Death of Cycling Professor – Part II – Further Results
Updated results are shown in this second article dealing with the death of a retired professor who was struck and killed while cycling across Gainsborough Road in London, Ontario, Canada. The collision occurred on September 5th and a safety study of the site was commenced by Gorski Consulting on September 13, 2020. Descriptions of the site can be obtained from examining the initial article (“Death of Cycling Professor Leads To Study of Collision Site Safety”) posted on this Gorski Consulting website on September 24th.
The first article provided results from the analysis of multiple video cameras that were posted along Gainsborough Road and at the intersection of the cycling path. Over two hours of videotape was obtained and the initial analysis covered the first 20 minutes of observations. Videotaping began shortly after 1430 hours however the full compliment of cameras was not assembled until approximately 1453 hours and this is when the analysis began. Throughout the first 20 minutes it was observed that a large number of vehicles were entering an exiting two driveways located just west of the cycling path and on the north side of Gainsborough Road. Since the video cameras were positioned to the west of the cycling path this meant that these turning vehicles were captured and were included as part of the total travel volume. The figure below shows a view of the site and the location of the two driveways in comparison to the location of the cameras and the cycling path.
The orange arrows show the path of vehicles entering the west driveway, attending a commercial activity, exiting via the east driveway and making a left turn to travel eastbound on Gainsborough Road. About one third of all eastbound vehicles were observed to perform this action in the first 20 minutes of documentation.
Frame from a video camera placed at 220 metres west of the cycling path. A white SUV is seen pulling out of the east driveway from which many left-turning vehicles were observed. The cycling path is located approximately where the grey vehicle is positioned in the background.
In the first 20 minutes 118 eastbound vehicles were documented, however 42 vehicles, or almost one third, came from entering onto Gainsborough from the noted driveways.
The new data provides an additional 20 minutes of observations taken from 20 to 40 minutes of the video project. In this additional 20 minutes, 101 eastbound vehicles were documented. However, 21 of those vehicles came from entering onto Gainsborough Road from the previously noted driveways. So this is a large drop in the number of these turning vehicles and it may have affected the speed results shown below.
The table below shows the average speed of all eastbound vehicles travelling straight through the site along four distance intervals. These distance intervals were discussed in the initial article however, to reiterate, each interval is 50 metres in length commencing from 200 metres west of the cycling path and continuing to the west edge of the path (Zero). All the vehicles making turns into the noted driveways are removed from this table. However these average speeds do not exclude the large number of vehicles whose travel was interfered with, by vehicles ahead and other factors.
The table below shows the adjusted results once interference is taken into account such that only vehicles with a free distance ahead are included. As mentioned in the earlier article, if a vehicle ahead was within 5 seconds the following vehicle was viewed as being interfered and was removed from the table below.
Comparing the two tables it can be seen that average speeds in the “20 to 40 Minutes” portion of the observations were higher than those in the first 20 minutes of observations. This is likely due to the reduced number of vehicles making left turns and thus the reduction in interference in the free flow of traffic. This is particularly notable in the second table where, out of 118 vehicles, only 27 vehicles were found with a freedom to pass through the site without interference. Yet in the second 20 minutes only 101 vehicles however 37 vehicles were found with the same freedom from interference.
Further differences are shown in the number of vehicles travelling over 80 km/h. In the first 20 minutes there was only one observation, out of the 27, where a vehicle travelled over 80 km/h, or about 3.7 %. In contrast in the second 20 minutes 8 of the 37 vehicles were observed to be travelling over 80 km/h, or about 21.6 %. This appears to be a large difference although these are still very small numbers of observations.
Thus the presence of the commercial activity that caused many vehicles to drive in and out of the nearby driveways may have contributed to lowering the average speed of vehicles. This possibility may be developed further as we continue to analyze the videotape through the full two hours.
After 40 minutes of observations we can now show a table of the number of pedestrians and cyclists using the multi-use path. This number is small as noted in the table below.
As can be seen the numbers of cyclists and pedestrians using the path and crossing Gainsborough Road is rather small in comparison to the number of motor vehicles travelling on Gainsborough. These numbers will increase as more videotape is analyzed.
The number of cyclists riding along Gainsborough road was also added to the above table for interest.
Further discussions will be included in future articles as we continue with the analysis of the Gainsborough Site observations.
Death of Cycling Professor Leads To Study of Collision Site Safety
The death of a cyclist on September 5, 2020 along with concerns expressed by residents prompted Gorski Consulting to attend the site of the collision on September 13, 2020, at the intersection of a multi-use bike path and Gainsborough Road on the western outskirts of London, Ontario, Canada. Official reports indicated that a 77-year-old male cyclist was travelling south along the multi-use path, with a partner, and approached the uncontrolled intersection with Gainsborough Road. While crossing Gainsborough the male cyclist was struck in the eastbound lane by an eastbound pick-up truck.
The following are a group of GoogleMaps views of the area.
This overall view of London, Ontario, Canada shows that the collision site on Gainsborough Road (noted by the orange circle) is located at the western outskirts of the City.
This closer view of the area at the west end of London, shows the area of the collision site as denoted by the orange circle.
This view helps to demonstrate that, to the west, the area is predominantly rural and the collision site (identified by the orange circle) is just at the edge of the City as vehicles begin entering the built up region. Eastbound speed limits along Gainsborough Road are progressively reduced from 80 to 50 km/h upon approach to the collision site.
Trees, as indicated by the two orange circles, appeared to cause a visibility obstruction at the intersection of the path with Gainsborough Road.
Next are a set of Google Maps street views. Google reported that these views were taken in July of 2019, or well over a year before the collision date.
This is a view looking east along Gainsborough from approximately 220 metres west of the cycling path. There were no warning signs posted of the presence of the path.
This view, looking east from 100 metres west of the cycling path shows that no warning signs are posted of the presence of the path.
This view is looking east from 50 metres west of the cycling path. Again, no warning signs exist and the presence of the path cannot be detected from this location.
This is a view from 25 metres west of the path and, if one looks closely, the presence of the path may be detected. Note that a regulatory sign is present on the right side of this view which indicates a maximum speed of 50 km/h is required. One of the objectives of the Gorski Consulting study was to determine the speeds of eastbound vehicles approaching the cycling path.
The Google Maps view below shows a westward view from just east of the cycling path and an orange circle has been added to denote an area where vehicles were parked. This increased the visibility problem for both cyclists and eastbound drivers.
This is a view looking west from just east of the cycling path and it is a view of the north side of the path. The orange circle is pointing out an area of bare earth where parked vehicles were observed. Then combining the effect of the trees with the parked vehicles this made it a challenging situation for southbound cyclists but also for eastbound drivers who would not have much time to detect the presence of cyclists.
During our examinations of the site in September, 2020 we noted that not much has changed since the Google Maps views of July, 2019. Several vehicles were observed parked near the bare area next to the cycling path, as noted below.
This view looking west was taken on September 23, 2020 and shows an example of a pick-up truck that was parked in the bare area on the north side of the cycling path.
In another example, this view is looking northeast toward a westbound mail-delivery vehicle that has stopped just west of the cycling path thus blocking the view of cyclists and eastbound drivers.
Speed and volume of traffic on Gainsborough Road and on the Cycling path was documented on September 13, 2020 using multiple video cameras. Cameras were placed along the south side of Gainsborough at 50 metre intervals from 200 metres up to the edge of the path. This provided calculations of average speeds of eastbound vehicles over 4 independent distance intervals. Cameras placed on the north and south sides of the intersection at the cycling path also provided details on the stopping location and speed of cyclists. This documentation occurred over a time of two hours commencing at approximately 1445 hours.
Analysis of the video is progressing and 20 minutes of observations have been successfully completed. In these 20 minutes 118 eastbound vehicles were documented. The average speed of all 118 vehicles has been noted below, separated into the four distances approaching the cycling path.
Between 200 & 150 metres west of the path = 65.83 km/h
Between 150 & 100 metres west of the path = 65.28 km/h
Between 100 & 50 metres west of the path = 62.00 km/h
Between 50 west & west edge of path (Zero) = 59.86 km/h
Eighteen of the 118 eastbound vehicles were observed to be travelling at 72 km/h or greater. This represents about 15.3 percent of the total.
Yet, the reporting of the speed of all eastbound vehicles does not provide a clear indication of the actual speed of vehicles travelling eastbound straight through the site. This is because a large number of vehicles were observed entering and exiting two driveways, on the north side of Gainsborough, in the vicinity of 150 and 50 metres west of the cycling path. It was apparent that a commercial event was taking place at a property in this location causing a large number of vehicles to enter and exit the driveways. For those vehicles that exited onto Gainsborough and made a left turn to travel east, this caused a substantial interference with eastbound vehicles attempting to travel straight through the site. Thus when this interference occurred observations were removed from further analysis.
There was further interference for those vehicles that could not travel faster because a slower vehicle was travelling in front of them. Thus vehicles were arbitrarily removed from the study if their location was 5 seconds or less behind a vehicle ahead of them. Thus this removed all those vehicles that were travelling slower because they were impeded by a vehicle ahead.
Once all the observations were removed where interference was a factor, this reduced the number of observations from 118 to just 26. Examining the speed of just those 26 westbound vehicles that travelled straight through the site without interference resulted in the following, recalculated, speeds:
Between 200 & 150 metres west of the path = 68.03 km/h
Between 150 & 100 metres west of the path = 67.81 km/h
Between 100 & 50 metres west of the path = 64.09 km/h
Between 50 west & west edge of path (Zero) = 61.69 km/h
Eight of the 26 westbound vehicles were observed to be travelling at 72 km/h or higher. This represents 30.77 percent of the total and is substantially greater than the 15.3 percent of the total 118 vehicles noted earlier.
There will be further analyses conducted in the near future which will include the full two hours of videotaping and the results of this analysis will be posted in another Gorski Consulting website article. In the meantime there is reason to be concerned about the speed of westbound vehicles, the lack of signage to warn drivers of the presence of the cycling path, and the lack of visibility at the cycling path that is caused by trees and parked vehicles.
In many North American cities the intense pressure toward creating infrastructure for active transportation has resulted in painful adjustments to transportation systems that were built to accommodate the almighty automobile. London, Ontario is not unique in the inadequacies of its system of bicycling paths that contain many dangers. In a society that is so focused on finding fault and hiding fault, many resources of municipalities, the Province of Ontario and other agencies, are engaged in fighting wars of civil litigation rather than using those resources to identify and correct safety problems such as those at this Gainsborough Road site.
Poor Explanation of Double-Fatal Collision In Perth County Ontario
This is an old photo of the downtown of London, Ontario. It has nothing to do with the present article about the tragic death of two persons. But we are not permitted to show a relevant photo due to copyright laws. It may be confusing but our society seems to be comfortable with such an arrangement.
It cannot be sufficient to provide confusing information about a double-fatal collision because the death of any member of the public needs to be reliably explained. Persons die mysteriously in unexplained ways in unlawful countries where dictators rule and mobs roam.
Both CTV News and the London Free Press reported that, on August 28, 2020, two vehicles were eastbound on Highway 2 in Zorra Township just west of Woodstock Ontario when they collided resulting in the death of two occupants of an SUV. It would be unusual that both agencies could be wrong about the vehicle travel directions therefore it is likely that they obtained this information from a police news release.
We have not been able to locate a photo from the investigating OPP showing the collision site. Such photos are often attached on their Twitter account. But not this time.
A photo was attached to the CTV News article. Unfortunately, news agencies view their photos as proprietary so we cannot show the photo in this article. The photo showed a view looking generally eastward from the north side of Highway 2. The photo showed a white stake truck straddling the westbound lane and pointing generally northward. So if the stake truck was initially travelling eastbound then it rotated almost 90 degrees to it final rest position. The stake truck also exhibited frontal crush that appeared to be predominantly on the left of its front end. The photo provided a poor indication of the Stake truck’s damage but this is the best that we can say. So up to this point the evidence is not contradictory. The photo also showed an SUV in the north ditch pointing generally in a north-east. But the SUV was partially obscured by bushes this only the rear end and the rear of the left side of the SUV were visible. It was reported that the two deceased occupants were in that SUV. All these verbal descriptions would have been unnecessary if the photo was allowed to be shown. At a time when the public has developed a short attention span detailed verbal descriptions are unlikely to be understood except by those few who have some specific focus.
Now here is the confusing part of this scenario: The rear end of the SUV showed little or no evidence of contact damage.
Putting these facts together, the official reports indicate that both vehicles were eastbound and the stake truck had direct-contact damage to the left of its front end. So there should be damage on the rear end of the SUV that would match with the frontal damage to the SUV. But the photo does not show any damage to the rear end of the SUV. So readers must puzzle over this confusing information.
The CTV photo shows that Oxford Rd 45 is in the foreground and this road intersects with Highway 2. The debris field is located only a few metres east of the intersection of the two roads. So could the SUV have come out of Oxford Road 45 just before impact? Thus there could be damage to the right side of the SUV that is not visible in the photo. But why would police state that both vehicles were eastbound when clearly that would not provide a coherent explanation of what took place?
If there was damage to either of the sides of the SUV it would not explain why both occupants were killed. Clearly contact to the right side of the SUV from the Stake truck which is generally travelling the same direction as the SUV cannot produce the type of crush that could threaten the life of an occupant seated on the far side of the SUV.
In subsequent articles posted on September 11, 2020, news agencies reported that the 27-year-old driver of the Stake truck was charged with two counts of Careless Driving Causing Death. An additional photo was posted in the CTV News article which showed a closer view of the rear end and left side of the SUV. The SUV was still in the ditch so parts of it were hidden by tall brush. This additional photo showed some minimal damage to the left-rear bumper of the SUV at its tail pipe. But this minimal damage was not consistent the substantial damage a the left portion of the Stake truck’s front end.
So from the charges laid against the Stake truck driver we must surmise that the collision occurred because the driver did something that was improper. The collision could not have occurred whereby the Stake truck attempted to pass the SUV because the damage to the Stake truck is on the left portion of its front end. And, if the Stake truck driver was eastbound then its travel direction was not controlled by a stop sign or traffic signal. So that cannot explain why the Stake truck driver was charged. And the evidence does not support a possible rear-end impact scenario although that cannot be fully excluded. While the SUV may have struck some solid object within the ditch, thus creating substantial frontal damage and thereby explaining the reason for the death of the two occupants, one would think that police would have reported such an important fact.
So there is no logical explanation for the evidence visible in the photos if indeed both vehicles were eastbound before the impact. There has been a very poor explanation of the evidence. There has to be some accountability by police and official news media for such results. When persons die the reasons for why and how they die cannot be known only to the select few. One need not look far into the past to understand that in many parts of the world the deaths of innocent persons have been a frivolous matter. It requires that we accept our responsibility to ensure that all lives matter.
Harpooned Vehicle – Disappointing Response by Police & News Media
Police and official news media did nothing to inform the public that the harpooning of a vehicle by a guardrail should not occur, let alone the extreme danger of such an occurrence. The above photo was posted on the OPP Twitter account along with three others shown below.
The best that can be said about police actions is that they posted photos of a harpooned vehicle so that the public could consider the consequences. Only a couple of news agencies picked up on the story, as if it was of minimal importance.
Nipissing West OPP reported on their Twitter account that on Saturday morning, September 5, 2020, a southbound vehicle struck a guard rail “which went through the veh”. The collision occurred on Highway 69 near Sudbury, Ontario, but no specific location was noted. It was reported that the 52-year-old female driver sustained a severed foot. To add insult to injury the OPP charged the driver with Careless Driving. At no point did police make the public aware of the inappropriate functioning of the barrier system or that the existence of such a system could pose a life-threatening situation to other future drivers.
The following three photos represent the remaining ones posted by the OPP to their twitter account.
What is revealing in these photos is that the OPP must be incapable of understanding the importance of what needs to be revealed to the public. This is so because of the fact that in neither of the photos did they show the end of the guardrail that would have been the “point of the spear” that commenced the harpooning of the vehicle. Otherwise it would have to be believed that this was done on purpose, which would be difficult to conceive.
It is difficult to accept that the OPP would not be aware of the controversy surrounding harpooning of vehicles that has been in the news media for at least the last 7 or 8 years. It was initially alleged that such harpooning was being caused by a specific guardrail terminal, the ET-Plus terminal, manufactured by Trinity Highway Products of Dallas Texas.
As an example of the many news articles written on the subject, Global News wrote an article in October, 2015 entitled “Controversial guardrail system installed on roads across Canada”. In that article Global News reported that approximately “5,000 steel beam energy attenuating guide rail terminals have been installed on provincial highways throughout Ontario, with the majority of the systems being manufactured by Trinity Highway Products”. At that time there were allegations that the ET-Plus had an undisclosed design change that could “cause it to act like a spear on impact slicing through cars and amputating legs”. After these allegations “approximately 40 states suspended installations of the device” and “The US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) also decided to gather information on how the ET-Plus was performing on the roads and conduct a series of crash tests”. Controversy surrounded these activities that to this day has not been fully cleared. Yet it can be observed that many jurisdictions, including Ontario, have been quietly installing different terminals from other manufacturers without explaining why this decision was made. What remains is that there are still numerous installations of ET-Plus terminals existing throughout Ontario’s highway system.
So it remains a mystery why the OPP photos of the vehicle and site did not include a photo which could allow a determination whether the harpooned vehicle in the above photos had interacted with an ET-Plus terminal. Similarly the few official news media that took up the story also did not inform the public of the possible historical controversy that has existed over recent years.
The point is that, regardless of what system was installed at the site, the public should not accept that a vehicle should be harpooned in this fashion. This is a potentially deadly outcome that was avoided in this unique instance by pure luck. Neither investigating police nor official news media made the public aware of this fact. This is a very disappointing inaction by those who are entrusted in protecting and informing the public of deadly dangers on our highways.
Cyclist Death In West London Demonstrates Safety of Path System Has Long Way To Go
Is there a cycling path crossing ahead? Would it be important to let drivers know?
Official news media reported that a 77-year-old cyclist was killed when he was struck by a pick-up truck as he tried to cross Gainsborough Road in west London, Ontario on Saturday, September 5, 2020. The view available to the pick-up truck driver is shown in the above photo, taken on September 6th. It can be seen that the cycling trail is not visible and there is no signage to warn drivers that cyclists might be crossing.
As active transportation has become a big issue in the last few years cities like London Ontario have been trying to play catch up by installing various cycling infrastructure without much attention to details such as cyclist safety. Cycling paths are no different than roadways that carry motorized traffic; both require proper design, correct signage and regular maintenance. In particular roadway design has understood the importance of providing sufficient visibility. That must also apply to the design of cycling paths. At the Gainsborough site shown above, trees and shrubs exist all the way up to the edge of the traffic-way such that neither the cyclist nor the motor vehicle driver have sufficient time and distance to detect the other’s existence. Problems like these need to be detected and corrected before a tragedy occurs, but that is not happening quickly enough.
One of the reasons for this delay is that a vast number of collisions, whether involving motorized vehicles, or cyclists, are not officially documented. In a previous post to this website on November 21, 2018 we quoted research by D. Shinar et. al., in an article published in the Accident Analysis & Prevention journal (January, 2018) that estimated the percentage of cyclist collisions reported in 17 nations. That research concluded that only about 10% of such collisions were officially reported.
Gorski Consulting has found similar results with motorized collisions, even though our research has been made difficult to publicize in Canada. Our study of the collisions at a single site, Clarke Road in the north-east sector of London, also showed that collisions at the S-curve north of Fanshawe Park Road were rarely documented in official police records in comparison to the physical evidence that was documented at the site. While the evidence indicated that most of the unreported collisions were minor it demonstrates that the opportunity to gain evidence of road safety problems was lost.
The problem is compounded when the evidence from serious collisions like the one on the Gainsborough Road site is never publicly shared. The results of police investigations simply become filed with unknown entities. Local news media reported that police used a drone to document the collision evidence at the Gainsborough site. Other technology such as total stations and expensive cameras demonstrate the use of public funds to collect evidence that, in turn, is never shared with the public for the public’s benefit.
A news article published by the London Free Press on September 6, 2020 entitled “Cyclist who came upon fatal crash scene thinks poor sightlines a factor”, quoted a longtime cyclist, Glynn Davies, who observed “When you’re coming from the north of the bike path, there’s bushes on the right, so you would have to come pretty cautiously to get across the road. It could be dangerous…You can’t see long distance…beyond the sidewalk to make sure that nothing’s coming”. Unofficial observations like these are logical and should also have been made by official entities such as police investigators. Unfortunately, while police are sure to document and report on speeding, impairment or driver distraction, they continually fail to report equally dangerous factors related to roadway design, signage and maintenance.
With respect to cycling infrastructure there is little or no public information available about cyclist traffic volumes or numbers of collisions outside of the roadway system used by motor vehicles. The City’s Multi-use Path system for example seems to be used increasingly due to factors such as the Covid-19 epidemic, yet safety concerns on the system have remained for many years without official acknowledgement.
Some examples of problems on the Multi-Use Path system are shown below, documented in August of 2013. In the two images below orange paint was used with considerable effect to highlight the problems but this paint is usually “road paint” that fades away within a couple of weeks or months.
Orange paint was used to high-light tree roots next t the path in this photo taken in August, 2013. Unfortunately this paint is very temporary.
This painting of a “Bump” warning in August of 2013, is helpful but only temporary as the paint dissolves while the tree root bumps only become larger.
A pillar located on the edge of the Multi-use Path east of Wellington Road is shown in this photo taken in August of 2013.
The above photo showing the concrete pillar next to the cycling path was made more visible in 2010 when graffiti vandals painted it, as shown below.
View of vandalized pillar showing graffiti that is actually more helpful in making it more visible. This photo was taken in September of 2010. The pillar still remains to this day.
Other dangers are rarely highlighted as shown in the additional two photos below, also taken in August of 2013. A structural hazard has existed on the path at the railway bridge east of Adelaide Street in that visibility is extremely limited. A mirror had been installed next to the edge of the path a number years earlier but that was vandalized and never replaced.
View, looking east, while approaching the abutment of the railway bridge just east of Adelaide Street. This photo was taken in September, 2010 and the abutment remains to this day without any changes or signage to warn cyclists of the extremely limited visibility.
In the two photos shown below, taken in September of 2010, the end of a pipe is sticking out of the path surface at the intersection of Blackfriars bridge in downtown London. No paint markings exist to highlight its presence.
View of the cycling path near intersection with Blackfriars bridge taken in September of 2010.
Close-up view of the end of a pipe located in the middle of the Multi-Use Path in September, 2010. The pipe existed for many years but has since been removed.
Many safety concerns remain on London’s Multi-use Path system that are not acknowledged or made known to the unsuspecting public. This is particularly concerning when the system is used by many vulnerable persons such as children, the elderly or persons who are inexperienced riders.
It can be a challenge to the City of London to address these problems and that has to be acknowledged. Yet the City, like all cities in Ontario, must balance the need to acknowledge problems with the advice of their risk management departments who insist that such acknowledgement will place them in a position of civil liability. Above all it is this threat of civil litigation that keeps many municipal safety problems from being publicly acknowledged and therefore an impetus to pay for corrections is lost. Many taxpayers, if they are aware of the dangers of leaving safety problems uncorrected, would gladly accept the additional taxes, rather than paying the large costs of risk management departments and their high cost-lawyers.
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