City of London Appoints Zygmunt M. Gorski To Advisory Committees
Upon a review of applicants a City of London striking committee has appointed Zygmunt M. Gorski to membership in two of its advisory committees.
Zygmunt M. Gorski has been appointed to two City of London advisory committees commencing in 2019.
The Community Safety and Crime Prevention Advisory Committee “…serves as a resource, information gathering and advisory body to the Municipal Council on matters pertaining to safety and crime prevention in the City of London”.
The Transportation Advisory Committee “…will advise and support City Council in the implementation of the City’s Transportation Master Plan (TMP), including the Active Transportation and Transportation Demand Manage(with the exception of the cycling components of these City plans and programs), and the London Road Safety Strategy (LRSS) aspects…”
As Zyg Gorski has been involved in the road safety research and accident reconstruction fields for the past 39 years these appointments should prove beneficial to the City’s operations. Zyg Gorski has been involved in the technical analysis of a variety of transportation incidents that have required a detailed evaluation of expert reports, uncovering of objective evidence and the technical analysis of these incidents. The public’s protection, whether from criminal acts or via inadvertent circumstances that develop in transportation are vitally important to any community. The causes of these drains on the public’s welfare are complicated and require a patient evaluation of all potential sources.
Data From Recent Testing Added to Gorski Consulting “Road Data” Webpage
After posting several news articles on recent road testing, the subject data has now been uploaded to the Gorski Consulting “Road Data” webpage. Two datafiles have been added.
Substandard road surfaces can cause unwanted reactions of vehicles travelling over them. Testing by Gorski Consulting reveals the extent of these reactions.
One datafile relates to the testing that was performed this spring on the Red Hill Valley and Lincoln Alexander Parkways. This file is under the heading of “Road Conditions Data – City of Hamilton”.
The second datafile related to testing that was performed this spring on Highway 401 between London and Tilbury, and along Highway 402 between London and Strathroy.
The content of both datafiles has been discussed in recent news items posted on the Gorski Consulting News webpage.
Did Heart Condition Cause Collision or Did Collision Cause Heart Condition?
Medical episodes are convenient explanations for fatal collisions. But they are not always the correct explanations.
The cause of a double-fatal incident where vehicle was driven into Lake Ontario in Burlington, Ontario, was announced by Halton Regional Police. It was stated that “Medical factors may have contributed to this incident and the coroner has listed a medical condition involving the heart as the cause of death on the preliminary report”. It was said that this conclusion was consistent with the observation of a witness who “…described the driver as appearing to either be suffering a medical issue or being panicked, noting the man’s arms were locked on the steering wheel”. Compelling evidence indeed. But what demeanor would be expected from anyone if they knew they were headed toward a body of water at high speed but could not prevent the occurrence?
As the population of drivers ages, there is an understandable increase in the number of reported fatal collisions related to medical conditions. On the other hand, as the complexity of vehicle technology increases there is also a greater difficulty in detecting whether that technology was a cause of a crash.
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety warns of knowledge gap between technology and driver comprehension.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) published an article in June 2019 issue of their Status Report which provides some indication of the confusion between what drivers believe about automation technology and the reality of what the technology actually does. The example used involved questions put to drivers about the meaning of various driver automation functions of new vehicles. The article indicated:
” Vehicles are getting increasingly sophisticated, with more and more of them able to stay in a lane and maintain speed and following distance with minimal driver input. But this kind of automation has limitations that can be tricky for drivers to grasp…”
That “trickiness” does not just apply to drivers, it also applies to investigators who are increasingly relied upon to provide a definitive answer about the cause of a crash without having sufficient knowledge about the inner workings of advanced vehicles.
Sudden unintended acceleration is often blamed on foot pedal error without sufficient knowledge or investigation about possible vehicle malfunctions. (Photo by Peel Region Paramedics of house impact, July 7, 2019 in Mississauga, Ontario)
Sudden unintended acceleration is a frequent incident that leads to serious collisions and this is commonly attributed to driver foot pedal error. Yet those who make that determination have limited knowledge about the inner workings of the modules and sensors that control modern vehicles. Whether a vehicle plunges into a house, drives into roadside water or collides with another vehicle, the pre-crash functioning of steering, acceleration and braking may be stored by various onboard recorders and can sometimes be downloaded and evaluated. Conversely, not all the data that is stored is available to investigators as some is viewed a proprietary to the manufacturer. When the manufacturer is the only one who can access the full data it cannot be certain whether certain tell-tale problems will be detected by investigators working with a limited set of data.
What is often sufficient to the general public is that a seemingly knowledgeable person with a uniform, credentials and an important title reports that he/she has conducted an investigation and has drawn a conclusion. While the basis for the conclusion is rarely known.
An impressionable old mother was once asked about the suitability of her perspective son-in-law and she remarked “Well, I don’t know what he does, but he carries a briefcase”.
Beer Case Used As Child Booster Cushion Publicizes A Wider Safety Issue
Mis-use of appropriate child restraints and use of inappropriate child restraints are important issues that are overlooked.
The Ontario Provincial Police posted the above photo on their Twitter account showing how a case of beer was being used as a booster cushion for a 2-year-old child seated in the front seat. The photo is eye-catching and garners some publicity of what would appear to be a rare and unusual occurrence. However this provides an opportunity to point out that mis-use of appropriate restraints and use of inappropriate restraints is not rare or unusual. But when it causes unnecessary injury there are many reasons why its consequences are kept from the public’s knowledge.
Even use of the beer case is not the worst that adults have done to their innocent children. Without the availability of a child seat anything that can elevate the child and increase the angle of the lap belt as it leaves its floor anchorage is better than simply placing a 2-year-old child in an adult-fitting seat-belt. There is no way that the anatomy of a 2-year-old child will allow the lap belt to be placed appropriately below the illiac crests of the child’s pelvis. In the event of crash of any significance the child’s abdomen will move against the webbing potentially causing major organ ruptures. This would need immediate emergency treatment in an operating room. Sadly such immediate treatment will not take place in a large number of cases when a collision occurs some distance from a major medical facility.
What is also misunderstood is that seat-belt abdominal injuries do not exhibit themselves in open wounds that provide an immediate indication of a problem. Minor head wounds will produce much bleeding and obvious signs to witnesses at a collision site that an injury has occurred.
But even paramedics can be misled by the lack of obvious signs of injury when abdominal organs sustain seat-belt injuries and the patient progresses into shock without a clearly identifiable reason. In those instances paramedics could be trained, not only to look for signs of injury on the patient but to look at the seat-belt and vehicle interior for additional vital clues.
It has been over 30 years since Zygmunt Gorski presented a research paper at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Philadelphia entitled “Examination and Analysis of Seat-belt Loading Marks”, which was subsequently pubished in their journal in 1990. In that paper it was demonstrated how investigators could examine the physical evidence left on restraint systems to determine if, and how they have been used in a crash. Physical evidence is created at the tongue (latch plate) and D-ring of the system and tranferred onto the seat-belt webbing. That evidence provides an indication of the length of the lap and shoulder (torso) belt used in the crash. Not only this, but specific characteristics of those markings can be used to determine how the system was used, whether it was misused and/or whether it performed improperly during a crash.
An example of seat-belt markings documented during an investigation by Zygmunt Gorski in the 1980s.
Thus this data has been available for at least 3 decades. Yet very little attention has been paid to its existence. Paramedics could easily gain valuable information about possible injuries to a patient even without taking any vital signs by simply looking at the physical evidence on a restraint system. Similarly evidence of occupant contact with the vehicle interior can provide further clues as to possible restraint problems. Paramedics could be taught to recognize certain telltale signs of occupant contact that would not exist if a restraint was used or performed properly. Unfortunately this is the kind of evidence and training that remains unexplored.
Explanation – Speed, Difference in Speed and Change in Velocity
Travel speed, change-in-velocity and road safety are very different concepts that need explanation
It is rare that anyone provides the public with a simple explanation of the difference between “speed of travel along the ground” versus “difference-in-speed” or “change-in-velocity”. These concepts are continually confused yet they are very important in understanding collisions and road safety. Let’s look at some theoretical examples.
Two vehicles travelling in the same direction, side-by-side, along an expressway at 110 km/h may be involved in a collision when Vehicle #1 drifts into the path of Vehicle #2. Since their forward speeds are the same the primary factor that determines the severity of the collision is the speed at which the drifting Vehicle #1 moves toward the side of Vehicle #2. One can visualize this as a minor incident, setting aside what complications may develop after this initial contact.
In a second scenario imagine Vehicle #1 is no longer drifting but is actually travelling behind Vehicle #2 and Vehicle #2 is now travelling only 90 km/h. Vehicle #1 travelling at 110 km/h rear-ends Vehicle #2. Even though Vehicle #2 was travelling slower the severity of the impact was higher to both vehicles because the difference in speed of the two vehicles was higher. The same concept exists at much slower speeds.
Now imagine a city street where Vehicle #2 slows to a speed of 20 km/h and is rear-ended by Vehicle #1 which is travelling 50 km/h. The speeds along the ground are much lower that the examples on the expressway (discussed above). Yet the collision severity is higher in this city street example. Why? Because the difference in speed is higher. In our city street example the difference in speed is 30 km/h (50-20 = 30). In the expressway examples, the difference in speed of our rear-ending example was only 20 km/h and the original example of the drifting vehicle would involve a difference in (lateral) speed of only a couple of km/h.
It is the difference in speed that determines collision severity and what injuries may occur. There are other complications in this discussion which will be left out for now. But one additional explanation will be given.
Speed is a concept that has no “direction” attached to its definition, it only provides a number describing a magnitude. A concept that provides a fuller explanation in collision analysis is the concept of “velocity”. Velocity is the same as speed except that it has a direction attached to it. So a speed along the ground may be 30 km/h, whereas a velocity along the ground may be “30 km/h north”. In the field of road safety research and collision reconstruction velocity is the important concept.
Researchers and reconstructionists often use the following concepts interchangably: Collision severity, Change-in-velocity and Delta-V. They are really talking about the same thing. We often define the severity of a collision by the change-in-velocity caused by an impact. Thus in the city street example, where Vehicle #2 travelling at 20 km/h is rear-ended by Vehicle #1 travelling at 50 km/h, the severity of the impact may be defined by how much velocity was lost during the time of contact. If both vehicles are of the same weight, of infinite stiffness and moving on a frictionless surface they both might sustain a change in velocity of 30 km/h. That is, in a theoretical scenario, Vehicle #2 (the struck vehicle) might be propelled forward to a speed of 50 km/h whereas the velocity of Vehicle #1 may be dropped to 20 km/h. But such an example will never occur in real-life and something more realistic might involve both vehicles exiting the impact at a velocity change of 15 km/h or less. When we say that a change-in-velocity of 15 km/h has occurred we often exchange this wording to say that a “Delta-V of 15 km/h” has occurred. The Greek letter “Delta” replaces the words “change in” and the “V” replaces the word “Velocity”.
Things get more complicated when we look closer at the time of contact and what forces and accelerations may exist. A Delta-V of 15 km/h may be quite different when the time of contact is very short versus when it is elongated. We often say that in a severe head-on impact the Delta-V may be completed in just over 100 milli-seconds. 100 milli-seconds is the same as a 10th of a second. But there are many intersection collisions where the Delta-V may be completed in 300 milli-seconds, thus reducing the forces and accelerations at any given time. Yet, in a head-on collision there is much more length of crushable structure that can protect an occupant whereas a vehicle struck in the driver’s door has much less protective structure. So the comparisons and complications can continue with many additional explanations being required.
But keeping the discussion simple, we need focus on this singular difference between ground speed and difference in speed or Delta-V. There are many times in public discussions when this becomes important. The most common discussion revolves around comments that, if we only reduced the posted speed limit along some section of road then our safety problems would be solved. The obvious fallacy is that changing a posted speed does not mean that the travel speeds will change. Even if the average travel speeds are reduced there is no guarantee that the target speeder’s actions will be changed, it only means that the general, law-abiding, road-user’s speeds will change. The speeder that was the original cause of the problems may continue to ignore the newly reduced speed just like he ignored the original, higher posted speed. But with respect to ground speed, the danger of the severity of a collision is not how fast a vehicle is travelling along the ground but what change-in-velocity is caused during contact. We need to remember from the above examples that a vehicle travelling at 20 or 50 km/h may be involved in a more severe collision than a vehicle travelling at 110 km/h. We need to understand when these concepts apply and when they are being used to confuse an issue.
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