Trump Reminds Me That Radicalization Can Exact A Heavy Price – An Editorial Comment
The details will never be known but this photo of my father and his comrades in 1945 was sent to me a few days after Trump’s incitement of violence at the U.S. Capital in Washington DC.
My eyes slowly opened from birth to the age of five, living in a very small village of western Poland. Then in 1960 my parents took four small children on a ship to Canada and never returned.
My eyes have never witnessed the tremendous destruction that my parents, and so many other parents, endured as a result of the Second World War. At the outbreak of WWII my father was a teenager in another village in Poland where almost everyone was massacred except him. My mother’s family was transported to Siberia where my grandmother died and starvation was a friend that ended a constant misery. WWII stole everything from my parents but their beating hearts and the air in their lungs. But they moved on.
Because of my parents bravery I have known none of these things throughout the 65 years of my life. No wars. No starvation. And much ethical teaching from TV shows like Father Knows Best, Bonanza and so many influences of good people.
But all those brave persons grew old. They slowly passed away, one by one. Their voices became smaller and smaller. And now their wise teachings can no longer be heard. Once again new Hitlers have been growing. Much like the Hitler youth the new generations look for quick solutions and simple explanations of cause and they only need a conniving salesman to be swept into his net.
Like Hitler before him Donald Trump is a captivating, psychotic speaker who knows how to twist words and meanings. Hitler used to stand in front of a mirror and practice his hand gestures and intonations in preparation for his speeches. I have no doubt the egotism of Trump is the same.
After the First World War Hitler never felt sorry for the German populace that was suffering around him. He found their complaints despicable. He only felt sorry for his fellow soldiers. He slowly developed an excuse their loss. He and his men were stabbed in the back by the Jews who caused Germany to lose the war. It was a disgrace to the image of Germany. Hitler would make Germany great again. Like Trump would make America great again. In November, 2023 Hitler attempted a coup in Bavaria that failed. Sent to a luxurious “jail’ for a few years he wrote his “Mein Kampf”. Now that Trump has lost his Twitter account he may also reside in a societal jail as he and his followers prepare for their own great uprising.
Hitler used the misery of his people to find a Jewish scapegoat that he used to perfection. Trump is now using “far left wing radicals” as his scapegoat for his electoral loss. The blue-eyed and blond Germans of the 1920s and 1930s absolutely believed their superiority was stolen from them. Much like the changing make-up of society is stealing America from Trump’s pure white race.
Hitler’s arrogance took Germany to unimaginable evils. Murdering even the most innocent children in mass extermination camps. My home country of Poland still maintains witness to those atrocities in the well-preserved camps where “Work Shall Set You Free”. While Jews died, so did many Poles, and mentally ill, and gypsies and all else that did not match Hitler’s approval. As one observer said, he did not know anyone like Hitler who could sign off the deaths of thousands in the morning and have a very pleasant, gleeful lunch at noon. That too is Trump, he just has not got there yet.
Like Clarke Griswold I have a post-Christmas wish for my 66th birthday. I would like to have Trump brought to me hog-tied, with a red ribbon wrapped around him and his ass kicked into my living-room by my cousin Eddy. I would then drag his comb-over head to his golden toilet seat and shove it down there for a good long while until he gets some appreciation of how fragile his own life could be. But then, by doing so, I would be just like him.
All kidding aside this is the very grass fire that we light, in the middle of a national forest, without thinking what might happen if the fire ever goes out of control. Because these small flames are the start of enormous fires that no one can put out until all the wood is burnt to the ground. Germany was a national forest that Hitler lit and it burned to the ground. That fire also spread worldwide and took almost every country with it. The First World War also started as a small flame in Serbia when a Grand Duke was murdered and all of Europe aligned itself into two unstoppable fires. All peace talks by more level-headed diplomats were of no use.
Instead of turning to violence, today America did what it should have: Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for a second time – a record never achieved by any previous President. But more revealing was the number of Republicans who voted against impeachment. Even when the angry mob that Trump incited could likely have killed them except for the bravery of a few outnumbered police officers. Now this lack of a bipartisan stance may embolden factions in every U.S. state to light their own little fires, each with the potential to start the big one.
I have lived my long and peaceful live because of the cornerstones placed by those before me along my path. I would like to think that somehow I could also lay a few cornerstones for those little feet that will pass over me when I am gone. Peace, understanding, tolerance. A slowness to battle, a fearless courage to strike when no option is given, and may you all have the wisdom to know when each is required.
Safety Technology That Fails Must Be Reported
With the activation of Electronic Stability Control (ESC) more vehicle impacts with roadside objects should involve the front end. When that does not occur an explanation is needed.
It seems logical that, when a technology fails resulting in the crash of an airliner, there should be a public revelation of that fact. Three or five hundred deaths in one incident makes us aware of that importance. But what happens when a technology fails over a number of incidents, such as in motor vehicle collisions, and a similar three to five hundred deaths occur? Does this lessen in importance because the deaths were spread out over a long time and over many incidents? That is an important question.
A few years ago General Motors failed to warn drivers of an ignition failure that resulted (officially) in hundreds of deaths. The public will never know the final tally of destruction. But at least the secret defect was detected and made public even though, for many years, fatal collisions were happening and official investigations were never able to connect the dots.
The public cannot be expected to have the know how or opportunity to document and interpret collision evidence. Our society depends on specialized agencies to perform that work. And when evidence of a failure in a technology is suspected those agencies must make those failures known to the public. No different than the responsibility of airline crash investigators.
There are numerous instances in everyday life where questions arise in collision results. Questions are not raised in the public domain often because there is a lack of recognition that there could be a problem.
As an example, on the evening of Saturday, January 9, 2021, a single vehicle fatal collision occurred on Erin Centre Boulevard in Mississauga, Ontario. Essentially nothing was immediately revealed about the circumstances of the crash. Police placed a tarp covering the full vehicle. The only information made known in the official news media is that one person died and another was injured. It was later revealed that the vehicle had struck a pole and CBC news eventually showed a photo of the damaged vehicle after the tarp had been removed. We are not able to show such a photo due to copyright laws. But why was basic information such as the travel direction (which should have been obvious), or the fact that a pole was struck (which should have been obvious) not revealed? In some instances this is due to timing constraints. But in too many instances fatal collisions occur without even a photo being provided.
In the present collision there was clearly considerable crush to the side of the vehicle indicating that the impact was severe. In many instances severe impacts like these are accompanied by high, initial speeds. And uninformed comments are made that speed must have been a factor. But it is never pointed out that there is no actual basis for that conclusion by simply noting that the collision was severe. As we have pointed out numerous times, the crush shown in the vehicle could indicate, for example, a speed of 80 km/h and that is all. But the vehicle could have been travelling at either 90 or 200 km/h, or more, and we would not know without examining the additional speed losses that occur before and after an impact. This is a mental trap that is left for the public to fall into because no one wishes to provide this simple explanation.
Furthermore, the occurrence of a severe, side impact into any tree, pole or physical object must also come into question. Since the year 2011 Canada has mandated that all new vehicles be equipped with electronic stability control (ESC). This technology is designed to bring “stability” to a vehicle by electronically manipulating the tire force on individual wheels such that the pointing direction of the vehicle lines up with the travel direction of a vehicle. This “stability” is somewhat of a misnomer in that a vehicle may still be involved in a single-single, loss-of-control collision but at least the vehicle will be pointing toward the thing that it eventually strikes rather than striking the object with its side. There are obvious advantages to causing an impact with the front versus the side.
And there are further advantages in that ESC may actually prevent the rotation (yaw) that used to precede almost all loss-of-control collisions. So historically, when we used to see a vehicle that struck a pole we simply accepted it as a normal course of events. But that is no longer true. With the existence of ESC we now must ask why a vehicle was involved in a severe side impact with a pole when ESC is supposed to prevent the pre-crash rotation (yaw). But we do not ask that important question.
With each year motor vehicles are becoming mobile computers with vast electronic hardware. Storage of collision data is increasingly prevalent. While this collision data is available to certain entities such as police and insurance agencies, never is that information available to the public and often not even to the persons involved in a serious collision. When the news media parrot the police news releases that “police are continuing their investigation”, it is extremely rare that the results of a finalized investigation are ever made public. Event data from a crash provide very specific and precise evidence that, with the involvement of a properly trained analyst, can provide a much better explanation of how and why a collision occurred than the initial comments provided immediately after a collision. But that information is never publicly revealed.
With respect to the present crash, several local news agencies in the Toronto area reported on the single vehicle fatal collision. None of these agencies reported on the questionable circumstance that a severe, side impact is difficult to explain without the existence of some external force. How could we expect the public to understand that a safety technology might have failed when neither the investigating police, news media, nor anyone else brings that possibility to the public’s attention? This type of failure to question collision consequences goes on continually. It is why instances such as the GM ignition switch defect are able to continue killing vehicle occupants for many years without detection.
Bridge Abutment Impact By Tractor-Trailer on Hwy 401
This OPP Twitter photo shows a tractor-trailer that struck a bridge abutment on Hwy 401 east of Hwy 400 in Toronto. How do we prevent or reduce these incidents?
While the large destruction caused by heavy truck impacts draws our attention, we fail to acknowledge the danger that truckers face when the roadway infrastructure is insufficient to protect them. The above photo uploaded on the OPP Twitter account shows two tractor-trailers that we involved in a collision a few hours earlier and one them struck a bridge abutment. Drivers of smaller vehicles are generally protected from impacts with such immovable objects. That does not hold true for drivers of heavy trucks. In many locations along Hwy 401 heavy trucks reach 50% of the total traffic volume or more. Yet if a truck driver is involved in an incident that carries the truck toward the roadside there is little or no protection from further consequences. In fact, in many instances roadside structures such as guardrails are too low or weak causing the rollover of a heavy truck and increasing the chances of injury or death. This is a reality that we do not wish to discuss because the solution is costly and not easy to implement.
Another Life Lost on the Red Hill Valley Parkway in Hamilton Ontario
A lot of crosses but no answers.
Numerous concerns have been expressed over the collisions along the Red Hill Valley Parkway (RHVP) in Hamilton, Ontario. It did not help that the City lost or hid an engineering report that showed the surface of the Parkway was substandard. Once this became public a class action lawsuit of about $250 million dollars was launched against the City – to be paid by its taxpayers.
The City of Hamilton had a plan to bring back the public’s trust. A judicial inquiry would be held. And so on March 20, 2019 began the formal process of creating the inquiry. A year later the Judicial Inquiry spent close to $2 million dollars. The participants in the inquiry have been narrowed to just 4 while, as yet, no members of the public have received official standing. And the process drags on.
A fatal collision occurred once again at a troublesome location of the RHVP – the northbound section approaching the King Street overpass. The fatal collision occurred in the afternoon of January 2, 2021. No photos are available of the actual crash site because those are copyright. So the public does deserve to know, except what official news entities would like them to know. What can be seen in the news media photos is that a car struck the bridge abutment of the King Street overpass with its front end. This is not supposed to happen on a well-designed, high-volume expressway. Various barriers are supposed to be installed to redirect traffic from impacts with such immovable objects. So what happened this time?
A look at site photos in the vicinity of the rest position of the car shows that a guardrail exists but that rail does not appear to be damaged. In the wisdom of news media no photos were shown further back along the guardrail to see if the vehicle made contact. So the public may never know if the guardrail was involved.
It is known however that previous impacts to the guardrail have occurred. For example, in collision reported on November 22, 2018, a northbound tanker truck struck the guardrail as it approached the bridge abutment. The truck tipped over the rail and the abutment was struck. A large quantity of liquid asphalt was spilt on the highway while the tanker truck came to rest on its left side. Gorski Consulting has continued to warn the public of the incompatibility of typical guardrail heights with heavy trucks. When the rail is too low it can accentuate the rollover of a heavy vehicle, sometimes making collision results more severe than if no rail existed. Was the City of Hamilton aware of this? We will never know.
Gorski Consulting has reached back into its historic photo library to pull out some views of the troublesome site. For example the photo below shows a northward view along the RHVP looking toward the bridge abutment at the King Street overpass. This photo was taken on July 19, 2016. Here you can see the short length of guardrail that precedes the location of the abutment.
But still, looking at the above photo, how goes a vehicle pass by the guardrail and strike the bridge abutment? Clearly the guardrail would prevent a vehicle from impacting the abutment. Yet in the fatal collision of January 2, 2021 the vehicle showed no obvious evidence of being disturbed in an initial guardrail impact.
But let us pull ourselves back a little as shown in the next photo. The photo below was also taken on July 19, 2016 but it is taken from several hundred metres back and we can see another bridge abutment from the Mount Albion Road overpass and, in the background, you can see the King Street overpass. From this angle the guardrail at the King Street overpass is no longer in a position to protect from an impact to the abutment.
And the view below, also taken on July 19, 2106, shows the situation looking toward the King Street overpass from just under the Mount Albion overpass. Here we can see that the guardrail at the King Street overpass is not long enough to protect a vehicle from striking the abutment. There is a clear path between the position of the camera (taken from a moving vehicle in the right lane) to the bridge abutment. Why would engineers from the City of Hamilton not detect this?
It is not that the City of Hamilton was unaware of safety problems at the site. The local newspaper, the Hamilton Spectator produced several articles about the problem. In a July 17, 2017 article entitled “Highway traffic tragedies: Why are there so many crashes on the Red Hill?” Nicole O’Reilly of the Hamilton Spectator, showed a map of the area and overlaid the numbers of collisions documented in by the City of Hamilton. The segment approaching King Street showed the second most number of collisions and the highest number of fatal collisions throughout the whole length of the expressway system including the Lincoln Alexander and the RHVP. Surely you would think the City of Hamilton would take a close look at their own data and consider what needed changing.
Even high-priced expert reports were prepared by CIMA in 2015 and 2019 explaining what some of the issues might be. For example in their 2015 report CIMA indicated the following:
“Out of the 249 northbound collisions shown in Figure 8, 78 (31%) are concentrated in a 600 metre section around the King Street interchange (between 250 metres south of the King Street off-ramp and the King Street on-ramp), a relatively short section of the 81 km study area. There were also 16 (6.4%) northbound collisions over a short 100-metre section near the Mud Street on-ramp.”
Was that not enough warning for City officials to think about some solutions?
It is now inevitable that the Judicial Inquiry will take a long time to be completed, likely with much more cost than the $2 million dollars spent in the last notification. When the Inquiry put out a general invitation to persons who wanted to participate Gorski Consulting submitted a request. We offered our services free of charge except for travel expenses. To this date no response has been received, not even a denial. Our participation might not have been earth shattering. But with over 40 years of experience in providing independent documentation of road safety issues we would have provided an alternative viewpoint to what the official entities provide. Regrettably the citizens of Hamilton may only receive a narrow viewpoint from the small group of participants officially approved. The citizens of Hamilton deserve better and all those travelers who use the RHVP deserve better.
UPDATE: January 3, 2021; 1155 Hours
Upon further review of the on-site photos the circular characteristics of the struck bridge abutment suggests that this was the abutment to the Mount Albion Road overpass and not the King Street overpass. The news media has also not reported the travel direction of the striking vehicle although it appears the direction is northward.
Looking at our historical photos of the Mount Albion Road overpass, the angle of approach is better such that the abutment would be somewhat protected by the guardrail. However a quick measurement of the guardrail using Googlemaps suggests that it is only about 30 metres in length. A vehicle that goes out of control at highway speed could travel several hundred metres before arriving at a final area of impact. Thus when a highway contains substantial horizontal curves such as the RHVP engineers should recognize a vehicle could enter a median much earlier than the 30-metre distance of guardrail. Thus, regardless of which bridge abutment was struck, both guardrails are not sufficient to prevent the impacts with abutments such as the one shown from yesterday afternoon.
UPDATE: January 4, 2021; 1300 Hours
CHCH-TV has reported that the impact was with a railway bridge abutment. Such a railway overpass would be located south of the Albion and King Street overpasses. Given the dark conditions of some on-site photos and the lack of clear landmarks it is difficult to tell which abutment was struck. Until further information is provided, and that is not guarantee, it may not be possible to resolve these basic facts. And no one has yet reported which direction the impacting vehicle was travelling. The lack of such basic information is not helpful.
UPDATE: January 4, 2021; 2130 Hours
Now other media sources such as the Hamilton Spectator Newspaper have reported that a railway bridge abutment was struck. This abutment would likely be the one south of the Albion and King Street overpasses. The Spectator also confirmed that the vehicle was northbound and that it entered the median approximately 100 metres south of the area of impact. Hopefully these facts are correct. An earlier report provided by the CP24 News in Toronto indicated that the impact had occurred near the King Street overpass. It should not have been difficult for investigating police to provide a specific location of the impact and the travel direction of the vehicle. While the OPP also provide on-site photos of major collisions on their Twitter account nothing similar has been seen from the Hamilton Police.
As shown in the GoogleMaps view below the railway bridge is located about 500 metres south of the King Street bridge. While that may be “near” to some persons it does not provide a very precise description the site location.
As shown below, a guardrail exists on the northbound side of the RHVP leading up to the railway bridge. This guardrail is about 45 metres long so it is longer than the guardrail at Albion and King Street bridges. The GoogleMaps view also shows that there is a second guardrail on the southbound side of the median. Yet in the site photo of the vehicle in the present collision that southbound guardrail does not appear to exist. And this could be important. 
In the GoogleMaps view shown below we show how a lateral measurement is taken across the two guardrails and this lateral distance is just 4 metres. Thus if that second (southbound) guardrail was present it would have been more difficult for the car to pass between the two guardrails and reach the impact of the immovable bridge abutment. So one of the important inquiries would be to confirm that this second guardrail was indeed not present at the time of this collision and, if so, why was it removed?
As expected the information about the vehicle entering the median at about 100 metres south of the impact with the bridge abutment is not surprising. From our examination of hundreds of high-speed, single-vehicle, loss-of-control collisions this distance would be expected. We would add further that that the initial point where the vehicle commenced its loss-of-control actions would be at least another 100 metres further to the south, if not further.
We are saying the the vehicle went out of control because it is the more likely scenario versus a purposeful attempt at suicide. In earlier times before the introduction of electronic stability control (ESC) we would often suspect a suicide whenever a vehicle struck an immovable object with its front end. However, now-a-days, ESC systems will straighten out the pointing angle of a loss-of-control vehicle such that frontal impact is no longer a rarity.
Thus, even though we have a 45 metre long guardrail preceding the abutment this would not be sufficient in most high speed events to prevent a vehicle from exiting into a median and striking an unprotected bridge abutment. As seen in the present case, there is a substantial horizontal curve leading up to the area of impact. It is also accompanied by a downgrade. The combination of these two curves increases the likelihood that vehicles will go out of control and enter the median. This fact is known to anyone who conducts a large number of such investigations. Thus the guardrails at all three bridges, the railway bridge, the Albion overpass and the King Street overpass should have their guardrails lengthened. The rail heights should also be raised and strengthened to match the likelihood that an impact will occur with by heavy truck. Substandard road surfaces may contribute to collisions at curves but they are not the only factors involved. Proper roadside protections can improve the collision consequences when a loss-of-control cannot be avoided.
Why are Vehicle Fires Not Reported In Ontario’s Official Collision Data Reports
We express sincere regrets when vehicle fires kill, but then we seem unable to acknowledge that regrets will not prevent the next incidence. Prevention must be preceded by objective analysis, such as documentation of the incidents and how and why they came to be. This is where we fail.
A glance through Ontario’s Road Safety Annual Report (ORSAR) shows how, every year, the Province boasts: “For more than 20 years, our province has ranked in the top five for road safety among all North American jurisdictions” (ORSAR, 2017). But what about vehicle fires? Are they counted?
The only mention of vehicle fires comes from a table of “Motor Vehicles Involved in Collisions Based on Initial Impact”. There is no other reference anywhere else in the Report.
The figure below shows the number of reports of vehicles fires or explosions in the ORSAR from 2006 through to the latest available report in 2017.
The numbers in the above table demonstrate the reason for the boasting about safety. If we add up the totals of fires for each year there is a downward trend from 206 incidents in 2006 to just 101 in 2017. A remarkable reduction. For an unexplained reason the number of Property Damage incidents took a dramatic downturn commencing in the year 2015. And the fact that there were no incidents involving fatalities from 2006 through to 2016 in also remarkable.
But there is this one, single blemish. In 2017 there were 7 incidents of death.
Strange. Why were there no deaths through all those years and then suddenly there were 7 in 2017? One might examine the injury incidents along with the fatal incidents and arrive at the conclusion that every year the combined total of injury plus fatal incidents ranged between 2 and 9 incidents. Very small numbers. Nothing to be concerned about. Yet, there is a contradiction.
Official news media and certain police twitter accounts give notice when significant collisions occur. Those postings were examined between the years 2012 and 2020 resulting in the table shown below.
The above table is not complete because it is not possible to keep track of the reports of all collisions from all news media outlets in Ontario and its many regions without dedicating a substantial number of man-hours. In many of the news media reports the occurrence of a fire is often not reported and so the occurrence is difficult to detect. And in other instances there is very little information reported, even in instances of major, fatal collisions. So the above numbers are most likely under-estimates of reality. Even though these data under-estimate the extent of the vehicle fires, there is a contradiction with Ontario’s official data.
The perplexing contradiction is that, in the ORSAR there were no reports of fatalities through the years 2012 through 2016, yet the news media reported that a total of 39 fatal collisions occurred where a vehicle fire was involved. The news media reports clearly showed photos of the vehicles involved and the existence of fires was unquestionable. Some of these reports were by police departments such as the OPP and municipal agencies.
Furthermore, there appears to be an inflection point in news media data partway through the year 2015. The numbers are reproduced in the chart below to enable a clearer view.
In the three years of 2012, 2013 and 2014, there were 5 fatal collisions in each year. Then in 2015 there were 9 and this rose to 15 fatal collisions in 2016. As can be seen in the remaining years the number of fatal collisions involving fires have remained at this higher level. We can see in the newer data since the year 2016 that deaths and injuries from vehicle fires appear to be increasing yet no data is available from the provincial government beyond the year 2017.
Why are such important and tragic incidents not reported in provincial reports such as the ORSAR? Also the public distribution of the ORSAR continues to be delayed. The Ontario government has only recently uploaded the 2017 version of the report while it is now 2021.
Is there a safety problem with an increased number of vehicle fires? Are more vehicles catching fire in collisions and are more persons dying in these collisions? Clearly the numbers of fatalities reported in the news media would suggest so. Will we have to wait another 4 years before the official data from 2020 becomes available from official government sources?
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