Rainbow Bridge Explosion Yet No Explosive Materials Existed?
Initial concerns were that an attempted terrorist attack took place when a speeding vehicle “exploded” at the US Customs booths at the Rainbow Bridge crossing between the Province of Ontario and the State of New York. Subsequently FBI officials were quoted as saying :
“FBI Buffalo has concluded our investigation at the scene of the Rainbow Bridge incident. A search of the scene revealed no explosive materials, and no terrorism nexus was identified. The matter has been turned over to the Niagara Falls Police Department as a traffic investigation,”
The word “explosion” can be easily misinterpreted. News media frequently use this term when there has been a violent collision accompanied by fire. But the results of an explosion where explosive materials are involved are quite different than what you would see in a motor vehicle collision where no explosive materials existed. While the debris field at the Rainbow Bridge crash has not been shown in detail the descriptions suggest that some sore of explosion occurred that is not consistent with a typical motor vehicle collision. Since the FBI confirmed that “no explosive materials” existed, what caused the explosion?
It has only been a few days since the incident occurred it is reasonable to expect that some analysis will be needed by investigators to understand what actually took place. Even if no event data recordings are obtained from the vehicle a rudimentary speed calculation can be made by examining the launch angle and the trajectory up to the landing of the vehicle. And analysis of the video can also approximate the vehicle speed.
What may not be easily understood is what factors were at play to cause the vehicle to accelerate to such a very high speed in a confined distance. When there is doubt investigators often revert to the catch-all that driver error or intent must have been at play. Yet there are incidents of “sudden unintended acceleration” that may be related to the more complex control systems that exist in more modern vehicles. When potential vehicle defects could exist it is difficult to confirm when large vehicle manufacturers maintain their proprietary information close to their chests. It is quickly forgotten that defects can exist for a number of years, sometimes with manufacturer knowledge. An example of this involved the GM ignition switch defect of a few years ago which resulted in the deaths of at least hundreds of vehicle occupants before a discovery was made by an independent mechanic that a defect existed in the GM ignition switch.
Tractor-Trailer Rollover of Concrete Median Barrier Displays An Inconvenient Reality
The Ontario Provincial Police are not consistent in all areas of the Province in the manner in which they provide the public with crucial information needed to keep them safe. However its Highway Safety Division did an excellent job in providing four photos of a collision site on Highway 400 near Barrie, Ontario where safety issues have been well documented. The collision occurred near Mapleview Drive and involved a tractor-trailer which came to rest over top of the concrete median barrier. While the road tractor remained on the proper side of the barrier the trailer fell onto the opposite side and spilt its load into the opposing lanes. The OPP indicated that multiple vehicles were involved but that injuries were only minor. The three remaining OPP photos are shown below.
The results shown in these photos indicate that the concrete barrier was of some limited success in preventing the tractor-trailer from crossing into the opposing lanes of the highway. The height of the barrier is not known at this location however barrier heights have an influence on the ability of large trucks to tip over them and better control can be had in preventing rollover when a barrier is taller.
In the US The AASHTO has published a manual called the “Manual for Assessment of Safety Hardware” or MASH. It provides for test procedures of various roadside barriers. It is not clear how Ontario determines whether their roadside barriers perform to a similar standard. And this is an important point. No one seems to ask this important question about roadside barrier performance in Ontario. What standards are accepted and why? Many organizations including police, news media and others ought to be engaging the public in a discussion about what is an acceptable level of risk to the public.
School Buses Have A Propensity To Wander
While school buses are generally safe for transporting thousands of students each day in Ontario, they have their vulnerabilities. Many drivers of passenger cars have noted that even when they do not apply much pressure to adjust their steering wheel their vehicle continues to maintain a straight line path. That is not the case with school buses.
Bus drivers must maintain a continual lookout for deviations in a school bus path because even a momentary lapse can cause the bus to veer out of a lane. This problem is more important at highway speeds and when school buses must frequently travel on lower volume roads which are narrower. Furthermore many of these low volume roads may contain a hard surface but the surface is a tar and chip variety which frequently contains bumps and depressions, more so than an asphalt paved surfaces.
On gravel roadways school buses have a further disadvantage because of their wider track width. If one looks at a typical gravel road one will find that there are typically three channels of beaten down or bare surface. These are caused when light duty vehicles use the centre of the road thus the driver’s side wheels follow the same path regardless of whether a vehicle is travelling one direction or the other. But larger vehicles such as school buses cannot fit into these channels and inevitably the right side wheels of a bus end up travelling on the less beaten down and loose gravel that is outside of these channels. What may not be appreciated is that loose gravel contains a lower co-efficient of friction than hard-packed or bare gravel. This difference in the co-efficient of friction is what can cause different tire forces on the right versus the left of the bus centre-of-gravity. Such differences in tire force is what causes “yaw” or rotation and thus loss of control.
The combination of these facts makes it important that bus drivers maintain a constant lookout whenever travelling at highway speeds along back roads. Because of school bus driver shortages there are occasions when inexperienced drivers end up driving along a back road at highway speed without appreciating what dangers exist.
Red Hill Valley Judicial Inquiry Final Report Pending
A technical report that was written ten years ago became missing and from this millions of dollars have been spent trying to explain how this happened. Such is the reality for the citizens of the City of Hamilton who will pay all the expenses.
The latest news posted on the website of the Red Hill Valley Judicial Inquiry is that a final report, to be delivered by Justice Herman Wilton-Siegal, will be available on November 29, 2023. The report should provide a summary of the vast testimony that was complied over the years with respect to how a technical report, the Tradewind Report, became lost, or purposely hidden. The Tradewind Report provided the results of testing on the surface of the Red Hill Valley Parkway in Hamilton, Ontario. Those results showed that the road surface was substandard, although much argument has been made during the inquiry about whether any standards exist, or which standards are applicable.
What should stand out from all this is the time and expense involved. in May, 2019 Justice Wilton-Siegal was appointed to lead the Inquiry. By the end of April, 2020, it was reported that the Inquiry already spent close to $2 million dollars. No further accounting has been made available as to what the current expenses have been. It was noted by news media that the City of Hamilton reserved a total of $7 million for total potential Inquiry expenses. That money will be coming from City of Hamilton taxpayer pockets. The Inquiry has been operating for about 3 1/2 years now and undoubtedly, participating lawyers representing the participants in the Inquiry have been submitting their invoices. We will see shortly what has become of all this time and expense.
However the end of the Inquiry is not the end of the matter. A class action lawsuit may be pending in the amount of $250 million. Again, whatever is resolved from that will be paid again by City of Hamilton taxpayers.
Was Truck Break Through of Guardrail A Factor In Driver’s Death? – Updated
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) announced on their Twitter feed that a fatal tractor-trailer collision occurred in the early hours of November 21, 2023 in the westbound lanes of Highway 401 between Highway 59 and Sweaburg Road at Woodstock, Ontario. They subsequently posted a photo of the crash site which is reproduced above.
OPP in its Central District frequently attach 3 or 4 photos of an accident site and this provides some idea of what might have transpired. Yet in other districts such as the Western District, very few photos are ever posted. Thus the single photo provided in the present case is, at least, an improvement. Yet the content of the photo shows how much information the OPP fail to disclose.
As shown in the above photo a tractor-trailer has travelled into the north ditch of the highway. One can clearly see that a long length of damaged guardrail is attached to the base of the trailer. This would suggest that the truck plowed through the guardrail as it travelled to its final rest position. As noted many times before on this Gorski Consulting website, the simple impact of a guardrail should not cause fatal injuries to the occupant of a vehicle involved in the crash. And this is particularly true when a very massive tractor-trailer is involved. So what happened? Police have provided no explanation. And a single photo is clearly insufficient to provide a proper explanation.
When police close a highway to investigate a fatal collision they are the only ones who can know what happened and what factors led to the death of the victim. Withholding information from the public about that death can contribute to future deaths by keeping the public ignorant of important dangers. As an analogy, if a Coroner investigates the poisoning death of a victim, would it be appropriate to keep the public from knowing the danger of the poison that killed the victim?
Even the single photo above demonstrates that there are some concerns. The left side of the tractor-trailer is resting next to the end of a large concrete catch basin. Such concrete structures exist all along the sides of the highway and help provide drainage or the passing of small streams beneath the highway. It is very important to make sure that vehicles do not strike these stiff and immovable objects.
The police provided only a single photo and that photo provides a poor view of the cab area of the truck. Yet from this distant view it appears that there is substantial damage to that cab. This damage is unlikely to have come from contacting the guardrail because the cab area is so high above the level of the rail. And, because the truck remained upright, it could not have come from striking the ground. It is possible that the truck struck something else that is not shown behind the photo but that appears less likely. The most logical conclusion is that, having plowed through the guardrail the road tractor struck the end of the concrete catch basin and this is what killed the driver. But why did the OPP not provide that explanation? Or more simply, why did the OPP not provide an additional photo or two so that someone could derive a better interpretation of the evidence?
It is a common problem that Highway 401 does not contain the types of roadside structures that can properly contain large vehicles such as trucks and buses. Yet, on any given day about half of the traffic volume is made of of large trucks an buses. This means that half of the driving public is not properly protected when vehicle exits the road surface at highway speed. This is an important fact. It may be costly to increase the protections of the roadsides of Highway 401 but it is a debate that needs to be had by the public. The debate cannot be had if the public is kept in the dark about these dangers.
Just as important, many truck drivers are also kept in the dark about the dangers that exist to them on this highway. This is all because police, politicians, news media and others are failing in their duties to inform and protect the public.
UPDATE: November 22, 2023, 0700 Hours
News media are now reporting that the truck was engulfed in flames upon arrival by emergency personnel. Nothing was mentioned about the fire in earlier reports. This type of delay or lack of notification is common whenever a vehicle fire is involved. It is also common that no mention will be made whether the fire was related to the driver’s death or what caused the driver’s death. In a scenario where a truck rides over a guardrail the chaos can create potentials for vehicle fires where the metal of the rail can puncture vulnerable areas of the truck and/or can set off sparks that lead to a fire. None of this can be properly assessed without better evidence such as more photos around the accident site.
SIU Failure To Obtain Crash Data In Police Vehicle Impact of Cyclist Returns To Broader Issues Of Transparency
In any investigation of a serious motor vehicle collision the downloading of crash data from a vehicle’s event data recorder must be a primary activity. Yet Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) often fails to gather that critical evidence in their investigations. Why this happens is unclear.
An example of this is demonstrated in the SIU Director’s Report with respect to a cyclist who was struck by a Toronto police vehicle on Pembroke Street in downtown Toronto on July 12, 2023. While the incident was of a less-serious nature a review leads to broader issues of SIU transparency.
Brief SIU History
The SIU has a long history of continuous struggles with transparency. The very reason for its existence commencing in 1990 is that there was a lack of transparency when police departments were allowed to investigate their own potential misconducts. The SIU was formed to provide the important transparency to ensure the public. As has been noted numerous times by others: Justice must not just be done, it must be seen to be done. That “seeing” is the difference between an autocratic regime that we want to avoid, and one that is a benefit to our society by providing assurance that the rule of law is carried out blind to all biases.
Key criticisms in past history have included the reports of Ontario’s Ombudsman, Andre Morin, who highlighted the political interference with the SIU’s investigations in years around 2008. To many it became clear that the SIU’s operations were too secretive. In April, 2016, Toronto’s Mayor John Tory had the following comment:
“When people can’t see what’s going on, no matter what the result is they tend to have less faith in the process that lies behind it,” Tory said. “There’s not enough transparency now and I think as a result people misunderstand what goes or what they think goes on.”
In April, 2016 an article published by the Canadian Press noted:
“Despite years of outcry from critics saying the public should be able to scrutinize the watchdog’s decisions, particularly in cases where an officer is not charged, the document is considered confidential by the SIU and Ministry of the Attorney General.“
In April, 2016 a comprehensive review of the SIU’s operations was assigned to Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Michael Tulloch. The following year he released his report outlining 129 recommendations, including the general premise that more power be given to Ontario’s police oversight bodies. In the fall of 2017 the Safer Ontario Act was supposed to act on many of Tulloch’s recommendations and the law was passed in March of 2018. Yet, in the summer of 2018 a new Progressive Conservative government, led by Doug Ford, quashed the new law describing it as “anti-police” legislation. A new law entitled the Comprehensive Police Services Act was introduced in the late winter of 2019, which generally cut back on the powers of the SIU.
The report of Justice Michael Tulloch was to improve the operations of the SIU. But after much work, expense and delay it was shelved by Doug Ford’s government. And so this is where we stand today.
The Cyclist Incident
In the subject incident the cyclist allegedly had attempted a robbery and assaulted a store owner before he fled on his bicycle. During the subsequent police chase the cyclist came to be riding southbound along the narrow confines of Pembroke Street. The SIU did not provide a view of the collision site in their report. The image below is taken from Googlemaps and is a view looking south from the north end of Pembroke Street. The SIU reported that the collision with the cyclist occurred about 100 metres south of this location, or in the background of this view.
Pembroke is a one-way street, is short in length and parking is allowed along its east side. It contains a posted speed limit of just 30 km/h. The southward view below shows the area where the SIU reported that the impact occurred, which is in the vicinity of #109 Pembroke Street.
One can see in the above image that there are fences at the edges of the properties of both sides of the road so there is no practical way that the cyclist could have exited the road. Thus he either had to travel on the road or on the sidewalk. Also this is a downtown location and parking is limited so that one would expect the parking spots to be filled with parked vehicles at the time of the collision.
A subsection of the SIU Director’s Report was entitled “The Scene” and such a section would normally contain information and evidence gathered from an examination of the collision site. However there was no mention about anything related to the site of the collision. In a further section of the report a note contained the following “Date and time SIU arrived on scene: 07/12/2023 at 6:10 p.m.” So it would seem that SIU investigators did attend the collision site. However there was no mention in the SIU report as to what was done or what was found. Instead “The Scene” subsection began with a discussion of the damage to the struck cycle and the impact evidence on the striking police vehicle. This finding is odd at best.
As someone who has conducted thousands of collision investigations for various clients I would certainly examine a collision site as quickly as possible knowing that crucial evidence can easily be destroyed. Failing to find any evidence at a site examination is odd, particularly because the SIU was notified perhaps 5 or 6 hours after the incident occurred, which, in terms of my experience, is a short delay. Given the severity of the impact to the cycle, at a minimum, scrapes should have been observed on the road surface showing the path of the cycle to final rest. And sometimes a tire mark can be seen from the rear tire of a cycle as this is pushed down into the pavement. Thus this could identify the point of impact.
Timing of the incident events is also confusing in the SIU report. The SIU reported that it was informed of the collision by the Toronto Police Service (TPS) on July 12, 2012, at 4:03 p.m., and the TPS told the SIU that the TPS received an initial 911 call on July 12, 2022 at 11:24 a.m. informing them of the attempted robbery and assault. Yet, in the section of the SIU report entitled “Global Positioning System (GPS) Data” it was reported that the collision occurred “At about 10:09:25 a.m.” or about an hour and 15 minutes before the robbery was even reported. Clearly this discrepancy is not difficult to observe. Yet the SIU report made no mention of it. Even if there was some reasonable explanation, that was obvious to the SIU, that explanation should have been provided in their report.
Furthermore, in the “TPS Communications Recordings” section of the report the opening sentence stated as follows:
“On July 12, 2023, at 9:27 a.m., a man called 911 and reported that another man had “assaulting a store owner”. Banging could be heard in the background. The caller said the man had thrown things at the store owner. Within the first minute of the call, the caller said the Complainant had left the store riding a bicycle towards Gerrard Street East.
At 9:32 a.m., two officers were dispatched.
Starting at about 9:40 a.m., the store owner called 911. A few minutes into the conversation, it sounded as if he said the police had arrived. The phone call was disconnected.“
So once again there is confusion. A call was made to the TPS at 0927 a,m. reporting the assault of the store owner. Why did the TPS inform the SIU that the initial 911 call was made at 11:24 a.m.? There could be some reason for this difference in times but the SIU has not provided any comment about these obvious discrepancies.
The analysis of the GPS data from the police vehicle made it obvious that such data does not provide precise information about vehicle speed. Rarely has this been acknowledged in previous SIU reports with respect to other previous collisions. The SIU report made that acknowledgement, as follows:
“The GPS data did not assist with determining whether the SO had accelerated or decelerated prior to the collision, or as the collision occurred. Only a Crash Data Retrieval (CDR) system download of the cruiser could determine if such had occurred. No CDR download was provided to the SIU, likely because there was insufficient force or damage for the air bag module to have recorded an event.“
Any investigation of a collision involving a modern, light-duty, motor vehicle must assess whether there is crash data stored in an event data recorder (i.e. “Black box”). The SIU correctly informed readers that the GPS data could not determine important facts such as braking or acceleration or even the precise speed of a vehicle in a collision. GPS data can only provide an estimate of an average speed between two points in time. And since those points in time could be substantially distant from a collision reconstruction point of view, it can be of minimal “assistance”. The SIU correctly confirmed that only a download of the data using a Crash Data Retrieval system can obtain that important collision reconstruction evidence. But note the wording used in the SIU report: “No CDR download was provided to the SIU, likely because there was insufficient force or damage for the air bag module to have recorded an event”.
No CDR data was provided? Not provided by Whom? Who was responsible for providing the CDR data to the SIU? Was the TPS, which is not an independent entity, and who might be held liable for the actions of its officer, supposed to provide the data to the SIU? Why does the SIU wait for CDR data that never arrived when its own investigators should have been responsible for going to the police vehicle and conducting the CDR download themselves?
And note the words again in the SIU report. The CDR data was not provided “likely because”? Did the SIU know the reason why the CDR data was not provided? Their wording indicates that the SIU assumed and that makes no sense. The SIU should have attempted a download and, if there was no recorded data, should have made sure that there was no malfunction of any sort, and then should have reported, in their report, what actions they took along with the result.
If the SIU does not possess a CDR system including the up-to-date software accompanying it then that is a huge problem. No investigative agency, and particularly an agency that must evaluate sensitive collision issues on a regular basis, can operate effectively without a CDR system and without qualified personnel trained in operating the system and interpreting its results.
This is why the impact analysis of the SIU becomes questionable. The SIU reported that, at the time of impact, the police vehicle was travelling “about 41 km/h”. But there was no explanation how that speed was determined. The SIU reported that the police vehicle slowed to about 24 km/h as it turned onto Pembroke Street and that it took about 10 seconds to travel 100 metres to the point of impact. It is true, as stated in the SIU report that a travel time of 10 seconds over a distance of 100 metres results in an average speed of about 36 km/h. And if the SIU believed that the police vehicle was travelling at 24 km/h at the beginning of that 100 metres then it might be travelling at something like 41 km/h at the end of the 100 metres, if the 36 km/h average was to be accomplished. But who knows? The SIU did not explain its analysis methods it only reported its conclusions.
The SIU report indicated that the police vehicle was stopped 15 to 20 metres south of the location of the collision at about 11 seconds after impact. The SIU report then indicated:
“The distance between the collision site and where the SO stopped after the collision would suggest he did not apply the brakes immediately before or during the collision and skid to a stop. Had he applied the brakes immediately before or during the collision, he would have skidded to a stop in about eight metres.“
Yet the SIU did not see anything inappropriate with this set of facts. An obvious question is, why did the subject police officer not apply his brakes to any degree of severity at any time before or during the collision? The SIU report indicated that the cyclist had been travelling on the east sidewalk but then a police cruiser turned and blocked the cyclist’s path. The cyclist then turned onto the road. The SIU concluded that when the cyclist turned onto the road just before impact this did not give enough time for the Subject Officer to apply his brakes. But what view obstruction existed that prevented the officer from seeing the cyclist?
The SIU appeared to accept that the public did not need to see the video footage that would have come from the forward facing camera of the striking police vehicle. Copying a frame from such video and posting it in their report would have clarified what the Subject Officer experienced just before impact. And posting such frames is not a difficult task. Yet it was not done. So the SIU interpretation of that video footage must be accepted without verification. But clearly readers on not fooled by this lack of transparency. In part of that interpretation the SIU reported:
“The SO’s cruiser came into view just a short distance behind the Complainant’s bicycle and continued until it struck him. The Complainant screamed and was flung about a couple of metres ahead to the side of the roadway near the west sidewalk. The SO came to stop. WO #1 approached the Complainant, who continued to scream in pain, and held him to the ground. He and WO #2 took control of the Complainant, who kept screaming in pain and said, “I didn’t do nothing,” while struggling with officers. He had bruises to his right elbow.“
Recall that the SIU believed the police vehicle was travelling at 41 km/h when it struck the cycle. Yet the cyclist was “flung about a couple of metres ahead”. If the cycle and cyclist were struck by the front of the police vehicle at 41 km/h the cyclist and cycle would have to be accelerated to something close to 41 km/h as the police vehicle would not be slowed by the impact and the police vehicle did not magically pass through the victim. Yet why does the SIU use this very imprecise description that the cyclist was flung “a couple of metres ahead”? If the collision site was properly assessed the SIU should have known precisely how far the cyclist and cycle were thrown after the impact. But it seems the SIU did not have information about that. Or perhaps they just decided not to report it? Unresolved questions like these are developed that bring suspicions to the SIU’s credibility.
If the cyclist was fleeing police when he was struck one would have to believe that a cyclist speed of 20 km/h would be the lowest possible speed that would fit this scenario. The speed of 20 km/h is about average for a rider of a road bike who is not in any particular hurry to get anywhere. But if the police cruiser was travelling a 41 km/h when it struck the cycle then the difference in speed between the cycle and the police vehicle would have to be about 21 km/h or less. Looking at the damage to the rear wheel of the cycle does not suggest that the speed of impact was 21 km/h or less. The SIU chose to describe the impact as “…the SO’s vehicle bumped the rear tire of the bicycle” that would hardly be an accurate description. Viewing the collapsed rear wheel of the bicycle this was more than just a “bump”, it was a solid impact.
The SIU report also makes no comment about how poorly the cyclist was treated after the impact. While the cyclist sustained a fractured ankle other injuries should have been apparent. Falling onto the ground from a speed close to 41 km/h should have produced obvious abrasions to the cyclist’s body but these injuries were never noted. Although contusions at the cyclist’s right arm were reported that would not be the only visible injuries.
From the video recording we have the following SIU interpretation:
“The Complainant was placed on his stomach and his hands were cuffed behind his back. He stopped struggling but kept screaming. The officers placed him in a recovery position before he was lifted to his feet.
The Complainant was led to a TPS cruiser parked a short distance behind the SO’s cruiser. He limped and continued to scream and protest his innocence. He was placed against the hood of the cruiser, read his rights, and informed that he had been arrested for a robbery.
The Complainant’s backpack was cut off with a knife and he was searched. The Complainant kept screaming in pain, but an officer was heard saying he was fine, and nobody was hurting him. The Complainant said they hurt his leg. After the search, the Complainant was placed in the back seat of the cruiser.”
The cyclist had sustained a fractured ankle as a result of the collision and this is why he would have been “screaming” in pain. Yet, rather than address his injuries he was “lifted to his feet”. The SIU report indicated that between 10:10 a.m. and 10:46 a.m. the video “recording continued with little activity”. So the cyclist was left with no attention to his injuries for a period of 36 minutes. At 10:59 a,m. the cyclist was asked to step out of the police vehicle, without any consideration to his fractured ankle.
On a couple of occasions the SIU reported that the cyclist had fallen asleep. Again this is an interpretation that is not necessarily accurate. The cyclist could have sustained a concussion. While there were numerous occasions where the cyclist complained of his injuries, those complaints appeared to have been ignored. The cyclist was not delivered to a hospital until 11:27 a.m.
Much of the report on this cyclist incident has left unexplained questions. Questions that could easily have been answered. The most crucial of these is why the SIU did not take the action of obtaining the event data from the police vehicle. But also the SIU failed to provided frames from the video of the police vehicle that should have provided an indication of what opportunity the Subject Officer had to prevent or reduce the severity of the impact. Such unexplained failures do not help with the SIU’s credibility. Looking back over the years of the SIU’s turbulent history it has always struggled with transparency.
In-Vehicle Data Becoming More Secretive While Limiting Public’s Knowledge
A number of vehicle manufacturers are downloading and storing copies of private text messages from smartphones when they are connected to their infotainment systems. Software such developed by Berla Corporation does not allow the public to view those messages yet it allows law enforcement access. Some of these manufacturers are selling car owners’ data to various entities that are will to pay. So far courts in the U.S. have failed to control that practice.
Similarly, almost all manufacturers now install event data recorders or “black boxes” that record important information when a collision occurs. While such data is extremely valuable in resolving many collision causes the software and hardware to download the data is very expensive and thus unaffordable to the average citizen, even if they knew such data existed. In many instances of disputes with police or insurers average citizens cannot obtain data that could otherwise support their side of a disputed finding. Nothing is being done to remedy this by creating laws that allow average citizens the right to view their own in-vehicle data.
Most drivers are completely unware of these activities, causing them to drive forever in the darkness of data secrecy.
Collision Survival Needs Early “Deceleration”
A key concept to understand in protection from collision injury is the idea of early “deceleration”. Deceleration is placed in quotes here because, technically, there is no such word. There is only acceleration. When we speed up we have positive acceleration and when we slow down we have negative acceleration. However, we continue to use deceleration here because it is commonly understood.
When a motor vehicle collision occurs we are often influenced by the visible damage to the vehicles. We often believe that visible damage equates to collision severity and injury. While that is partly true, what is missing from this belief is that the damage to the vehicle only describes the severity of the collision experienced by the body of the vehicle and that is not the same as the severity of the collision experienced by the vehicle occupant. The body of a vehicle occupant makes contact with the interior of a vehicle shortly after the start of the impact experienced by the vehicle. When an occupant is unrestrained the occupant begins to move, with respect to the vehicle interior, at about 60 milli-seconds after the start of the vehicle impact. Unfortunately, in many serious collisions, that 60 milli-second delay can be huge and could be the difference between life and death. Since a serious collision can be completed in about 100 milli-seconds the vehicle can slow down greatly before the occupant’s body finally reaches the vehicle interior when contact is made. Remember, that an unrestrained occupant does not begin to slow down until contact is made with the vehicle interior. It is the difference in speed between the vehicle interior and the body of the striking occupant which determines the severity of occupant injury. So we can reduce the severity of injury if we can begin the deceleration of the occupant’s body as early as possible.
There are occupant protection systems in modern vehicles that cause early occupant deceleration. One is a seat-belt. But seat-belt webbings cannot have slack in them or their benefit can be reduced. If we want early deceleration we need to make sure that the lap belt is reasonably snug and positioned low on the pelvis and not high onto the abdomen. The torso webbing can have a little more slack just so that proper positioning can occur during ride-down, Modern seat-belt systems are equipped with pre-tensioners that cause the webbing to be pulled about 4 inches on it is tighter against the occupant’s body. However pre-tensioners cannot stop abdominal injuries the lap belt is positioned too high above the pelvic.
Airbags are also devices designed to achieve early deceleration. Airbags explode so that the bag inflation reaches closer to where the occupant’s chest and head are located. But airbags could be dangerous if the occupant is positioned too close to where the bag deploys, so that injury occurs when the occupant is struck by the expanding airbag.
Other devices such as deploying knee bolsters achieve a similar effect to the lower legs and knees. The combination of these various air bags and seat-belt restraints allows for the occupant to begin decelerating much earlier than if they did not exist and this improves occupant protection.
So remember this important concept of early deceleration. It applies to so many other areas of transportation where forces need to be lessened and controlled.
School Bus Tree Impact In Stratford Ontario
A school bus collided with a tree on John Street in Stratford, Ontario on the morning of Thursday, November 2, 2023. Photos of the collision such as the one above were posted on Twitter by the Stratford Police Service showing the extensive damage to the bus. While the collision was of substantial severity it was reported that 12 students were on the bus when the impact occurred but none were injured. It often begs the question: why did so many occupants appear to have been uninjured when photos such as the one above show so much damage?
In truth, at the time that this collision was reported, it was only a few hours after it occurred. While some students may have been uninjured some may not exhibit symptoms from soft-tissue injuries sometimes until a delay of 48 hours. While paramedics may have examined the students and released them that may only mean that they did not require immediate transfer to a hospital. But soft tissue injuries are often difficult to detect especially after such a short time after an incident.
Yet many would look at the damage in the above photo and draw the conclusion that this was a massive collision because of all the visible damage. After all, persons may have seen impacts of cars striking trees where fatalities occurred and the amount of visible damage was certainly comparable. And this is a false assumption.
Visible damage is an indicator of the kinetic energy that was dissipated, or used up, in a crash. Kinetic energy exists because objects (i.e. masses) are in motion. Kinetic energy is a product of the velocity of the object as well as its mass (or “weight” for easier understanding although not technically correct). Two vehicles travelling at the same velocity may possess different quantities of kinetic energy because they may be of different masses. So a school bus, because it “weighs” so much more, will possess a lot more kinetic energy than a passenger car. When an impact occurs kinetic energy becomes dissipated in order to bring a vehicle to a halt. But a vehicle which is more massive, like a school bus, needs to get rid of a lot more kinetic energy to stop than a passenger car. So when a school bus strikes a tree it may cause more damage to itself, and to the tree, because it had to get rid of that extra kinetic energy. So this can be confusing to some. The logic is that more damage must mean higher severity and that is not always the case. You must consider mass before you come to a conclusion about collision severity.
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