sidewalk is dangerous, as indicated by provincial and municipal officials, then the observations obtained by Gorski Consulting in 2022 indicate that large numbers of cyclists are engaging in this “dangerous” activity. Our experience of reconstructing cyclist collisions over the past 40 years indicates that the vast majority of severe injuries and deaths of cyclists did not occur when cyclists were riding on sidewalks. Rather, those serious collisions occurred when cyclists were riding in or crossing an urban roadway. Where the truth lies is difficult to determine as neither the province or municipalities have allowed an independent entity to examine the details of the cyclist collisions on which they base their policies. In fact even basic frequencies of cyclist collisions are not being made publicly available.
School Bus Visibility Obstruction Could Kill You
In July of 2007 I posted an article on this (Gorski Consulting) website entitled “Roof Pillars Can Be A Visibility Obstruction”. The point was to illustrate that a driver’s view could be obstructed at an intersection by a roof pillar and this could lead to a collision. This conclusion was based on some testing that was performed in a 1999 Chevrolet Lumina passenger car. It demonstrated that at highway speed, a zone of about 5 car lengths along the crossroad could be invisible to the driver because of the blockage posed by a roof pillar.
While this result is important the visibility obstruction that exists in other vehicles such as large trucks and buses is even greater. This fact is rarely discussed. Collisions occur with other vehicles from this factor. But more importantly collisions occur with more vulnerable victims such as pedestrians and cyclists because no one has made this point known.
The following example will provide a detailed focus on the problem.
School Bus Versus Pedestrian Collision
To illustrate the circumstances by which a pedestrian could be struck by a school bus the following photo of a collision site is shown followed by examples of the visibility available in a school bus and then how an impact might occur as a result of the limited visibility.
The photo below shows an intersection of two roadways where the driver of a school bus attempted to make a left turn along the general line shown in the measurement of the school bus travel path of about 25 metres.
Measurements of a similar school bus were taken to document the extent to which the bus driver’s vision would be blocked by the left exterior mirror and the left roof pillar. The photo below shows an exterior view of a similar school bus. The left roof pillar and exterior mirror can be seen.
As shown from the interior of the bus below the width of the area of obstruction by the mirror and roof pillar was about 23 centimetres.
Another measurement was taken to determine the bus driver’s eyes with respect to the obstructing mirror and roof pillar.
Measurements indicate that a school bus driver’s eyes would be located about 2.4 metres to the rear of its front bumper, about 2.4 metres above the ground, and about 0.65 metres to the right of the left interior wall of a bus. These values will vary slightly dependent on the adjustment of the driver’s seat which changes for each driver’s preference.
Measurements like these allowed for the creation of a scale diagram, shown below, which determined the area of obstructed sight produced by the mirror and roof pillar. With the school bus starting its motion at the bottom of this image we examined the view obstruction after the bus advanced 7.5 metres and 22 metres. Measurements of the site indicated that the travel paths of the pedestrian and school bus were initially about 7.5 metres apart. As both units advanced forward there was a continual zone of about 3.43 metres within which the pedestrian was not visible to the bus driver.
However, as the bus began its turn into an angle of about 30 degrees the bus driver’s eyes began to get closer to the pedestrian and, combined with the change in the bus angle, this caused the zone of obstruction to diminish to about 1.1 metres. This would be a critical moment. If the bus driver was looking in the direction where the pedestrian emerged from the obstruction he might be able to apply his brakes or steer away to avoid striking the pedestrian. But such success cannot be guaranteed. The driver’s attention could to directed toward other areas of the exterior environment at this precise instance. Even through he might revert his attention quickly back to where the pedestrian is walking a delayed reaction could result in a failure to avoid a collision.
A further appreciation of the collision conditions can be obtained by taking a replica school bus to the actual collision site to explore the experiments that were conducted in the scale diagram analysis.
The photos below show a reenactment of the collision scenario where we see progressive motions of the school bus taken from the driver’s seating position as the school bus approaches its left turn.
As the school bus approaches the intersection the driver would steer the bus into the left turn lane. Unfortunately in this re-enactment this motion was not possible and the motion being shown is with the bus remaining in the through lane. Never-the-less the visibility scenario is similar to the actual event. The orange circle in the image shows the approximate location of the pedestrian before she began to walk southbound across the road.
In the next images we see the bus progressing forward slowly as the driver is looking into the opposing lanes of traffic to determine when a reasonable gap may develop that would allow the bus driver to complete his left turn. This attention conflict is common in driving environments where a driver may need to be aware of more than one possible conflict in different areas of the exterior environment. In these images we also include the orange circle identifying the position of the pedestrian who is intending to cross the road.
As shown in the photo below, as the school bus advances the view of the position of the pedestrian becomes obscured by the exterior mirror and the roof pillar of the bus. If the pedestrian began to move forward onto the road at the time shown in the photo below the bus driver would not be able to see that this motion of the pedestrian had begun.
In the photo below it can be seen that, given the specific conditions of a slow forward motion of the school bus, the bus driver would not be able to see the motion of the pedestrian because that pedestrian’s motion would be blocked by the exterior mirror, roof pillar, or both.
So long as the school bus continued forward at a similar speed as the pedestrian then the pedestrian would remain hidden behind the mirror/pillar of the bus. At some point the bus would begin its left turn and this would expose the pedestrian into the bus driver’s line of sight. If the bus driver was not looking in the area where the pedestrian became visible he might not stop in time and the pedestrian could be struck.
School buses are not the only large vehicles that contain zones where it is difficult for the driver to detect the presence of a pedestrian or cyclist. The hood edge of many large vehicles is so high that it could hide the presence of a small child that is near the vehicle’s front bumper. In other instances the drivers of heavy trucks making right turns cannot see the progress of pedestrians or cyclists along the right side of the truck and/or its trailer.
Not only is it important for drivers of heavy vehicles to know where these zones are, but it is equally important that pedestrians and cyclists be aware of where these zones exist and in what circumstances they may not be seen by the driver of a heavy vehicle.
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