How Did Peel Police Miss Detecting A Dead Body In A Motor Vehicle Collision?

A spokesperson for Peel Regional police asked for “privacy of the families involved” in an e-mail reportedly sent to news media after it was revealed that Peel police investigators failed to detect the presence of a dead occupant in a November 1, 2025 collision near Chinguacousy Road and Queen Street in Brampton. Police reportedly did not begin a search until family members reported the deceased missing and police returned to the collision site and to the towing compound where the vehicle was transported. This is not a matter for “privacy” or requiring secrecy, it is a matter for public disclosure as to how this occurred.

It has been the expressed concern of Gorski Consulting that police investigations are focused on laying charges and their activities are focused on that element of a collision reconstruction. Rarely is it understood that the functioning of police cannot be on this narrowed focus but that protection of the public from all elements that could injury or kill them is an equally important activity. As no other entity exists that is given access to the details of a fatal collision police must take up that role of protecting the public, not just from driver criminal activity, but from common human activities, dangers related to vehicular issues and those dangers related to the roadway. This is just a reiteration of the well-known acronym “HVE” (Human-Vehicle-Environment) in road safety research.

So an important matter is the manner in which police conduct their investigations. Understandably the gathering of objective evidence from various vehicle components and modules that record crash data is an important activity. And such an activity is growing in its importance for laying charges against drivers. But how much of police investigation goes toward a scientific study of how a collision occurred and what objective physical evidence exists that can explain more about that collision? Unfortunately, as police focus on matters such as determining speed they do not focus on understanding the details of physical evidence. In the secrecy of their operations no one can confirm that there is some training toward the scientific study of collisions through a thorough examination of a collision-involved vehicle.

Heart surgeons cannot be expected to be expert in their work by taking a two-week course. And the same must apply to reconstructions of motor vehicle collisions. Proper training in collision reconstruction involves a long period of becoming familiar with the evidence that is supposed to be analysed. It is not as simple as being introduced to a slide-to-stop or a critical-speed-yaw formula for calculating speed. It must include detailed study and understanding of the physical evidence through many years of exposure to it. It cannot be a situation, which is presently common in police circles, where an individual is selected to be the reconstructionist for a period of five years and then he or she is shipped off to another department dealing with fraud or homicide. A collision reconstructionist must be a life-long analyst of collisions and his/her expertise must be based on a very long progression of examining many many collisions. It is that repeated exposure to many similar collisions that makes the reconstructionist an expert who can detect abnormalities when they do not fit the pattern of what has been observed in the past.

What happened with the Peel Regional Police investigation is not a matter to be kept secret. But this is often how the wheels run over the bumpy road and we never get down to fixing it.