Intended Murder of Muslim Pedestrians in London Ontario – Site Evidence Alone Cannot Confirm Intentions
(Updated: 1310 hours, June 8, 2021)
Four pedestrians were killed yesterday, June 6, 2021 in London, Ontario when a southbound vehicle struck a group of pedestrians on Hyde Park Road at its intersection with South Carriage Road.
Having just completed an examination of the collision site on Hyde Park Road and South Carriage Street in London, Ontario, we can confirm that the evidence at the site alone cannot determine whether four Muslim pedestrians were purposely killed by a driver who veered into them yesterday.
The photo below shows a view looking south along Hyde Park Road taken this afternoon. In the background is South Carriage Road.
The next photo takes us to the north side of the intersection with South Carriage Road. The striking vehicle veered to the right and struck the pedestrians to the right of the traffic signal located on the south side of the intersection. We would want to examine the road surface in this region to establish whether there are any markings caused by the vehicle as it veered to the right. No such markings were observed.
There were no visible markings until the vehicle struck the curb and tire scrub marks were created on the curb by the two front tires. The photo below shows the general location of the curb where the tire scrub marks existed.
The photo below shows a closer view of the curb where the tire scrub marks were created.
The photo below shows the scrub mark caused by the left front tire.
The photo below shows the scrub mark caused by the right front tire.
Once the vehicle mounted the sidewalk some tire marks became visible on the concrete sidewalk likely from overloading when the vehicle made contact with the pedestrians. One of these overloading marks is shown in the photo below.
After the vehicle struck the pedestrians and passed through the sidewalk it moved onto the grass roadside and travelled almost 60 metres before knocking over a small sign. Some of the tire marks from the vehicle can be seen below just to the right of the sidewalk.
Unfortunately some news crews have the subtilty of a charging bull elephant as they trampled all over the tire marks and other evidence. The photo below, looking north toward the area of impact, is one of many examples where news crews simply set up their equipment over top of the tire marks.
Sometimes the actions of a vehicle such as braking, acceleration or neither, can be established by the character of the grass on which the vehicle travelled. This cannot be done well when persons have trampled through that evidence and destroyed the fragile evidence that might have existed there. The paint marking shown on the asphalt in the next photo were created by the investigating police to document the southward path of the vehicle.
Looking further to the south the photo below shows the small sign that was knocked over about 56 metres south of where the pedestrians were struck.
The photo below shows a view looking north from just south of the struck sign and back toward the area of impact in the background.
Overall, the evidence at the site does not provide any conclusive evidence as to whether this was an intentional act of hate against the Muslim pedestrians. The police may have further evidence such as the data from the vehicle’s event data recorder (“Black Box”) and perhaps other evidence that might lead to the driver’s intentions but what that evidence may be has not been revealed at this time.
Whatever the intentions of the driver, it is a sad result that so many lives were taken.
Hours of Cyclist Counts Performed By Gorski Consulting During Week of Velo Cycling Count
Cyclists are being counted throughout Canada by volunteers during the week of June 1-6, 2021. Gorski Consulting in contributing to the counts.
Over the past week five sessions of cyclist observations were performed by Gorski Consulting, each approximately 2-3 hours, with respect to the Velo Cycling Count that has been taking place throughout Canada during the week of June 1-6, 2021. Because the sessions are videotaped analysis is required to extract the cycling numbers. Also the procedures performed by Gorski Consulting include counts of all users of any site, including pedestrians and specialized vehicles.
The results are available from two of the sites where observations were conducted on June 2, 2021: Three hours of observation made on Hale Street between the two legs of Heather Crescent and two hours of observations performed on the Thames Valley Parkway just south of Trafalgar St at the Pottersburg Creek Bridge. Results from the Hale Street site indicated very low numbers of cyclists and pedestrians.
At the Thames Valley Parkway (TVP) site on June 2, 2021 the data has been separated into two individual hours. In the first hour 35 cyclists were observed, 32 pedestrians and 2 other (specialized vehicles, etc). In the second hour 44 cyclists were observed, 15 pedestrians, and no others.
Analysis is on-going of the three remaining sessions, two at the Hale Street site and one at the TVP Trafalgar site.
With the completion of these two sessions Gorski Consulting now has completed 30, one-hour, sessions of cyclist observations in the City of London over the past 15 years.
Results From Velo Cycle-Counting Session on Hale Street in London, Ontario
June 1-6, 2021 is the week when volunteers throughout Canada are counting cyclist volumes of roads and paths as part of a program developed by the Velo Canada Bikes Corporation. Gorski Consulting has volunteered its services and two cycling counts were made on June 2nd in east London. Results are now available from one of those counts, from Hale Street near Heather Crescent.
For 3 hours, commencing at 1130 hours, a video camera was operated on Hale Street between the two legs of Heather Crescent. Unlike the Velo Canada program which asks volunteers to use a cellphone App to conduct the counts, Gorski Consulting has used multiple video cameras for that documentation. This process has been in use since 2004 and has been a part of regular documentations of various traffic situations as part of our collision reconstructions for civil and criminal litigation. While the Velo program relies on the sincerity and accuracy of its volunteers, the Gorski Consulting methods provide permanent video records of what has been observed and therefore those observations can be re-examined by independent entities for their accuracy.
During the 3-hour session only 6 cyclists were observed. Four cyclists were southbound and 2 were northbound. Five of the cyclists were male and one was female. Because of the small sample size we are able to display frames of the cyclists taken from our video project. The six cyclists are shown below.
Northbound, white, adult, male, cyclist, age range unknown, riding on northbound lane of Hale Street.
Northbound, middle-aged, white, male riding on the northbound lane of Hale Street.
Southbound, middle-aged, white, male riding on west sidewalk of Hale Street
Southbound, white, male, age-unknown but not elderly and not a child, riding on E sidewalk.
Southbound, middle-aged, white, male riding on west sidewalk.
Southbound, frail, possibly elderly, white, female, riding on east sidewalk.
Note that four of the six cyclists were observed riding on a sidewalk and their ages are likely above 18 years. Thus according to London’s laws they could be ticketed by police as they are not supposed to be riding on a sidewalk. Yet given the traffic volumes and the lack of a cycling lane on Hale Street it would be more safe ride on the sidewalk.
As observed in previous testing, the numbers of males (5) versus females (1) continues the trend that males generally outnumber females by a wide margin. If we are to increase cycling volumes we need to understand by this low volume of female cyclists exists and what we can do to improve those numbers.
The results from this session demonstrate that cyclist volumes differ greatly depending on what site is being examined. During an afternoon session during a weekday (Tuesday), cycling volumes appear to be very low on Hale Street. It has also been found in previous studies that seasons (summer versus winter) and time of day are also major factors in the observed variance in cyclist volumes.
Gorski Consulting Participates in Velo Cycling Counts
Cyclists riding on Clarke Road in London, Ontario in 2011. Cycling counts are necessary to understand how we can increase this mode of transportation.
Velo Canada Bikes is a corporation that has initiated a cyclist counting procedure throughout Canada during the week of June 1-6, 2021. During this week volunteers are asked to count the number of cyclists they observe at designated locations in 14 different Canadian cities. For those volunteers not residing in those cities counts can still be performed and accepted.
London Ontario is not one of the 14 designated cities where the counts are requested. Yet, as of yesterday, June 1st, 51 different counts were submitted to the organization from various sites throughout the City. While it was requested that observations be made over a period of two continuous hours many of the reports contain observations for shorter intervals. Yet the fact that persons would volunteer for this project in such numbers is revealing of the interest persons have in cycling in the London area.
Gorski Consulting has decided to volunteer our services as one of the counters. On June 2, 2021 two counts were made, one for 3 hours and another for 2 hours. Results from these sessions will be tabulated shortly. This is done in conjunction with previous observations made by Gorski Consulting for the past 15 years. Some of our data has been reported in articles posted on the Gorski Consulting website. Prior to this new initiative Gorski Consulting has documented cyclist volumes on 25, one-hour sessions throughout the City of London.
We have also been involved in documenting cyclists at specific locations such as along Dundas Street from Highbury to Clark Road. That eight year study demonstrated that a very low volume of females ride in this area and this number is reduced even more during winter months. This data was reported in an earlier article posted on the Gorski Consulting website. If cycling volumes are to increase we need to understand why female cyclists are so reduced in volume and what we can do make that change.
Speed Bump Aggressiveness As Part of Collision Cause Analysis
Motor vehicle collisions are caused by many factors including the characteristics of a road surface. Vehicle reactions to speed bumps can lead to understanding how uneven road surfaces can cause collisions. The following is an example.
At approximately 0330 hours on Sunday, October 26, 2019, a Mercedes vehicle was northbound on Wilson Ave, just west of downtown in London, Ontario. Upon approaching the T-intersection with Blackfriars Street the vehicle went out of control. It knocked down two utility poles, then struck a commercial building on the west side of Wilson, it was then deflected and impacted a residential house on the opposite side of the T-intersection. News media reporting on the collision described the site as a “war zone”. A woman sleeping in the struck residence was lucky to escape injury as a neighbour reported that “Her head was a couple of feet from where the car stopped”.
The Google Maps view below shows the full length of Wilson Ave between Dundas Street to the south and Blackfriars Street to the north. The area of impact is located at the very top edge of the view denoted by the caption “Society Cafe”.
Google Maps view of Wilson Ave just west of downtown London, Ontario. The impact occurred at the top of this view at the commercial building labelled “Society Cafe”.
Gorski Consulting attended the site on October 28th and the following images provide some detail to the amount of carnage that occurred about 36 hours earlier.
View looking north on Wilson Ave showing the damage caused to the east wall of the commercial building (“Society Cafe”) from the impact by the Mercedes. In the background is the residential house which was also struck.
View looking north toward the struck residence on the far side of the T-intersection at Wilson Ave and Blackfriars Street.
View looking north on Wilson Ave showing one of the utility poles (now replaced) that had been knocked down by the Mercedes before it struck the commercial building.
Looking from a distance south of the impacts we were able to detect a loss-of-control tire mark that demonstrated that the Mercedes rotated counter-clockwise on the road before travelling onto the west roadside. Two photos below contain orange arrows that identify the location of the “yaw” tire mark.
Two orange arrows depict the location of a curving, “yaw”, tire mark that demonstrates the path of the Mercedes.
Two orange arrows depict the location of the tire mark caused by the Mercedes before it exited the west side of Wilson Ave.
Backing up further to the south we observed the location of a speed bump on Wilson Ave. Using Googlemaps we estimated that the bump was located about 154 metres south of the intersection with Blackfriars, or about 126 metres south of the first struck utility pole.
View looking north along Wilson Ave where a speed bump can be seen along with a yellow warning sign identifying its location.
View of the speed bump located on Wilson Ave approximately 156 metres south of the T-intersection with Blackfriars Street.
When we walked further to the south the photo below shows that the yellow warning sign can still be seen however a truck and trailer was parked on the east side of Wilson and the following photo, taken from further to the south, shows that the warning sign is no longer visible as it is blocked from view by the parked vehicle.
View looking north along Wilson Ave demonstrating how a parked vehicle could block the view of northbound drivers of the presence of the speed bump sign.
View looking north along Wilson Ave showing how the warning sign is blocked by a vehicle and its trailer.
Further examinations revealed that there were four speed bumps located along the approximate 725 metre length of Wilson Ave from Dundas Street through to Blackfriars Street. It could not be expected that a northbound driver could be oblivious to the presence of all these speed bumps even though some of the warning signs might have been blocked from view. However there was no information made available whether the collision-involved Mercedes travelled the full length of Wilson or if perhaps the vehicle turned onto Wilson from one of the crossroads. Thus it is possible that the driver might have experienced a couple, or even just one of the speed bumps before experiencing the loss of control.
There is no question that the collision-involved Mercedes was travelling very quickly, and likely at highway speed along a narrow residential street posted with a maximum speed limit of just 50 km/h. So why did this occur? If the driver was familiar with the roadway then he/she should have been aware of the presence of the speed bumps. And one would expect that any driver would find it uncomfortable to travel over a speed bump at highway speed. Any driver can appreciate that a speed bump is designed to discourage high speeds and that driving over a speed bump at high speed should have a major effect on the motion of the vehicle and its control. But how much objective knowledge is there other than a subjective opinion or conclusion? And what if a vehicle travelled over a road surface feature that was similar to a speed bump but not designed to be there? For example a depression in a road surface might cause a similar disruption to the motion of a vehicle. But what objective data exists about the effects that this might have on the control of a vehicle and the possibility that it might cause a collision?
A few years ago, as a result of a civil suit, Zygmunt Gorski was part of a team of experts that came together with an opposing team of experts whereby a decision was to be hammered out whether a road surface “undulation” or depression had led to the loss-of-control of a vehicle on a rural highway. The collision led to massive injuries to two vehicle occupants. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid out in consulting fees just from the experts, not including the lawyers fees. Several meetings of the experts were arranged by the court and a mandatory report of our findings was to be prepared. In the end essentially nothing useful was developed as even the most basic terms and beliefs could not be agreed upon by the experts. None of the experts could present basic data on the effects that a road surface bump, depression or undulation might have on a vehicle. Essentially there was no such data. In the realm of civil suits such data is often hidden by both sides for strategic reasons. And the costs of conducting laser scans or employing road surface profilers prohibit the development of useful data except in a few high-cost cases. A simple instrument, following a simple procedure, and low cost, could be helpful, not only in court proceedings but in educating the public about how the characteristics of road surfaces can effect vehicle motions.
These are some of the reasons why attempts have been made by Gorski Consulting to develop some objective data to answer this question of the relationship between road surface conditions and collision causation. As mentioned many times in previous articles, a Road Data file exists on the Gorski Consulting website which contains a list of all the sites throughout southern Ontario where testing has been performed. Several articles have been posted on the Gorski Consulting website describing the testing procedures and the meaning of the results. Some testing has involved very short road segments where the test vehicle has crossed over bridge junctions, railway tracks, incomplete road repairs and speed bumps.
With specific relevance to the Wilson Ave collision, in 2018 Gorski Consulting conducted some testing on a set of five speed bumps located on Edmonton Street in London, Ontario. These bumps were selected because of the subjective sensation that they caused overly large reactions of vehicles passing over them. Views of the Edmonton site are shown below.
The orange circles in this image identify the locations of 5 speed bumps on Edmonton St between Wavell and Dundas Streets in London, Ontario.
View looking north on Edmonton Street toward the first speed bump located in the background.
View looking north along Edmonton Street toward the first speed bump.
In the 2018 testing a 2007 Buick Allure was driven at approximately 30 km/h in both north and south directions on Edmonton Street and the motion of the vehicle was documented as noted in the table below.
The data from the above table is shown in the chart below.
In an article (“New Test Data of Speed Bump Aggressiveness”) discussing the testing, published on July 2, 2018, a table erroneously reported the Longitudinal Rotation during the northbound crossing of the 2nd Speed Bump as 0.2669 radians per second. This error has now been corrected in the above table and chart to correctly read 0.1758 radians per second.
On May 18, 2021 we conducted further testing at the Edmonton site using a similar procedure. However we used a 2012 GMC 18-Passenger School Bus in the new testing. The results from this new testing are shown in the table and chart below.
Further testing was also conducted on May 11, 2021 using the same GMC school bus but along a different route in London, Ontario. The route followed Cranbrook Road, Vicount Road and Farnham Road. The route is shown in the Googlemaps view below.
A table and chart from the May 11, 2021 testing are shown below.
Further testing was conducted along Wilson Street on May 25, 2021. The same 18-passenger school bus was driven northbound and southbound over the four speed bumps at the same speed (30 km/h) as the other two sites. The results from this testing are shown below, with tabular form, and also as a chart.
Discussion
The results from the four testing sessions can be summarized for the average Longitudinal and Lateral motion:
2018 Edmonton: Longitudinal = 0.1660, Lateral = 0.0777
2021 Edmonton: Longitudinal = 0.1654, Lateral = 0.0933
2021 Cranbrook: Longitudinal = 0.1495, Lateral = 0.0474
2021 Wilson: Longitudinal = 0.1922, Lateral = 0.1018
What stands out in these values in that the speed bumps on the Edmonton Street site produced higher levels of motion than the Cranbrook Road route. The school bus driven on the Edmonton site in May of 2021 experienced a higher level of lateral rotation than the Buick passenger car used in the 2018 testing. So we would expect that finding to continue on the Cranbrook site which was also driven by the same school bus. Yet we see a greatly reduced level of lateral motion of the school bus (0.0474) on the Cranbrook site.
Next, we see an even larger effect on the school bus at the Wilson Ave site. Both the longitudinal and lateral motions of the school bus were higher than at the Edmonton and Cranbrook sites. This effect has to be related to the difference in the speed bumps and not due to the characteristics of the school bus. Or, possibly, that the characteristics of the school bus, such as the track width and wheelbase, interacted with the differences in the speed bumps to cause the end result.
Since the Mercedes was northbound when it passed over the 4th Speed Bump on Wilson Ave, we can take a closer look at the individual samples over the 2-second interval from the testing that was conducted on May 25, 2021. This data is shown below.
What should be obvious in the above graph is that the peak longitudinal rotation and the peak lateral rotation occurred a the same time. And both of these peaks are quite high (over 0.5000 radians per second). Not only was the front end of the bus lifted but the bus was also rotated sideways at the same time, in a very short time frame of about a 1/3 of second (approximately 8 samples). Very short vibrations with high peaks can be irrelevant however this time of about 350 milliseconds is long enough to be of relevance.
This is an example of a single result and if the bus was driven over the same speed bump several times we might get quite different results. However this fact is educational in that it demonstrates that vehicles reactions to the same roadway features may be different from one instance to the next. When an investigator conducts one or two tests it is likely that the full range of possibilities may not be demonstrated in the data. Closer consideration is needed before drawing a conclusion whether a roadway feature may have contributed to a loss-of-control collision.
By performing these tests we are developing more and more data that is becoming useful in understanding what is important in evaluating the road conditions that effect a vehicle’s motion. It can be noted what we have not conducted any measurements of any of the speed bumps in this testing. Nor have be conducted any measurements of any of the other roadways on which our testing has been conducted and reported in the Road Data file contained in the Gorski Consulting website. This testing simply involves an examination of the reaction of a motor vehicle to the road characteristics.
The usefulness of the procedures discussed here is in their simplicity and cost effectiveness. The performance of any road can be evaluated by anyone who possesses a smartphone such as the Apple iPhone. No specialized equipment is needed. A couple of video cameras are needed but these can be purchased at very low costs. Through training and experience anyone can examine the results of their testing and be able to determine, in a objective manner, whether the characteristics of a road may have contributed to a motor vehicle collision.
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