Testing Shows Safety Difference In Ontario’s Expressways
Gorski Consulting has been continuing to document the conditions of road surfaces on Ontario’s roads and highways. In recent studies data has been obtained describing the condition of Ontario’s expressways. The results of previous testing have been presented on the Gorski Consulting website on expressways such as Highway 401, 402, Hamilton’s Lincoln Alexander and Red Hill Valley Parkways and Highway Ave in the City of London. New data is now available from testing on Highway 403 between Hamilton and Woodstock, Ontario. These studies begin to layout a clear picture of how Ontario’s expressways compare to each other.
The Gorski Consulting testing involves a test vehicle that is driven over a roadway and the motion of the vehicle, in terms of its lateral and longitudinal rotation, is captured. Most of the expressway data is divided into 30 second segments or distances of approximately 800 metres. Within each 800 metres there are local problems such as pot-holes, depressions, bridge junctions etc. and those are captured in charts that clearly identify the specific location of those deficiencies. Unfortunately, due to the extremely large amount of data, it is not possible to show these local deficiencies in this article. However the charts are available for those who would wish to know more details.
The following charts provide the value of vehicle rotations at the 30 second increments for three of the expressways that were tested: Highways 401, 402 and 403. First are the most recent data from Highway 403 which come in two charts.
Next are the data from Highway 402, which also come in two charts. It is interesting to observe the very large changes in the vehicle motion during the westbound travel on Highway 402 and compare it to some of the other charts such as the Highway 401 data. In particular, Sample 13 of the Westbound Highway 402 shows a very large peak of lateral motion. We will discuss this point later.
The last chart is for Highway 401 between London and Tilbury. Note that the values are low and stable. This is vastly different from the Westbound Highway 402 data shown earlier.
There are numerous matters that can be explored here but let us focus on just one: The very large peak in test vehicle motion in the Westbound Highway 402 data. This peak occurred in the segment of the highway passing through Olde Road. This location, between Strathroy and London, Ontario is denoted by a large orange circle shown in the two Google Maps views below.
The road surface conditions that existed at the time of the testing are shown in the two photos below that were taken on May 3, 2019.
Subsequently, Gorski Consulting visited this location on February 5, 2020 and it was noted that the right lane was repaved, as shown in the two photos below.
So in this case the Ontario Ministry of Transportation was aware of the road safety problem and corrected it. Yet there are many other surface problems that exist on Ontario’s expressways that remain hidden to the public.
When collisions occur police attribute those collisions primarily to driver errors. At times of unusual or extreme environmental conditions some blame will also be attributed to those conditions. Yet road surface problems are never, or very rarely, identified as contributions to collisions. This is not surprising as police have very little training and no objective way of testing whether a road surface is inadequate.
Recently the City of Hamilton has been involved in a judicial inquiry as a result of an engineering report that became “lost” after its testing showed that the Red Hill Valley Parkway contained sections of its surface that were below standards. Many believe that certain employees or politicians may have purposely hidden the report. The judicial inquiry has been set up to find out. This demonstrates how the results of road surface testing can become political and legal footballs preventing objective information from reaching the public. No information what-so-ever is provided by Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation about what surface friction testing they have performed on Ontario’s expressways and what those results are. And no independent agency can collect such data without permission of the Ministry. Thus Gorski Consulting is unable to collect such data.
The alternative is that road surface bumps, depressions, ruptures or other undesirable features can be tracked in the manner shown here in the above charts. These charts do not provide a full indication of what problems may exist because of the lack of the friction testing data. It is also necessary to look more closely at the details of each road segment before local problems become revealed. And this deeper look cannot shown in this article due to the obviously vast number of charts that would need to be shown. But that deeper data is available, along with videotape that shows the specific locations where surface problems exist.
Yet these data are a valuable tool to the public, even though the existence of this tool is essentially unknown. Gorski Consulting is a small firm that cannot publicise the existence of this research except through this medium of providing articles on the Gorski Consulting website. The testing is done independent of any other agency, private or public. Its costs are solely borne by Gorski Consulting. This independence is very important. It means that research that is sometimes manipulated by those paying for it does not exist here. It also means that those who would wish to prevent its release to the public have a more difficult task in doing so.
Truck Pushing Car on Hwy 401 – A Missed Educational Opportunity
Whatever the circumstances of the specific incident, lack of education regarding the visibility available to heavy truck drivers makes us all less safe.
No one will know why police have charged a truck driver who dragged a passenger car along Highway 401 after a video posted on social media brought attention to the January 13, 2020 incident. It is easy to make the judgment of the truck driver’s road rage or his obvious lack of basic attention for failing to see the car that was so close and easy to be seen.
Hundreds of thousands of drivers of trucks and cars travel along Highway 401 every day yet there is minimal attempt by authorities to explain and educate the public about the conflicts that occur due to the incompatibility of trucks and cars on the highway. Regrettably the public’s focus on the fact that police have charged the truck driver in the January 13th collision will take away the important opportunity to explain why a truck driver would have difficulty seeing a car in the vicinity of the truck’s right front corner and wheel. In an article posted on this Gorski Consulting website on January 16, 2020 we attempted to clarify that problem of truck driver visibility but no one else in the police or news media communities have followed up with similar attempts.
This is an example of the reality that the public obtains very little useful information about how and why collisions occur on major expressways such as Highway 401. While improvements such as better roadside barriers, more traffic lanes and more consistent roadway maintenance will help, keeping the public in the dark about collision causation will not.
Publicity of major truck collisions has reached the point where television shows dramatize the actions of towing personnel and police in the aftermath as if these are the most important matters that the public needs to know. Yet why a truck crashed or the consequences of failing to prevent that collision receives no attention. Presumably because producers believe it has less sensationalism value which draws the public to a story.
A Formal European Garden? What Do We Wish To See?
What do we wish to see? From a distance this is a beautifully-manicured formal garden. And many of us would like to continue looking at it from this distance.
Today, January 27th, has been marked by the United Nations as the international remembrance day commemorating the liberation of the remaining victims of the most notorious Nazi murder camp of WWII in southern Poland.
After an unspeakable life of surviving WWII my parents took our family from our home country, Poland, to a country, Canada, that promised a better future. But there was already another “Canada” located in this most infamous Nazi death camp in southern Poland. This “Canada” was a section of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp named so by its inmates, but not because the country of Canada had anything to do with it. It was because Canada represented some far away paradise that could only be dreamed of, where all the cruelty of that twisted world did not exist. When one could only look forward to a gas chamber there was a Canada somewhere.
What was this paradise that those inmates dreamt of, what is it now and what could it be in the future?
From a British Dominion we have become a multi-cultural, multi-racial and multi-religious society. This complexity can create dangers and it can also create opportunities. We can become a model of anger, hatred and disrespect or one of tolerance, understanding and respect. Our future can be seen clearly by looking at the choices made by people prior to WWII and listening to the last remaining witnesses of that era.
There are so very few remaining survivors of Auschwitz now, and soon there will be none. What are those survivors telling Canadians?
The survivors have reminded us that there was a pleasant-looking Uncle Adolf who was a meticulous keeper of a beautiful, formal garden. His mission was to remove all the weeds and foreign specimens that did not belong. He placed all his plantings in orderly rows and created straight walkways between. While this was taking shape many watched from a distance and accepted that this is what it was. Just a well-kept, organized, and beautiful garden. The survivors told us that Uncle Adolf could not have done all this work without his immortal assistants, Secrecy and Indifference. The survivors are telling us that there are Uncle Adolfs everywhere but their work can be of minimal effect and importance without the help of Secrecy and Indifference. When Canadians allow Secrecy and Indifference to live amongst us we will reap the “rewards” of Auschwitz and the results of WWII. The rewards can be similar to the annihilation of vast parts of Europe, its historical treasures and its peoples.
Through the filters of our sunglasses we can chose to see our world in many ways. Many of us have chosen to wear the glasses that allow us to only see the beautiful, formal garden. If we stay far enough away we do not have to explain why we do not see what the survivors of Auschwitz have seen.
Confusing Numbers in OPP Enforcement Blitz on Hwy 401 West of London
The OPP indicate that collisions in its Western Region involving commercial vehicles resulted in 35 fatalities in 2019 whereas in 2018 there were only 18 fatalities. But what does those numbers actually mean?
In late January, 2020, the OPP conducted a “Commercial Motor Vehicle Enforcement” blitz near London, Ontario. Although the exact number of police personnel involved in the blitz is unknown it was reported that officers from Chatham-Kent, Elgin, Middlesex, Oxford, Wellington, members from the OPP’s Aviation Service, London Highway Safety Division, Field Support Bureau, and Communications and Technology Services Bureau were involved. That does not sound like a small number of personnel.
During two days of enforcement it was reported that 51 charges were laid against truck drivers, 23 against drivers of passenger cars and one bus driver was charged with following too close. In a further breakdown of the charges, 30 truck drivers were charged with following too close, seven were charged with distracted driving and no charges were laid for speeding. With respect to passenger car drivers, no drivers were charged with following too close, seven were charged with distracted driving, and 14 were charged with speeding.
From videotaped observations on Hwy 401 conducted by Gorski Consulting, about 800 vehicles would pass a police inspection point every hour and almost half of these vehicles would be Class 8 tractor-trailers. This data also indicates that every 15 minutes there would be about 15 heavy trucks and 15 passenger car and light trucks that would be observed travelling at a gap of less than 2 seconds from the vehicle ahead. Such a gap could meet the definition of following too close. Yet, as shown in the above OPP statistics, only 30 truck drivers were charged with that offence and no passenger car drivers were charged over an enforcement time of two days. If the enforcement blitz was conducted for 8 hours each day, or a total of 16 hours, the police should have observed 120 cars and trucks following too close every hour, or a total of 960 vehicles should have been observed during the 16 hour blitz. Yet only 23 truck drivers were charged and no drivers of passenger cars were charged. If the public was made aware of these facts what would they say?
Yet in the videotaped documentation conducted by Gorski Consulting, if the cameras had been pointed at the vehicle license plates, and if a high resolution was used on the cameras (Gorski Consulting purposely uses a low resolution), then all 960 violators would be documented and could be charged. This would happen at no cost to the taxpayer. But how many police personnel were actually required to catch those 23 violators and at what cost? We don’t know because that was never revealed.
This discussion is not meant to criticize the police for their attempts to keep traffic under control. Clearly enforcement is needed. But it demonstrates that police enforcement programs such as the one publicized by the OPP are not likely to capture a very large number of violators. Twenty-three out of a potential total of 960 violators results in a capture rate of just 2.4 %. It is possible that police focused their attention on the worst drivers. Yet that does not seem likely as only truck drivers were charged and no drivers of passenger cars and light trucks were caught. Yet the Gorski Consulting data indicates that drivers of cars and light trucks are as guilty of following too close as are truck drivers. So it is possible that many of the worst, habitual violators are unlikely to be caught but many normal drivers who made a mistake will be caught. Given the difficulties that this discussion reveals, an honest and open discussion is needed in a public forum so a better solution can be found.
UPDATE: January 26, 2020: 1030 Hours
The above calculations should have indicated that police should have documented 1920 vehicles following too close if their enforcement was over a 16 hour period in two days, rather than the 960 vehicles which was reported erroneously for a single day only. The 960 would be for a single day of 8 hours. As we do not know how long the actual enforcement was per day a detailed discussion is not warranted. Four hours of enforcement per day could also be considered.
The bottom line is that very few drivers who were following too close were actually ticketed. We need to understand what difficulties exist toward much higher rates of enforcement. This cannot be done in the closed atmosphere where that discussion does not occur.
School Bus Fire in Cornwall Ontario – Why Has No One Asked How & Why It Started?
The school bus driver was a hero for saving 7 students – But why is there no publicity for how and why the bus caught fire? This is a common question we ask at Gorski Consulting yet no one else wishes to ask the same question.
It has been reported that on the afternoon of Monday, January 20, 2020, a school bus operated by Roxborough Bus lines was picking up children at Rose des Vents elementary school in Cornwall when the bus suddenly caught fire. The bus driver immediately ushered 7 children off the bus and no one was injured. Now the bus driver is being hailed as a hero for her actions.
That is a wonderful result and the the bus driver’s actions may have been heroic. But is that the total story? Do we now move on to the next fire and hero? Will there always be this happy result? What if it was a full-size school bus with 50 children, would they all escape in time? What if a school driver does not take immediate action because the gravity of the situation is not realized? Do we accept that some percentage of children perish and move on? Clearly there is a problem with this logic.
Why did a fire start in this school bus and endanger the lives of innocent children? How many other school buses are likely to catch fire in the near future? Shouldn’t somebody ask?
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