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?
Accountability To Public Required When A Missing Warning Sign Causes Collisions
This eastbound Chevrolet Equinox SUV struck various objects including telecommunications instruments, fencing and trees on Brydges Street at Cornish Road in east London, Ontario on the evening of December 17, 2020. No mention of the collision was made in local news media outlets. But further investigation reveals much more.
How does an important warning sign go missing and, even though major collisions occur, this does not prompt municipal officials, police or news media to detect, publicize and correct the problem? The following discussion of several collisions is a smaller issue compared to the much broader problem of how road safety problems come to be hidden from the general public. Let us first conduct a detailed review of the historical safety problems at the Brydges Street site in London, Ontario and then we will return to the broader issue.
On the evening of December 17, 2020 a single vehicle collision occurred at a curve of Brydges Street in London, Ontario. An eastbound Chevrolet Equinox SUV collided with several roadside objects just east of the intersection with Cornish Street. It was not the first time that such a collision occurred at this location. Was it a coincidence or was it a safety problem with the road? These are common questions that crop up in neighbourhoods across North America. But often there are no real answers. Yet, at this site, we can conclusively determine that a warning sign became missing for many months and nothing was done about it.
The two photos below show further results of the collision on the evening of December 17, 2020.
The aftermath of the impact included the fracture of a tree that was struck by the Equinox.
The aftermath of the collision included the flight of a large Bell Canada communications terminal and the uprooting of a tree stump.
The four GoogleMaps views below show the collision site on Brydges Street at Cornish Street in London, Ontario. The first photo shows a location just past a curve where the above impact occurred and it also shows an area preceding the curve where a warning sign became missing.
The next photo shows a view looking east with an orange oval showing the area where the impact occurred on December 17, 2020. The three street views below were reportedly taken by Google in July, 2019.
If we move backwards (westward) from the collision site we see the view that is shown below. The collision site in in the distant background.
We want to focus on the last Googlemaps street view shown below. In particular, we want to focus on the new utility pole that is highlighted by the orange oval. Note that this pole does not contain any signage on it. We will return to this matter later once we review some historical photos of the site.
We also want to draw the reader’s attention to the bottom of the pole shown in the above photo. There is a clump of earth surrounding the pole that suggests that the pole was recently replaced. Remember that this view by Googlemaps was taken in July of 2019. Later in this article we will be showing our own photos taken around April 9, 2019 where we observe a similar clump of earth at the base of the pole.
Returning to the collision of December 17, 2020, on the following afternoon the extent of the devastation could be appreciated as noted in our photos below. The next three photos show the tire marks of the eastbound Equinox as it left the roadway and struck the area where the Bell Canada trucks are shown in the background.
The photo above shows the tire marks approaching the camera. The Equinox did not appear to change direction much but appeared to follow the straight line of the road without following the curve.
The extent of the devastation in the vicinity of the impact is shown in the seven site photos below, taken on the afternoon of December 18, 2020.
Now we will revert back to the history of this site by looking at a number of photos. Two photos from the years 2013 and 2015 (shown below) establish that a yellow, curve, warning sign has existed at least since that time. This sign was mounted on the second pole west of the intersection with Cornish Street.
This photo taken on August 15, 2013, shows a view looking eastward on Brydges Street toward the curve at Cornish. A yellow, curve, warning sign can be seen posted on the 2nd utility pole west of the Cornish Street intersection.
In this photo taken on August 13, 2015, the yellow warning sign can be seen anchored to the second utility pole west of Cornish Street.
Detection of collisions at the curve is not always easy. As an example the following five photos from May 26, 2018 reveal that an eastbound motorcycle collided with the Bell Canada junction box, leaving minimal evidence of the occurrence.
A tire scrub at the south curb of Brydges, east of Cornish, is shown in the two photos below. This established the point where the motorcycle left the roadway.
Evidence of the motorcycle collision could be seen as the fence at the Bell Canada junction box was knocked over and there was minor damage to the junction box itself. An oil stain in the parking lot behind the fence demonstrated that the motorcycle has passed through the fence.
On other occasions the occurrence of a collision was more obvious. At approximately 1300 hours on November 15, 2018 a single vehicle collision occurred when an eastbound BMW car struck down several utility poles at the curve. The photo below shows an eastward view on Brydges, looking toward Cornish taken on the evening of the collision date. The yellow warning sign can be seen attached to the second utility pole west of Cornish.
The extent of the devastation at the site can be noted below as power was knocked out to a large part of east London and work crews had to work quickly to restore order.
The path of the BMW’s travel could be followed by noting that the bus stop sign located just east of the Cornish Street had been deformed, as shown below.
It was reported that the driver of the BMW was alcohol-impaired. This demonstrates that collision causation at such a curve is not just related to the absence of a warning sign. There are many causes. However single-vehicle, loss-of-control collisions are more prevalent at curves. It is apparent that this important fact has never been understood with respect to the curves on Brydges Street. Over the years our monitoring of this road segment has demonstrated that the presence of the curves on Brydges Street at intersections at Cornish Street and also at Spruce Street further to the east has never been properly understood.
Changes to the accident site after the November 15, 2018 collision can be seen in the four photos below, taken on November 29, 2018. In the westward view shown below one of the utility poles east of Cornish has been supported by an additional pole. Traffic cones are also strewn on the roadside closer to Cornish.
The three views below show the presence of a Speed Display Board that was installed on the same pole as the curve warning sign. The posting of this board raises the question why the City of London needed to install it. For example, the collision on November 15, 2018 involved an eastbound vehicle. Yet the speed board faces westbound traffic.
This last photo above clearly shows the Speed Display Board on the east side of the second utility pole while the warning sign is mounted on the west side of the pole. We are not capable of detecting every collision that might have occurred throughout the history of this road segment. Therefore there could have been other collisions that the City of London was aware of and this could have prompted them to install the speed board. The presence of the curve at Cornish Street could logically cause collisions to occur from both eastbound and westbound traffic.
The next view of the site is from a photo taken on December 17, 2018, as noted below. Note the height of the warning sign on the pole. The height can be compared to its height in the photo taken on February 1, 2019 below.
In the photo taken on February 1, 2019, shown below, the warning sign is anchored at a lower level on the pole than what is shown in the December 17, 2018 photo. Furthermore, the shade of the wood of the anchoring pole in the February 1st photo appears lighter and newer. So was the pole struck down by a collision and replaced? Or was the pole replaced for some other reason? Unfortunately our lack of photos of the site between December 17, 2018 and February 1, 2019 prevents us from knowing why the pole appears to have been replaced.
We are now entering a time when the warning sign disappears sometime during the spring of 2019, thus we want to provide more detailed views around that time period.
We see the site again on March 15, 2019, as noted in the westward view shown below. The orange oval highlighting the second pole shows that the pole looks to be of a lighter, newer shade than the first pole closer to Cornish Street. Even though the pole may have been replaced, the backside of the warning sign can still be observed anchored to the pole. The sign appears to be anchored at similar (lower) level similar to what was observed in the February 1, 2019 photo.
It can be observed that in three photos, December 17, 2018, February 1, 2019 and in the photo above on March 15, 2109 there are some traffic cones strewn on the south roadside just east of the intersection with Cornish Street. It is not clear why these cones exist as there does not appear to be any road construction.
The site is viewed again on March 27, 2019, as noted below. The warning sign is still visible on the pole in the distant background.
Next we see the site four days later, on March 31,2019. Although the pole and sign are very far in the distance they are both still present. It is difficult to see from this view whether the traffic cones still exist therefore this view has been cropped in the next photo below.
In the cropped view shown below we can see more clearly that the traffic cones are still there and the warning sign is still anchored to the second utility pole west of Cornish.
Now comes the important photo taken on April 9, 2019 and shown below. Although the second utility pole is far in the background there does not appear to be warning sign attached to it.
We cropped the above photo so a closer view can be had of the utility pole and this cropped view is shown below. This cropped view clearly shows that the warning sign is not anchored to the utility pole. We can also note the difference in shade of the wood of the second pole which is more tan coloured as opposed to the other poles that are grey. Clearly this pole looks new.
So sometime between March 31 and April 9, 2019 the warning sign had gone missing. If one looks closely enough in the cropped photo at the location where the second pole touches the ground one might be able to detect a lighter shade of substance that is not the same shade as the surrounding grass. It suggests that this is the earth that was upturned when the pole was installed. This evidence was also shown in the Google Maps views of July, 2019 shown earlier.
In the photo taken on May 9, 2019 shown below we can clearly see that the second pole west of Cornish Street does not have a warning sign anchored to it. It is also of a lighter shade than the other poles. And when we look down to where the pole connects with the ground we can see a mound of earth that would be expected if the pole had been recently replaced.
Let us summarize these somewhat confusing set of events. Shortly after the major collision of November 15, 2018 involving an eastbound BMW car a Speed Display Board was installed for westbound traffic while no reason was found for its installation. There was no obvious evidence that collisions were occurring from westbound traffic travelling around the curve at Cornish even though such a possibility would not be expected. By December 17, 2018 the Speed Display Board was removed. Then sometime between March 31st and April 9th, 2019 the curve warning sign goes missing and the utility upon which it was anchored appears to have been replaced.
We now move a year later to the date of May 9, 2020 and we can see in the photo below that the second utility pole is still visible and that it still does not contain a warning sign attached to it. But there is more information from the photos on this date.
In the next photo, also taken on May 9, 2020, we can see that a blue tarp has been placed over the Bell Canada junction box east of Cornish Street and that there are several Bell Canada vehicles parked nearby.
As this tarp was placed at this location for a substantial time we finally approached the location on foot on June 6, 2020 and made the discoveries shown in the photos below. There had been an impact to the Bell Canada junction box, the fence and to a tree that was partially uprooted as shown in the photo below.
A second tree was also struck but only sustained surface damage. This surface damage can be seen in the photos of December 17, 2020 shown at the beginning of this article where this tree sustained more substantial damage.
So when this collision occurred sometime before May 9, 2020, there was no warning sign posted on the second pole that we have been discussing. That warning sign was missing for over a year, as noted in the April 9, 2019 photo shown previously. Due to the severity of this collision just before May 9, 2020, one would assume that someone would make note that the warning sign was missing and that this could have been the reason why the collision occurred. For example, Bell Canada would have sustained a substantial cost in repairing their junction box since workers were observed conducting repairs at the site at least until June 29, 2020. And the driver of the vehicle that caused all the damage would also have sustained damage to their vehicle and possibly sustained some injury. So surely the driver or their insurer should have taken action against the City of London for failing to place the warning sign before the curve. And even the City of London would surely see that a warning sign was missing and make a quick correction. But it appears that this is not what happened as we shall soon see.
We now fast-forward to a date of December 2, 2020 and the photo below shows the eastward view on Brydges Street toward Cornish. As usual, the second utility pole west of Cornish Street still does not contain a warning sign attached to it.
And we finally return to the collision events on the evening of December 17, 2020 where began this article. On the afternoon of December 18, 2020 photos were taken on approach to the accident site and two of these are shown below. Not surprisingly these photos show that on the afternoon after the collision there was no warning sign anchored to the second pole west of Cornish Street.
Another observation of the site was made on the morning of December 23, 2020 and the photo below shows that the warning sign was still missing.
However a further observation in the afternoon of December 21, 2020 showed that a warning sign had been installed on the second pole west of Cornish Street, as shown below.
When the site was observed again on December 23, 2020 additional arrow-hazard signs were installed on the south roadside just east of the Cornish intersection, as shown in the photos below.
With respect to damages, it was noted that seven Bell Canada vehicles were packed at the area of impact and at a church parking lot next to it, as shown below.
And a number of Bell employees were at work to repair the damage to the telecommunications junction box, as shown in the two photos below.
The utilization of these manpower resources should have incurred a substantial expense. And by all logic this expense should be claimed in legal proceedings against the driver of the Equinox, the City of London or both. But will that happen? Clearly if that had occurred in the previous collision, at the beginning of May 2019, then the City of London would have reinstalled the warning sign that had gone missing. But that did not happen. It would be difficult to believe that, if a civil suit had been launched the City of London would simply ignore its obvious negligence and continue to ignore the missing warning sign. One possibility is that the civil suits are still forthcoming. Claims can be delayed up to two years of the date of the occurrence. So it is possible that legal counsel for the parties involved could still be preparing their Statements of Claim.
However there are wider concerns that need to be addressed beyond the safety issues at this single site. One concern has to do with the lack of police notification of this safety problem. When the collision occurred in early May of 2019 police should have made note of the absence of the warning sign. In the obligations of police the danger of the missing sign should not be any different than the danger posed by a drunk driver or a defective commercial vehicle or any other safety concern. The safety concern should have been made public and it should have been corrected. In the many months from the spring of 2019 up to the collision of December 17, 2020 that safety problem was not corrected. Police vehicles would have travelled past the safety problem on numerous occasions but nothing was done about it. Why did this occur?
The undiscussed fact is that police in London, like any other jurisdictions in Ontario, Canada and elsewhere are paid by the municipality that could be held liable for unsafe road conditions. This is a conflict of interest. If the conflict of interest cannot be avoided then legislation needs to be enacted causing the conflict to be nullified. Legislation must require police to publicly report and act upon all matters that endanger the safety of the public and that legislation must have teeth.
The second concern is that the public was not made aware of the safety problem at the Brydges Street site because no one in the news media properly informed the public. Neither the collision in May, 2019 nor the collision of December 17, 2020 were ever revealed in the official news media. And even if an article was published or presented in a newscast it would be unlikely that the problem of a missing sign or other roadway safety issues would be revealed. Part of this problem may be the lack of investigative journalists in the field. The problem may also be with the concentration of the official news media into a much smaller pool of news conglomerates. When news is provided by a wider base of independent sources it is less likely that inconvenient findings can be snuffed out and more likely that one or two independent sources are able to leak a story that cannot be snuffed out.
And lastly, the public deserves to be made aware when the negligence of its municipal staff and/or politicians have created a safety problem that endangers its citizens or that results in a civil claim against the municipality. Voters have the right to be informed as to who they will place in office to represent them and why. The public cannot demand change when it is unaware of the actions that occur behind the closed doors of its municipality.
The actions of a small consulting firm such as Gorski Consulting cannot keep track of all the road safety problems that exist in the City of London or Southern Ontario. By virtue of our independence stories that do not reach the official news media will land in our news articles but these are small results that reach very few viewers. It requires the dedication of more persons to recognize some of the problems, such as the one presented here, and to spread the message that change is required for the benefit of all of the public.
School Bus Fatal Collision – What If Children Were Aboard?
The OPP provided this photo on their Twitter account showing a school bus that was involved a fatal collision on McNaught line southwest of Listowel, Ontario on the morning of Tuesday, December 15, 2020.
Receiving half the news, or not even that, is not helpful to anyone. Yet this is what the public receives whenever an important tragedy occurs. Such was the case when a full-size school bus was reportedly involved in a collision with a minivan on McNaught Line southwest of Listowel, Ontario on the morning of Tuesday, December 15, 2020. To some extent we should be grateful that the OPP posted a photo of the bus on its Twitter account (shown above). Unfortunately it provides very little information. We do not see the other vehicle that was involved in this collision. That vehicle is on the opposite side of the bus from where the photo was taken.
Official news media were able to post additional photos from the other side of the bus. Thus those who were able to visit those news websites were able to see the damage to the front end of the bus as well as the damage to the minivan. We are not able to show those photos as, in our society’s wisdom, such photos are copyrighted. The fact that we might be able to say something that might educate the public on this important matter appears to be irrelevant. So the police can hide the collision information and so can the official news media.
This secrecy is at a critical time when seat-belt use in school buses is being debated. For decades Transport Canada and its twin in the U.S. the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have believed it is safer for children to be in a compartmentalized zone of a seating space without the installation of seat-belts. Many have been questioning that reasoning since seat-belts, child seats and booster cushions have been required when riding in other vehicles. Seat-belts are now slowly being introduced in full-size school buses.
While many persons have strong opinions on the seat-belt-no-seat-belt debate, few actually have the knowledge and experience with injury causation to match their zealous viewpoint. Provision of the detailed results of significant school bus impacts could go a long way toward educating all those who wish to be informed. That collision of a couple of days ago near Listowel, Ontario is an example of a fairly significant impact and important information could be obtained about seat-belt effectiveness even though the bus was occupied only by its driver. Unfortunately even rudimentary information such as several photographs has not been made available.
Even without this basic information some observations can be made. For example, in the single photo shown above we see that the school bus has come to rest at an angle with its front end in the opposing lane. If we were able to show a couple of the photos taken by the official news media we would be able to show that the two vehicles came into initial contact with the right portions of their front ends. Such an overlap is not common in head-on impacts as the opposite is common: overlaps in head-on collisions involve the left portions of their front ends.
We can also observe that a full-size school bus is substantially more massive than a minivan. This means that, even if the school bus was travelling slowly, the bus would still push the minivan in its own direction of travel after the impact. So what we see in the final rest position of bus is the result of its motion after impact and not its location at the time of impact or before impact.
We can also observe in the above photo that the front wheels of the bus are steered very sharply to the left. This is not something that is induced by an impact force. It is caused by the turning of the steering wheel before impact.
Combining these facts its suggests that the two vehicles likely collided in the bus’s lane and that, just before impact, the bus driver likely steered very hard to the left. This suggests that the bus driver was attempting to avoid the minivan that was approaching on the wrong side of the road. Now, these thoughts are preliminary. Without the details that are typically available to a reconstructionist it becomes precarious to draw these conclusions. However, this assessment is not made for the purposes of informing a formal court, but to illustrate what information can be gained from examining photographs.
We combine the fact that the driver of the minivan died with the observation that there was substantial crush at its front end. We can also observe a substantial amount of crush at the front end of the bus and note that the bus driver sustained injuries. These facts give us some idea of the severity of the impact force. This impact force was not insignificant. For this reason it is important to ask the question: What would have happened if this bus was full of school children?
Let us look aside for a moment and consider some important facts about injury causation from some simple examples.
Many persons may be familiar with the sport of boxing. Here there is considerable importance to protecting the boxer’s head from the blow of an opposing boxer’s glove. Yet the same blow applied to another portion of the boxer’s body is not as important. Why is that? It must mean that the location of where the impact occurs on the body is important. Some portions of the human body can withstand an impact (boxer’s blow) better than others.
As another example, consider the effect of a warrior’s spear in some ancient battle. The narrow point of the spear can be very effective in causing injury. But imagine if the warrior stuck an opponent with a pool noodle or something broad like a sheet of plywood. The effect would not be as deadly. So what can we learn from that observation? The object or instrument that strikes us, or that we strike, is important and can change the resultant injury.
Combining the two observations we can say that the location on the body where we are struck and the instrument or object that strikes us is important in changing the injury result even when the force is equal. Now, how does this matter in a school bus collision such as the one shown the photo above?
We can consider the two options, one where all the hypothetical children are seat-belted and the alternative, where all the children are unbelted. In both cases the impact is the same and the impact force is of the same magnitude. What is it about a seat-belt that makes its safe in preventing or reducing the severity of injuries in collisions? Surely the impact force is the same as the scenario where no seat-belts are worn. We must understand that the difference is what was described above: What portion of the body is struck and what strikes the body makes the difference. Said another way, when the school bus comes to a dramatically lower speed as a result of the frontal impact, all the bodies of the children begin to move dramatically forward in relation to the vehicle interior. We say that the difference is that the children wearing seat-belts will make contact with seat-belt webbing that crosses over the lap and shoulder regions. Meanwhile the children without seat-belts will experience an impact to different parts of their bodies and against some portions of the bus interior such as the seat back in front of them.
And here lies the important difference. Different portions of the body sustain the impact force and the contact is against different objects, instruments or surfaces. We will not go beyond this basic observation only to say that the safety of a designed restraint such as a seat-belt depends on it being the correct restraint for the occupant and that it is correctly used. Those are very important points. The reason why we do not place a 5-year-old child in an adult seat-belt is because it is the incorrect restraint for that child. Secondly the reason why the correct restraint may not be safe is because it is used improperly. Even though there is much to be said beyond these basic observations we will not beyond them at this time. These points are only made to induce the public to consider what these observations could mean in a real-life school bus collision.
Can We Spare Enough Compassion To Help Alcohol-Addicted Drivers?
This photo of Darya Selinevich was posted on various news media articles suggesting her lack of regard for her historic impaired driving convictions. Her parole was recently revoked over another impaired driving charge.
Deaths caused by impaired drivers are a difficult topic of discussion. In recent decades the understanding that alcoholism is an illness has changed. We now want to punish alcoholics because they continue to drink alcohol. This is easy to understand because of the pain they have caused by killing so many innocent vehicle occupants and pedestrians. But punishing alcoholics by sending them to jail or taking away their licenses is only a temporary affair. Once their punishment is up they are free. But they are not free from the alcoholism that remains throughout their lifetime. Not all alcoholics are as successful in controlling their illness as others, a problem that may not be entirely their fault.
In our view, as alcoholism is a lifelong illness it requires lifelong treatment. Regrettably that must also come with some restrictions of an alcoholic’s freedom. No to extract vengeance but because it is an issue of public safety. We must restrict that freedom in the same manner that we design a safety latch in a firearm or create gasoline tanker trucks with rupture-resistant designs. It is because these safety procedures are necessary to protect us. Because alcoholism has the potential of taking over an alcoholic’s will to resist its temptation it can be no different than a firearm in the hands of child or a cargo of gasoline being transported in a wheelbarrow.
There are also some simple solutions that could be ingrained in our society before an alcoholic is recognized as one. During family gatherings or other celebrations where alcohol is served we inevitably come across the one or two participants who has drunk too much. This is especially evident during these upcoming Christmas holidays. Those alcohol-impaired persons are not likely to be first-timers and have likely drank too much over many occasions on their way to official alcoholism. We have also seen the difficulties encountered when someone steps in and says that someone is too drunk to drive. The drunk has often prepared many excuses to explain that they are actually OK and that they feel fine and that someone is exaggerating and so on. We can inject a simple solution to this dilemma.
For a number of years now Costco has been selling an alcohol breathalyzer for a cost of about $35. While it may not be fool-proof our testing suggests it is reasonably accurate in detecting alcohol concentrations in a person’s breath. The photo below shows a view of the item.
Returning to the issue of the argument with the suspected impaired person at your gathering, an argument can simply be solved by asking the suspected drunk to breath into the BACtrack so that an estimate can be made of the person’s alcohol concentration. This objective evidence is far better than attempting to argue with someone who does not believe they are impaired. In fact devices such as the BACtrack should become commonplace in everyone’s household and where-ever persons are likely to drink alcohol. It should become an accepted standard procedure that persons who have been drinking alcohol, even apparently small amounts, become willing to take the breath test, even as something “fun” to do.
Those who are concerned about impaired driving should be making efforts to purchase larger quantities of such testers and making them available. Many not-for-profit organizations could organize fundraisers to purchase these items and give them away to households that do not have them or feel they cannot afford them. By this way an objective reading of alcohol could cause many potential impaired drivers to refrain from stepping into their vehicles.
It might also be an early detector of those persons who are headed toward alcoholism. Denial has always been a wonderful escape for many who do not wish to face the reality that they have a problem. It is more difficult to deny an alcohol problem when an objective device provides an unbiased reading.
An OPP Collision, Exchange of Gunfire and Death of Toddler – What Happened?
On November 26, 2020 news media reported that an “incident” occurred involving the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and a 33-year-old male driver north east of Lindsay in the Kawartha Lakes region of southern Ontario. The reports indicated that there had been a collision and gunfire. This resulted in serious injuries to a police officer and the noted 33-year-old male. A one-year-old male child also died from a gunshot wound. The figure below provides a general location of the area with respect to Toronto Ontario.
News media reported that the OPP were called to a location of a domestic dispute involving a firearm at just before 0900 hours on Thursday, November 26th, 2020. Police located a vehicle on Sturgeon Road which was related to the complaint. There was no information about where the Sturgeon Road site was located with respect to the site of the domestic dispute. Police reportedly attempted to stop the vehicle and the vehicle collided with a police cruiser on Pigeon Lake Road. There was no information about the location of the Pigeon Lake site with respect to the Sturgeon Road site or the site of the domestic dispute. The SIU reported that the collision involved a police cruiser and an additional civilian vehicle. A police officer was injured while outside lying down a spike belt. After the collision three police officers opened fire at the man. But there was no information whether the man had also opened fire or if he was armed. Later the one-year-old boy was located deceased from a gunshot wound in the man’s vehicle.
A few days later it was announced that the 33-year-old male was deceased.
Information provided by Global News indicated that the site on Pigeon Lake Road was located between Lilac and Settlers Roads. This area would be about 5 kilometres west of the intersection of Sturgeon and Pigeon Lake Roads. Thus the subject pick-up truck would have been travelling westbound on Pigeon Lake Road as it approached the area where the impact occurred. Pigeon Lake Road is generally straight for over 500 metres up to Lilac Road therefore, given no additional obstructions to visibility, the pick-up truck driver and police at the site should have been able to detect each other for a substantial number of seconds before the impact occurred. It needs to be determined to what degree police were able to block Pigeon Lake Road before arrival of the pick-up. Since another vehicle was also struck it remains to be identified whether this other vehicle was part of the police operations or whether it just happened to be there by coincidence.
A Global News article indicated that the location of the firearms dispute was located about 10 kilometres northeast of the Village of Bobcaygeon. The specific location was not provided. The Googlemaps figure below shows an example of a location that is about 10 kilometres north-east of Bobcadygeon, using Hwy 36 which would be the most commonly used route. The actual location would be somewhere within that 10 kilometre radius.
Analysis with Gogglemaps indicates that it would be a distance of about 16 kilometres to travel from the Village of Bobcoygeon to the intersection of Hwy 36 and Sturgeon Road, as shown in the figure below.
The site of the domestic dispute to the intersection of Hwy 36 and Sturgeon Road would therefore be about 26 kilometres. Given that the pick-up would have to travel through Bobcaygeon and there would be a number of turns involved, it is unlikely that the pick-up truck could sustain an average speed of over 80 km/h (22.2 metres per second). But using an average of 80 km/h it would take about 19.5 minutes to travel that 26-kilometre distance to Sturgeon Road.
It is another 14.5 kilometres from the intersection of Hwy 36-Sturgeon to site on Pigeon Lake Road (taking the halfway distance between Lilac and Settlers Roads), as shown in the figure below. Again, using an average speed of 80 km/h it would take another 11 minutes to travel that 14.5 kilometres.
Summing the above two distances (26 +14.5) and taking an average speed of 80 km/h, would yield a travel time of just over a half an hour. There is a substantial amount of imprecision in this estimate. For example we know nothing about any events that might have occurred during the route or what specific route was taken. However this provides a base number to use when evaluating what events could occur during that time. For example, if the pick-up truck left the site of the domestic dispute at 0900 hours it might arrive at the collision site at about 0930 hours.
Global News reported information from a “Trent Lakes resident” who indicated that “she heard a vehicle speed away from a home and that police chased it”. This information does not provide conclusive evidence that the “home” was the same as where the domestic dispute occurred. However, if this was the location of the domestic dispute then it would indicate that police had made contact with the pick-up truck at this location. This is somewhat contrary to the reported information that the pick-up truck was located by police on Sturgeon Road. It is possible that the pick-up truck sped away during the initial encounter and police lost sight of it and then found it again on Sturgeon Road. But this demonstrates how incomplete information can be confusing and can cause readers to get a wrong impression of what transpired. While there is some benefit to releasing very broad descriptions of such events there is also some negative consequence in causing the public to draw erred conclusions based on those broad descriptions. There can be occasions where, once the public has developed an erred opinion or conclusion, it becomes more difficult to correct that misunderstanding especially when a clarification does not reach all the members of the public who draw those erred opinions/conclusions.
It was noted that three police officers discharged their firearms after the impact. It is difficult to believe that this discharge occurred a long distance from where the impact occurred however no photos have been made available of the collision site or of the involved vehicles. However, if the impact was of sufficient severity to disable the pick-up or its driver then it would suggest that there were several police vehicles on Pigeon Lake Road in the vicinity of where the impact occurred.
Global News reported that an Ornge air ambulance was requested but it was unable to attend due to thick fog in the area. This presents an additional point: If there was thick fog after the collision was there also thick fog at the time that the collision occurred? This could affect the ability of all persons to see each other prior to the impact. It might also limit the speed at which the pick-up driver could have travelled during the 40.5 kilometres noted above.
There is some confusion as to what was said and by whom as several persons from different agencies provided news from conferences, news releases and tweets on the day of the collision.
It was reported that OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique sent out a Tweet on Thursday morning at 1007 hours about the incident. Given our general estimate that the collision might have occurred at approximately 0930 hours it suggests that the Carrique tweet occurred very quickly after the event occurred.
The SIU did not arrive at the site until approximately 1235 hours on Thursday. It was reported that the SIU held a news conference on Thursday afternoon thus they would have been aware of the events to the degree that sufficient information was available to provide to news media by that time. It was reported that the one-year-old child was positioned in the back seat of a pick-up truck when he was found dead of a gunshot wound.
On Friday, November 27th, the SIU reported that they collected three, police-issued firearms and a handgun that was located in the pick-up truck. They also sent the pick-up truck to the Centre of Forensic Science for further analysis. A post-mortem examination of the child was to take place on Saturday, November 28th.
Global News reported that OPP Commissioner Carrigue requested that the City of Kawartha Lakes Police Service and York Regional Police Service “help with the ongoing investigation while the OPP’s criminal investigation branch will manage the scene”. This news does not help the public’s understanding and trust in what has taken place. These police departments are involved in an investigation where police might be charged with wrong-doing. That is not how this process should proceed. When the public is informed that the OPP will be “managing the scene” it indicates that they will have access to the evidence at the scene and are capable of altering the evidence. How can that be a legitimate process? In any collision investigation it is the police who prevent anyone from getting close to the scene, even independent news reporters. The reason is that police do not want any tampering with or destruction of the collision evidence. Yet when a collision occurs where police could be held responsible for wrong-doing they are allowed to “manage the scene”, or have access to the evidence as they please. Clearly the purpose of the SIU is to investigate such occurrences independent of the police forces involved and the police should not have control of any of the evidence that could be used to demonstrate their wrongdoing. Wrong-doing could not just involve any police officers who fired a firearm. It might involve anyone in the OPP including those higher up in the chain of command who may have instructed the officers on the ground about how to conduct themselves. Thus it is important to consider what is being said about police procedures and to be fully clear about them.
The interpretation of the Carrique quote could be misleading in that “managing the scene” could simply mean securing it, as in creating the road closures and other perimeter activities to prevent anyone from tampering with the evidence. But the public does not know that. It is possible that these police forces are conducting investigations for their own purposes, independent of the SIU and they may have the right to do so. But there is confusion here that has not been clarified.
The death of the one-year-old boy could be related to police opening fire on the pick-up truck which collided with two vehicles as well as injuring a fellow police officer. This has not been proven as there is a long process ahead toward revealing what actually transpired. However an important issue is the use of force by police in a manner that causes death. Could police have done something to disable the pick-up truck rather than killing its occupants? Was the shooting an uncontrolled mayhem? Or was it a purposeful act of vengeance in payback for causing the injuries to a fellow officer? Was there a purposeful intent to kill the driver? When the consequences are high and police actions result in tragedies, it becomes difficult to get to the truth. And here lies the difficulty in any assessment of blame. Rather than following the evidence to where it leads there is a strong incentive to bend that evidence. Regrettably this is more common than it should be.
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