Services
Vehicle Examinations
Site Surveys
Crash Data Recorders
Video Analysis
Accident Analysis
Expert Reports
Trials and Testimony
Site and Vehicle Examinations
If possible, call us immediately after an accident occurs so we can attend the crash site and document evidence before it is altered and destroyed. We can also provide examinations after vehicles are moved to a holding compound.
During examinations, we use still and video cameras to document evidence and measure the site to create a scale diagram. Any evidence found is secured for analysis. At the holding compound, vehicles are photographed and the location of collision evidence is measured along with the profile and magnitude of crush. The status and functioning of safety devices are documented – the Crash Data Retrieval toolkit is used to download crash data from air bag control
Accident Analysis
If required, we re-attend the collision site or vehicle for additional observations and analysis. At a collision site we may set up a roadway grid to document the speed, position, and specific behaviours of drivers – captured by video camera mounted to a 20-foot pole. The output displayed from a radar gun is videotaped to assess the likely speed of typical vehicles, which is used as a reference toward estimating the actions of an accident-involved driver.
We re-create night time accident scenarios using similar vehicles and lighting conditions. Police assistance may be used to close a road segment or natural reactions are obtained without a driver’s awareness of the testing.
NASS
The National Automotive Sampling System (NASS), a division of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), is an invaluable database to those in the insurance and legal industries.
The Crashworthiness Data System (CDS) of NASS keeps data on thousands of crashes. Research teams at Primary Sampling Units across the country study 5,000 crashes annually. Skid marks, fluid spills, broken glass, and bent guardrails are studied at crash sites. Vehicles are then located to be photographed, measured, and to identify the interior locations struck by occupants. Researchers then interview crash victims and review medical records to determine the nature and severity of injuries.
There are more than 140,000 crash files in the NASS CDS. Although they are designed for analysis with a specialized statistical analysis package, analysis can also be conducted simply by going to the Web site and selecting a list of cases meeting specified criteria.
Recent Posts
The Cause of a Collision is Not the Same As What Caused a Death
The Hamilton Spectator Newspaper quoted the Hamilton Police Reconstruction Unit when they indicated that the cause of the collision which killed Mohammed Deeb on Lawrence Road in Hamilton, Ontario on March 31, 2018 was a combination of speed, wet roads and drug...
Clarke Road Russian Roulette Almost Claims Its First Victim
Gouges in the pavement, fluid spray and vehicle debris mark the location of a significant head-on collision on Clarke Road North of Fanshawe Park Road over the weekend. While the official news media have not mentioned it, a serious, head-on collision occurred on...
Historical Patterns of Loss-Of-Control Events At Specific Road Locations
Further to our earlier news post of March 25, 2018, where we reported that 96% of loss-of-control vehicles travelling southbound through the S-curve of Clarke Road in London are not documented, we have now finished a detailed article discussing the research and its...
Speculation Is Typical As Eight-Member Hart Family Perishes Over West Coast Cliff
Eight members of the Hart family were reported killed when their vehicle travelled off the Pacific Coast Highway near Westport California. We should come to accept that speculation will always exist, in one form or another, in the thoughts of many persons when...
Ninety-Six Percent of Loss-Of-Control Vehicles That Slide Through An Opposing Lane Are Never Documented In Police Records
Research by Gorski Consulting indicates that vehicular loss-of-control events would need to be very obvious or deadly before they become noted in police-reported collision data. The latest findings from an eight-year-long research study conducted by Gorski Consulting...
Limited Truck Acceleration & Maximum Speed – A Dangerous Game of Russian Roulette
You know this could end badly! There are many policy-makers who trust their data and researchers to conclude that something is a good idea. One such good idea was the limiting of truck speeds in Ontario to just over 100 km/h. That seemed fine because these trucks...
Uber Pedestrian Fatality In Tempe Arizona – An Opportunity But Also A Responsibility
Video has been released showing the circumstances where a pedestrian was struck and killed by a Uber vehicle that was reportedly in fully autonomous mode in Tempe, Arizona on March 19, 2018. Experts have been quoted as saying the vehicle’s lidar systems should have...
How Do We Police the Police?
Ontario’s new Police Act bill has been passed but it is uncertain whether its changes will be beneficial. Increasing the power of certain oversight bodies does not necessarily increase the benefits to society when monitoring and evaluating police actions. The question...
Everyone Knows Why Pedestrian Collisions Are On The Rise – That Is The Problem!
There is no need to obtain better data on why pedestrian collisions are on the increase. To almost all of us it is obvious. Why bother with more studies and statistics and data and ….We are all experts on why pedestrian collisions and their associated injuries and...
Fatality From Possible Harpooning of Vehicle by Guardrail on Hwy 400 – How Could This Happen?Fatality From Possible Harpooning of Vehicle by Guardrail on Hwy 400 – How Could This Happen?
Why are police and news media not informing the public that the harpooning of the vehicle by a guardrail where a fatality occurred earlier this morning is not an acceptable consequence? Police and news media seem to be avoiding the obvious as a vehicle was reportedly...
Harpooning Risks Continue To Exist Despite Gorski Consulting Warnings
This impact damage to the east railing at Wharncliffe Road and Horton Street in London in February, 2018 has not raised any safety eyebrows. Gorski Consulting has made several references to the dangers of roadside rails that, upon impact, create an exposed end of the...
Canadian Class Action Settlement of Roadside Barrier Controversy Has Done Absolutely Nothing For Innocent Victims
Imagery from Google Maps shows an ET-Plus terminal that has jammed, likely as of an impact, on the northbound lanes of the Red Hill Valley Parkway at Queenston Road in Hamilton, Ontario. Did this ET-Plus terminal perform as it was designed? Gorski Consulting has...
Another Drowning Death Receives Minimal Attention
The repetitive circumstances by which another driver died in relatively shallow water has received essentially no coverage in the official news media. The City-Pulse 24 News in Toronto published a brief mention of the incident, written by the Canadian Press, where...
Yet Another Possible Vehicle-Related Drowning West of Orangeville
While scant information is available news media report that a vehicle entered the Grand River west of Orangeville and a child occupant of the submerged vehicle is missing. Just after posting the news item below regarding the drowning near Jarvis, Ontario, news media...
Sympathy For Kernaghan Family Should Be Accompanied By Active Investigation Of Why And How Their Fatal Collision Happened
13-year-old Avery Kernaghan was killed in a collision on Glendon Drive west of London, Ontario on Saturday, February 10, 2018. Her father, Douglas, remains in critical condition. As noted numerous times on this website, sympathy for the surviving family and friends of...
Highway 401 Median Barriers – Review of Historical Data on a Re-Ignited Controversy
In the last several years a controversy has erupted in South-Western Ontario with respect to the incidence of median cross-over collisions occurring along the 118-kilometre segment of Highway 401 where no median barriers exist. This section of the busy super-highway...
Concern Over Recent Tragedies Fails To High-Light Need For Quicker Adoption of Automatic Emergency Braking
On high speed highways not all drivers are able to detect stopped vehicles or construction workers ahead of their path. Automatic detection and deployment of automatic emergency braking could be very beneficial but that technology may take a long time to reach the...
DROWNING DANGER IN WOLFVILLE NOVA SCOTIA COLLISION MAY BE UNDER-APPRECIATED
In a CBC news item entitled “Angel who pulled teens from car wreckage says he’s no superhero” the public may be rather skeptical when observing the photograph of the collision site where Richard Kirk found a car upside down in a water-filled ditch near Wolfville, Nova...
VIEW OF THE DAMAGE TO THE CAR THAT WAS FOUND UPSIDE DOWN IN THE WATER-FILLED DITCH.
Depending on whose viewpoint, the image of the scales of justice is not always complimentary. (An editorial comment by Zygmunt M. Gorski) Few structures in society are as important as a reliable system of justice. In the end, that reliability rests on the wisdom,...
WHY ARE THERE RECENT INCREASES IN TRAFFIC FATALITIES?
In the fall of 2017 the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released figures for the number of roadway deaths that occurred in the U.S. in 2016. 37,461 persons were reportedly killed which represented an increase of 5.6 percent over 2015. This...
$237,000 IN LEGAL COSTS FOR A $20,000 CLAIM!!!
OK, we accept that we live in a new world where the President of the United States has a “I’m Fake News” label stitched to the back of every suit jacket. This is a world where law, justice, wrong and more wrong mean very little. But aside from the Trump vacuum the...
ADVENT OF THE SNOW CYCLIST
What would make a cyclist venture out on a cold and snowy day and into heavy traffic? Whatever the reason it is becoming more common on Ontario roadways. While many were happy when roads in North America began to become more cyclist-friendly, no one considered what...
CANADA’S TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BEING INFLUENCED BY OPERATIONS OF MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATIONS
What will we do if this Carillion dinosaur becomes extinct? Will your local grandma scramble onto Highway 401 and begin clearing it with a shovel?Privatization of the Province of Ontario’s road maintenance was sold to the public as a cost saving and the public...
MEDICAL SCOOTERS POSE A SAFETY PROBLEM WHEN SNOW FALLS
A Difficult Dilemma: A major snowfall blocks the sidewalks, an elderly person needs to make an essential trip, a medical scooter without proper warnings and reflective materials travels onto a lane of busy roadway. It is surprising that more elderly riders of medical...
SIDEWALK SNOW PLOW DEATH IN LONDON RAISES THE QUESTION OF THEIR SAFETY
While they are called “sidewalk” plows many of these small units actually perform work on roadways and other areas where they may be struck by larger vehicles. But there has never been any consideration put to evaluating their safety for the plow driver. On Tuesday...
About
Zygmunt Gorski has been involved in the analysis of motor vehicle accidents since 1980. Initially employed as an accident investigator with the University of Western Ontario Multi-Disciplinary Accident Research Team (1980-90), Gorski then worked as an Accident Reconstruction Consultant with a forensic engineering firm in Kitchener and Toronto (1990-95), before opening his own consulting business in 1995 which he continues to operate to this day. Although Gorski’s interest has always focused on the physical evidence resulting from motor vehicle collisions, he has been involved in a variety of analyses ranging from injury assessments in his earlier times to the use of multiple video cameras and roadway safety issues in more recent years.

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Gorski Consulting
361 Hale Street
London, ON
N5W 1G5
P: 519.453.2773
F: 519.457.1730