The London CTV News agency posted an article on its website on May 7, 2026 containing comments about the safety of an intersection from a resident, Ilan Tipping, who lives near the intersection of Highbury Ave and Dingman Drive in south-east London, Ontario. In part the title of the article included the phrase ‘Municipal laws don’t matter when people are being killed’. The article went on to the resident’s comments that “This intersection is crazy” and “It’s just gotten worse”.
Another segment of comments from Tipping was noted as follows”
“I’ve warned the city about this corner, and they just brush me off about it, they say it’s not that important,” said Tipping. “I talked to the city about the speed here and they said, ‘Oh they follow municipal laws;’ municipal laws don’t matter when people are being killed.”
Comments like these are nothing new. Agencies like CTV News create such articles and post comments of residents at numerous sites across the City of London. In many of these postings the persons making the comments believe the collision site is the worst and most dangerous they have ever seen, or something of that nature. And sometimes the publicity generated by CTV News causes politicians or local police to provide short comments containing minimal or no valuable information related to the safety of a particular site.
In fact, just because someone claims that a site is dangerous does not make it so. It could be just someone given a microphone who has a strong opinion but not necessarily an accurate one. So how does one know whether someone’s comments are describing a factually dangerous site or whether someone is just “broadcasting” nonsense?
The CTV News article continued with comments made by London Mayor Josh Morgan and the focus of the discussion diverted to the fact that there were discussions in place with the Province of Ontario to make this portion of Highbury Ave a provincial highway. Thus the meaning of this discussion is that if Highbury Ave became a provincial highway the safety problems at the the Dingman-Highbury intersection would be solved.
The CTV article indicated Morgan’s belief that“If the plan does not come to fruition, Morgan says the city would consider making safety improvements to the intersection following proper assessment.” And this is where the discussion becomes unreasonable. The Province’s take over of Highbury Ave would take years to complete, even if it became a reality. If there is a genuine safety problem at the Dingman-Highbury intersection actions to deal it cannot be reasonably delayed for many years. As Mr. Tipping properly indicated “something needs to be done sooner rather than later”.
The interview with Mayor Morgan made references to a “proper assessment” and Morgan referred to looking at traffic volumes, collision history and pedestrian movements. Combined with Mr. Tipping’s reference to “municipal laws” it appears both persons were referring to the guidelines contained in the Ontario Traffic Manual (OTM) although not stating so. There are several reference documents that provide guidelines for assessing intersection safety however it is known from the past that officials at the City of London refer to the OTM. Proper assessment must include the gathering of traffic data that must be performed at relevant days of the week, relevant seasons and also relevant times of a day. However this is only the beginning. The assessment must be performed by someone experienced in collision reconstruction because factors that influence the causation of a collision are not readily recognizable. Even when such data is gathered it requires an unbiased analysis that does not always occur. The guidelines in the OTM are not chiseled in stone and their application must be balanced with the unique conditions that exist at every collision site.
In recent years the City of London has begun installing mobile video systems at the intersections of its roadways. This spring these actions appear to have intensified. This activity is low key and not publicly disclosed. Use of such systems often involves an agreement with a private vendor and that relationship between the City of London and the vendor also has not been made public. Accompanied by AI technology such video can capture very detailed data on the activities of any vehicles or pedestrians within its range.
If such a portable video installation was placed at the intersection of Dingman Drive and Highbury Ave a large amount of detailed and useful data could be obtained that could provide the basis for determining the safety of the intersection. Yet this has not been done. Up to now the City of London has not acknowledged the existence of these video systems nor have the City’s employees provided any information about what data it has obtained from these systems.
Some Observations From the Dingman- Highbury Site
Review of historical records indicates that a fatal collision occurred at this intersection of August 14, 2023. Gorski Consulting visited the site later that day and posted a website article shortly afterward on what was found.
Data shows that CTV News posted several short articles about that collision and it also described a Dingman Drive resident “Allan Tipping” whose name is very similar to the name given in the recent CTV News article. At that time Tipping was described as part of a neighbourhood group called the Shaver Brockley Coalition. At that time Tipping expressed similar comments about the roadway “gone crazy now“. Tipping indicated “We’ve asked the city to street lights, we’ve asked them to reduce the speed”. Thus information indicates that problems at the Dingman-Highbury intersection have been known to the City.
Given this news, Gorski Consulting decided to attend the collision site to obtain some information about the unidentified collision that occurred on May 6, 2026. We attended near the evening rush hour on May 8th. The photo below shows a view of the Dingman-Highbury intersection taken at the time of our arrival.
I observed that a memorial had been placed on the north-west roadside of the intersection as noted in the above photo. Closer inspection showed that the memorial was dedicated to Erynn Mariee Organ.
The plac at the memorial is shown below.
This plac seemed to indicate that Organ passed away on May 3, 2020 and the location of the memorial suggested that the death occurred at or near the Dingman-Highbury intersection. I did not recall that I heard/read of this death so I referred to that date in my collection of historical collision data.
The only information I could retrieve was with respect to a news article published by Dale Carruthers of the London Free Press on May 4, 2020, entitled “Two motorcyclists killed in crashes in London”. The only reference to a collision at the Dingman-Highbury site was the sentence in the article as noted below:
“A 30-year-old woman motorcyclist died in hospital after a single-vehicle crash at Dingman Drive and Highbury Avenue about 1:45 p.m. Sunday, police said.“
The name of the deceased motorcyclist was never revealed as it was indicated that police had not released that information. And no information was provided as to how the collision occurred, only that it involved the single motorcycle. The words on Organ’s memorial plac indicated “never forgotten” but it seems she was forgotten to all officials responsible for the site’s safety. If not for the memorial and plac no one would know that this collision ever occurred.
Having arrived at the site it only took me a few minutes to observe the evidence that the collision-involved tractor-trailer had been southbound and travelled into the ditch on the east side of Highbury just south of Dingman. There was a long length of tire skid-marks produced by the tractor-trailer that began in the intersection and progressed towards the truck’s final rest position.
Normally, when a vehicle is struck in an intersection there is an obvious area of gouges which indicates the general area of the point of impact. In this instance I identified several areas of fresh “scrapes” which did not identify a precise point of impact. Such evidence is odd and cannot be resolved without more information from the police investigation.
My next action was to determine if any other vehicle was struck. Typically I would expect that a vehicle would be travelling either eastbound or westbound on Dingman and would have been struck by the tractor-trailer. The actual evidence I observed was more complicated. There was obvious evidence visible along the west roadside of Highbury Ave, south of Dingman, where a vehicle had produced a long, curving, set of yaw marks in the grass, as shown in the photo below.
Such evidence would not be particularly unusual except that it would not be consistent with a vehicle that was travelling on Dingman and crossing Highbury when it was struck.
Because of the long length of tire marks in the grass the vehicle had to be travelling at a substantial speed in a southbound direction. And if it had originally been travelling either east or west on Dingman this high southbound speed could not be explained. So it is my view that the Honda vehicle was not part of the collision with the tractor-trailer or, if it was, then it was not travelling on Dingman Drive before the impact.
There was other evidence of collisions at the intersection as evidenced in the pile of debris near the guardrail shown below.
In summary there is a lack of transparency that continues to plague the functioning of local officials when it comes to assessment of road safety in London, Ontario. At the Dingman-Highbury site there is evidence that major collisions have been occurring but there has been little or no information made public about them.
With respect to the fatal collision that occurred on August 14, 2023 nothing was revealed by investigating police other than that a commercial vehicle was involved, there was a fatality, and that another vehicle was also involved. With respect to the fatal motorcyclist collision that occurred on May 3, 2020 nothing was mentioned by police as to how it occurred and/or whether it was related to the Dingman-Highbury intersection. And with respect to the most current collision of the tractor-trailer on May 6, 2026 nothing was revealed about how the collision occurred. Collision debris at the Dingman-Highbury intersection indicates that other collisions have occurred there and again nothing has been revealed about those collisions. How officials respond, or do not respond, has a bearing on how matters under civil litigation become adjudicated if a civil suit is launched if road safety is not properly addressed.
In a recent (February 9, 2026) letter to her colleagues, City Councillor for Ward 7, Corrine Rahman, made the following request:
“I am looking for your support in requesting that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to take the following actions with respect to petitions and requests for traffic calming measures on neighbourhood connectors and neighbourhood streets:
a) review and report back to a future meeting of the Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee on:
i. a jurisdictional scan of peer municipalities’ processes for receiving traffic calming petitions and requests, including how those processes are communicated to residents;
ii. an assessment of how the City of London communicates with residents who submit traffic calming petitions or requests, with a view to improving clarity around the process and providing timely information updates;
iii. options to improve the quality and frequency of information reported to Council Members regarding traffic calming requests received, studies undertaken, and upcoming projects within their ward; and
b) provide updates to the Councillors and committee on approved traffic calming projects, the completion of a project, and any other pertinent information.
As traffic calming initiatives continue to be a key component of neighbourhood safety, ensuring that residents and Councillors have access to timely, transparent, and easily understood information is essential. Improved communication will help manage expectations, strengthen public engagement, and ensure confidence in the process.“
The wording in the above letter refers to “traffic calming” and does not fully address the issue of traffic safety of which traffic calming is only a partial and potential solution. While this motion was passed by London’s City Council at its meeting of March 3, 2026, I remain skeptical that the true issues will be properly addressed.
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