Drowning Risks Continue in Water-filled Ditch Rollovers
At the risk of playing this broken record (for young folk ask your parents or grand parents what that means) there is a danger when a vehicle comes to rest upside down in shallow water in winter conditions. The above photo, provided by the OPP on December 15, 2022, was accompanied by a dry Twitter comment that “Thankfully, no injuries to the lone occupant”. Nowhere is there any further comment about how easily this result could have been fatal.
Imagine that this collision occurred in night-time on this relatively low-volume road. The depth of the bottom of the ditch could easily hide any illuminated lighting of the vehicle to any passing motorists. So the vehicle could have been left unseen for hours. What if the driver sustained some form of injury that caused him/her to find it difficult to escape the vehicle? What if the seat-belt became difficult to release in this upside down position? What if the doors could not be opened? Few persons realize that, when a ditch is very steep and narrow a vehicle can become lodged parallel to the deep crevice and the doors cannot be opened against the sides of the earth ditch. Fortunately in this above example the ditch is just slightly wide enough so the vehicle in not parallel to the ditch and there appears to be room to open the doors. But the doors could still be difficult to open if damaged.
So what happens when you’re stuck upside down in water and you cannot get out of the freezing water? You might survive, sometimes for several hours depending on other factors. But hypothermia eventually sets in and the result can be lethal.
The reality is that the number of persons who perish in shallow, water-filled ditches in Southwestern Ontario is not publicized. At Gorski Consulting we have published several articles on our website on this issue. While such drownings occur throughout the province a fair number of them occur in the counties of Lambton, Essex and Chatham-Kent. These counties appear to have a larger number of deep and narrow ditches next to many roadways where there is no protection provided by any guiderails or barriers. Since the Municipal Act was enacted the safety of roadways, which was exclusively a provincial governance, suddenly became the responsibility of local municipalities. Those municipalities that had a preponderance of safety problems now had to find the money within their local jurisdictions to deal with those problems. So now the safety of roadways becomes dependent on which municipal jurisdiction you drive in. The counties of Lambton, Essex and Chatham-Kent would have to spend huge amounts of money to protect the very large numbers of roadways with water-filled ditches with proper roadside guiderails and barriers. Yet, in the past, the Province of Ontario would pool the information about safety problems throughout the Province and then would provide the funds to deal with the most urgent concerns regardless of where they existed.
The Counties of Lambton, Essex and Chatham-Kent may become liable for failing to provide the proper protections from roadside drownings. Claims in civil litigation will be made and lawyer negotiations will result in further payments by local taxpayers. Civil proceedings almost never reach trial but are almost exclusively resolved through lawyer negotiations. And even if there is very little evidence of liability no one wants to enter the realm of the courtroom where legal fees will skyrocket and the outcome is known in legal circles as being unpredictable.
Very often this is a matter of politics, not fault. A political realignment that allows safety problems to exist while punishing local jurisdictions is a matter of inequality. So, in practice, there is likely never to be enough local money to fix the roadside safety problems that continue to exist. What remains are such incidents as shown in the above photo, where we rely on luck to save some and ignore the publicity when someone else succumbs to unfortunate reality.
Fire After Barrier Impact – Everyone Silent About Safety Concerns
It is never a good thing when police and news media do not focus the public’s attention to obvious safety issues.
On December 9, 2022 the OPP Twitter account posted several photos relating to collision on Highway 401 near Whites Road just west of Toronto. These photos showed a burning vehicle. Not far from the vehicle was a damaged energy attenuation device (a crushable terminal located at the end of a concrete barrier). When impacted this device is supposed to crush/collapse in a controlled manner such that kinetic energy possessed by the striking object (vehicle) is dissipated. A similarly controlled crush on the front end of a modern vehicle will dissipate additional kinetic energy. All these things, when working together, properly reduce the likelihood that a vehicle occupant will sustain serious injury, or worse.
In the OPP photos we see that the striking vehicle caught fire and, although firemen put out the fire, it was too late. The vehicle was completely consumed. The only portions of the vehicle remaining were the bare metals.
At no point in the OPP description, or in any comments by the public, was there any mention of the obvious safety problems in this result. It is as if no one is able to comprehend that barriers and energy attenuation devices are supposed to make collision results better, not worse. The obvious problem with the result is that if any vehicle occupants were unable to escape from the vehicle they would be consumed by the fire. And there are numerous examples in significant collisions where extrication procedures by rescue personnel are needed because an occupant is trapped in a vehicle and cannot escape.
The lack of comment is used as a method of informing the public that there is nothing wrong here. The public need not no anything further. All is as it should be.
Almost universally, throughout the developed world, roadside hardware must undergo compliance testing to ensure that it will perform to the specifications required by a roadway authority. Those specifications are created so that the hardware will prevent or reduce the level of collision severity that leads to road user injury and death. This process is costly but accepted because of the benefit that is the result. In the present scenario we are led to believe that vehicles catching fire after a barrier impact is the norm. Nothing wrong here. This system and vehicle have both performed properly. Not everyone is that naïve to accept that assertion.
Cyclist Helmet Use in London Ontario
When have you last seen a professional, racing cyclist not wearing a helmet? At a minimum that should provide an indication of how important helmet use is to the safety of all cyclists. Yet what information is available to the average cyclist riding along or adjacent to urban roads about helmet use? Turns out that not much, or no information is provided. Collisions occur, some of them fatal, yet the involvement of helmet use in those collisions is never reported.
While conducting observations of cyclists along roadways in London Ontario, Gorski Consulting has provided a variety of data about cyclist speeds, characteristics of cyclists and where they ride. In the latest data, from the first six months of 2022, we have now also examined the issue of helmet use. And the results are quite surprising.
The Helmet Use Data
Cyclists were observed on the streets of London over a period of six months from the beginning of 2022 until the end of June. In that time photos were taken of 501 cyclists who were either riding cycles on a roadway, riding on a sidewalk or stopped within any portion of the traffic right-of-way. The results of these observations are summarized in the table below.
There were 417 male and 58 female observations. In 6 observations the gender of the cyclist could not be determined.
Where gender could be determined the percent of female riders was just 12.2 %. This finding is not much different from findings from other years dating back to 2013.
Looking at helmet use, 248 of the 417 males cyclists were not wearing a helmet. This amounts to 59.5 % non-usage. For females, out the total of 58 observations, 29 were observed not to be wearing a helmet, or 50.0 % non-usage.
The actual percentages of non-use were actually higher because the non-use counts discussed here are for instances where we could be certain that a helmet was not used. In a number of instances a cyclist head was not visible or was covered by other clothing such as a hood. While the number of those instances was not large it, never-the-less, indicates that the actual percentage of non-use of helmets is higher than indicated.
Strangely, helmet non-use by cyclists appears to be less on the Thames Valley Parkway. In a study conducted in July, 2021 268 cyclists were observed in the Greenway Park area of the TVP. Sixty-eight cyclists were observed who were not wearing a helmet. This is a 25.3 % non-use rate. This rate of non-use appears to be much lower than the previously mentioned observations along City streets.
These results are both unexpected and concerning. Given the reasonable concern of being struck by passing motor vehicles one would think that cyclists would be more prone to accepting ways of protecting themselves with proven protective gear such as helmets. This data seems to contradict that expectation. Yet there is an additional factor that needs to be considered – the riding location of the cyclist.
Cyclist Location Data
The table below provides a breakdown of where the cyclists were located, if on the roadway or on the sidewalk.
The summary at the bottom of this table shows that, of the 417 male cyclists, 273 were observed to be riding or stopped on a sidewalk. Thus 65.47% of male cyclists were observed on a sidewalk. Similarly for females, of the 55 females, 38 were observed to be on a sidewalk. Thus 69.1% of female cyclists were observed on a sidewalk.
Thus one possibility for the low helmet use rates on London’s roads is that about two-thirds of cyclists ride on sidewalks where the danger of being struck by a motor vehicle is greatly diminished. This can only be speculated.
What seems of interest is that the number of cyclists riding on sidewalks continues to be very high. The observations for these first six months of 2022 indicate a higher percentage of cyclists on sidewalks than in previous years where similar observations were made. It remains a topic of no discussion that Provincial traffic laws and London’s laws make it illegal for cyclists to ride on sideways and yet cyclists continue to disobey these laws. No one wants to address this large elephant in the room.
Latest Scandal At City of Hamilton Really Smells
Congratulations taxpayers of Hamilton, you have officially won another local scandal. The price? You will be paying perhaps $300 million dollars out of your property taxes to pay for all the lawyers on all sides of the various scandals.
Presently you have been paying millions of dollars to conduct the Red Hill Valley Parkway Judicial Inquiry, which has been going on since 2019, and legal fees keep coming in. Once this inquiry is completed a $250 million class action lawsuit will commence. The largest benefactors from this legal process will be the lawyers.
Your next payments may be for the Chedoke Creek Sewage Leak scandal. Repercussions from this might have been lessened if your politicians and staff had been up front and admitted that the sewage leak occurred. Instead, politicians covered it up and even supported the cover-up after they got caught. And then some politicians wanted the City to investigate who leaked the leak to the public and punish the whistleblower(s).
Now, another sewage leak has been revealed that was dumping sewage into the Hamilton harbour for 26 years. City staff have downplayed the extent of the leak. And that it was all an understandable, inadvertent mistake. That may be so but why would you now believe anything that a city politician or staff member says? The script has likely been written by lawyers at the City of Hamilton Risk Management Department. Does that not give you a clue that the script was written to minimize the future legal implications? Can you really believe that the script was written to properly inform you?
Municipalities in Ontario all have a similar political and staff structure as Hamilton. There are members of the political and staff regimes who believe that they can do as they please because their actions and decisions rarely reach public scrutiny. Whatever repercussions may result from their actions these individuals rightly understand that municipal risk management departments will protect them because they are a part of the corporation. Taxpayer’s money is essentially limitless and, when all else fails, they can simply parashoot out of their positions and work elsewhere. Most municipalities do a good job of limiting their exposures to liability by listening to their handlers at their risk management departments. The unfortunate circumstance with Hamilton is that the actions of certain individuals crossed the line of the standard arrogance and local news media eventually exposed those actions. Unable to control local media the City of Hamilton was forced to come up with new lines of defense, including the invoking of a judicial inquiry. Its about public perception.
We can be sorry for the unknown number of taxpayers who tried to inform themselves about the character of the politicians for whom they voted and who set transparency and accountability high on their list of desirable qualities. For the rest we can simply say: you deserve what you got. You voted for politicians whose goal was to hide whatever could be hidden. You voted for politicians who were willfully blind and did not want to inquire what City staff was up to.
A new City mayor and council have been voted into office and it will be interesting to see if they understand transparency and accountability. The new mayor, Andrea Horwath, has requested an investigation into the latest sewage leak. It remains to be seen whether she will follow the script that her risk management lawyers give her.
Cycling Issues In London Ontario – A Commentary
People have a right to believe what they will but I believe climate change is not some devilish hoax. As such important changes must be made to how our society functions. The need to reduce our carbon footprints must involve the recognition that our transportation systems must change. Mass transit and active transportation are key components of this needed change.
I recognize that seemingly major changes have taken place in transportation infrastructure in my hometown, London, Ontario, like they have in many Canadian cities. Most notably many cycling paths, lanes and tracks have been constructed. This transformation is not easy: It irritates those driving personal motor vehicles like it also irritates cyclists who do not see that transformation occurring fast enough. However I recognize that this transformation must occur. During this difficult time of transition it is important to face the challenges with an open realism. Problems that develop cannot be just swept under the carpet, they must be identified and made visible. It is only through this openness that adjustments can be made with a minimum of disruption to all.
For this reason I have chosen to take a single day, November 3, 2022, as a random indicator of what cycling issues exist in London, Ontario. Photos were taken on this day while I drove through the streets of London. There is nothing special about this day. It is just something that we could expect on any typical fall day in London.
Typical Cycling Observations On A Typical Day
I begin this review with the photo, shown below, looking northward on Hale Street, taken of the newly constructed cycling facility at the intersection of Hale and Brydges Streets in east London. This intersection was altered to narrow the confines within which motor vehicles make turns. It is believed that such slower turning speeds will improve safety. The alteration also created protected lanes for cyclists.
The unfortunate reality is that there is a detrimental reason why speeds are reduced in narrowed regions whether they be here at this intersection or on any road. The reason why speed is reduced is because the narrowed area of passage increases the likelihood that a motor vehicle will travel outside of the narrowed lane. This is not an imaginary danger, it is real, and it is recognized by the motor vehicle driver. Egress from the narrowed lane increases the likelihood that an impact will occur with another vehicle or with roadside objects such as a curb, hazard marker or even a pole or a tree. Cities do not keep track of “minor” collisions thus those collisions are invisible in the official statistics. So, from an official standpoint, there is nothing but an improvement from narrowing roadways. But damage to a motor vehicle, even if minor, can be a substantial cost. A cost that remains unknown and untracked.
Another reality of cycling infrastructure is that too often cycling lanes become blocked or impassable for various reasons. In many cases motor vehicles, such a delivery and maintenance vehicles, stop in a cycling lane because there is no other way for drivers to complete their tasks. In other instances materials are left in the cycling lane. Garbage containers migrate into a cycling lane during days of garbage pick-up, snow is cleared from a road onto a cycling lane, or leaves fallen from trees are concentrated within a cycling lane. Thus there is still an infant stage of recognition that cycling lanes need more clearing of these vehicles and objects that prevent cycling lanes from being used.
Another reality is that cycling on many roads in London still remains a dangerous activity. While the City of London and the Province of Ontario continue to promote a fairytale that cycling is safer on the right portion of a travel lane, the reality is quite different along some roads. There are many roads in the City of London that remain extremely dangerous for cyclist travel. As an example, many four-lane arterials such as Highbury Ave, Oxford Street, Hamilton Road and east portions of Dundas Street contain no safe zone within which a cyclist can travel within the curb lane. It is exceptionally dangerous and unethical to continue to advise cyclists that it is safe to travel in the curb lanes of these roads when the danger of being struck is obvious. Many cyclists have come to understand these dangers and, despite the possibility that they could be fined by police, they opt to travel on the sidewalk.
Yet this decision to ride on the sidewalk places cyclists in a difficult liability position if a collision should occur. Lawyers are quick to point out that the cyclist’s presence on a sidewalk, or riding within a pedestrian crossing is against the law. As such the cyclist faces financial penalties as some blame/negligence will be attributed to the cyclist. So, while the cyclist is doing what he or she can to avoid injury or death, they are penalized by the bureaucracy of the justice system. In many cases cyclists have no idea of these legal repercussions.
There are conflicts on city sidewalks where larger numbers of pedestrians may congregate, some being children, or elderly. Common sense should dictate that cyclists ought to slow down or even stop and walk their bikes on the sidewalk when such situations are encountered. This is a preferable approach than sending cyclists onto a dangerous curb lane.
A portion of cyclists are radicalized to the point of refusing to recognize that they have a responsibility toward their own safety. While some cyclists may have difficulty paying for a good helmet there are others who refuse to wear one. It is not clear why. Decades ago many motor vehicle occupants refused to wear seat-belts as they attributed seat-belt laws as an unreasonable infringement on their right to freedom. It is not clear if a similar process is underway in the cycling community. Much like seat-belts helmets are proven to provide superior protection to cyclists, especially because serious head injury is such a common injury mechanism.
While there is considerable emphasis and discussion about buying expensive e-bikes the reality, for a substantial number of low income cyclists, is that they must use less expensive and creative ways of moving about the City. For cargo carrying it is common to see a cyclist pulling a grocery cart. It has been observed along many roadways and sidewalks in London that cyclists use grocery carts to transport beer cans to the local beer store. Cyclists can be seen holding a grocery cart in one hand while holding the cycle handlebar in the other. If more cycling lanes are built that are only 1.5 metres wide, and if cyclists begin to be forced onto these lanes, where will this put these low-income cyclists and their wider, appended cart? They will not fit within the narrow confines of a protected cycling lane. Will such riders begin to ride in the curb lane? What safety problems will that create? Observations like these are obtained from detailed video documentations that have been conducted at Gorski Consulting for a number of years.
Transportation officials continue to insist that cyclists must be defined as small-sized, motor vehicles and that cyclists must behave like drivers of motor vehicles on the roads that are designed for motor vehicles. This creates the dangerous reality that cyclists do not fit that definition. It has been demonstrated from our numerous video documentations that cycles have never behaved like drivers of motor vehicles. Without this recognition dangerous scenarios are developed as shown in the photo sequence below.
As can be seen, the cyclist in these photos is attempting a left turn out of a commercial driveway but his presence is screened from view by the white truck. Such a position could not be attempted by a car driver because of the larger size and width of a motor vehicle. Yet, being of a much narrower width, the rider of the bicycle can squeeze into such a position. As seen below, rather than waiting for the truck to clear the driveway the cyclist attempts to make his left turn regardless of the potential consequences.
In the photo below the cyclist can be seen just at the left edge of the Ford Escape such that he has successfully made the left turn across the curb lane. But now he must squeeze through the remaining traffic in the other lane.
Below it can be seen that the cyclist enters the centre, turn-lane as he looks over his shoulder for a gap within which he can cross the through lane. This middle turn lane is designated left turns in both directions such that, pulling out of a blind area the cyclist may not detect that a vehicle could be travelling toward him in that left-turn lane while his head is turned.
As shown below, the cyclist eventually determines that he can cross in front of the traffic that his is looking at and proceeds into the through lane. But this is a sequence of actions that is dangerous. Sequences like these repeat themselves on a regular basis on busy city streets because cyclists do not ride within the same rules and expectations as drivers of motor vehicles.
At times cyclists ride as if they are pedestrians and at others they ride as if they operating a motor vehicle. These differences need to be documented and understood.
Discussion
New, protected, cycling lanes have been constructed at several locations throughout the City of London. At many locations these lanes are occupied by very few cyclists. Drivers of motor vehicles are not blind to this. In the minds of drivers the space that was originally provided to their motor vehicles is now being taken away for a seemingly useless purpose. In this time where we need the cooperation of all users of our road systems negative impressions about cycling infrastructure does not help.
A discussion needs to be maintained about why cycling infrastructure needs to be expanded but also there must be an immediate process of determining how more persons can be encouraged to ride their cycle on these new lanes and what is preventing them from doing so.
In London there are major problems with a disconnect of cycling lanes. The City has the mindset that building cycling infrastructure is like building or upgrading a road. Planning is prepared, a contract is given and improvements are made within the short distance of the contract. Thus a cycling lane is built for several kilometres and then that lane suddenly terminates, often leaving cyclists in dangerous areas.
There is also a problem with cycling convenience. Cyclists must be able to travel to some destination and be satisfied that they can park their cycle in a safe location where it will not be stolen or damaged. Thus secure lockers for cycles is an extremely important item. Currently there are very few secure cycle lock-ups in the City.
Cycling convenience also means that we need to address the large percentage of the public who would rather drive in a safe and comfortable automobile rather than face the difficulty of pedalling, of being exposed to rain and similar inconveniences. Some segments of the population are physically challenged by riding a cycle. There are many impatient cycling activists who believe that the best approach is to force drivers to ride cycles by making it more inconvenience and difficult to drive motor vehicles. This approach can often alienate those who might be on the cusp of exploring cycling but become angered by the restriction of their freedom to chose as they please. A better approach is to make cycling more enjoyable such that drivers of motor vehicles will want to buy and ride cycles.
Our ultimate objective is to replace motor vehicles with active transportation, not just for pleasure but for those business trips, or shopping or transporting cargo. As such many of us do not see a connection between pleasure and business. Yet there is an important connection. Pleasure trips are those that provide the initial incentive to try cycling. Once the habit is developed cyclists can come to understand that cycling does not need to be confined to pleasant trips to a park, but real work, at a cheap price, can be accomplished. So maintaining opportunities for pleasure trips can lead to the ultimate goal of replacing the automobile.
Creating and maintaining facilities for pleasurable cycling must include the understanding that “variety is the spice of life”. This means that even pleasurable trips can become monotonous and boring if there are only a limited number of paths/trails on which to ride. Although the Thames Valley Parkway (TVP) in London is a great facility, those who ride it frequently can become bored with following the same route, day in and day out. I have heard this expression from some riders in our group who have bowed out of riding on the TVP and prefer to take to the highways surrounding London. While I too am enticed by this possibility I also recognize the increased danger that cyclists are exposed to once they begin riding along the edge of an 80 km/h highway with minimal separation from high speed traffic. But there are options available. There are hidden and/or forgotten trails that can take cyclists outside of London if only someone would provide a minimal amount of capital to make this happen.
For example, an old rail line used to travel between north-west London and Grand Bend. This land was sold and transferred mainly to farm properties. But the old rail bed still remains. It would not take much capital to reactivate this line into a cycling trail.
In another example, the London-Port Stanley rail line runs north/south between London and St Thomas. This could also be transformed into a cycling path. This provides an interesting option as a trail already exists in St Thomas that heads about 5 km/h westward near Fingal Line. This is another old railway bed that extends all the way to Essex County. It passes through many smaller towns such as Shedden, Dutton, Rodney, Ridgetown, etc. It would be an economic boost to these small communities if cyclists visited their shops and restaurants. It would also provide a very long trail for cyclists to enter at designated trail heads where they please.
The creation of cycling trails that exit the boundaries of the City of London are not a large incentive to City officials who may be interested in keeping cyclists tied to the City boundaries. Yet such trails can also reduce the number of serious and fatal collisions that occur on nearby highways. By providing more opportunities for cyclists to travel on pleasure trips this creates the interest in cycling and this is needed to get the public interested in using their cycles for other reasons.
Post-Note
This article was originally published on the Gorski Consulting website on November 20, 2022. For an unexplained reason, shortly after it was published, it disappeared from the Gorski Consulting website. My internet provider could not explain why this happened. Fortunately a fairly-well developed draft of the article remained and this enabled me to add portions of the lost article to the draft from what I could remember. So the present article is somewhat similar to the originally-posted article. This occurrence is a reminder that the internet is a strange creation where many “bad duds” are constantly doing bad things, preventing honest exchange of ideas and information.
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