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.
Some Unimpressed With Speed of Cyclist Infrastructure Expansion
Many citizens are cynical about many improvements in their neighbourhood. We hear those comments all the time: Something not done right. Something done not fast enough. Something done by someone that cost too much. And so on. This is very visible along roadways where workers cannot hide from the public’s view. Workers appear to be doing very little or nothing at all.
The cynicism is apparent in the comments of many cyclists about improvements to cycling infrastructure. Cycling lanes are not being built fast enough. Cycling improvements are not only inadequate but dangerous. Whose decision was it to do it that way?
In the image below we encapsulate that cynicism through a photo of an elderly cyclist watching workers on Bradley Ave in London, Ontario where a new cycling path is being built. Not that the elderly cyclist is cynical, but he can be made to look that way.
For many weeks the traffic along Bradley between Wellington and White Oak Road has been disrupted and lanes were closed and heaps broken concrete and asphalt werre strewn everywhere. Then came the sand and gravel that laid the bed for the new lane. And finally the asphalt was laid. Pretty trimmings such as grass will likely follow just in time for the winter snow, when few cyclists will venture out to use the new path.
But when no one is looking some cyclists take advantage of the unfinished work, as shown in the photo below.
Signs such as the one below don’t always work.
Sometimes impatience reigns. When will this construction ever be finished? Our elderly cyclist might seem to be thinking that way.
Not what it used to be in my day. Work got done in the old days. Workers do nothing these days. Construction never gets done. Bah humbug. And off we ride away…
Hydro-Vac Truck Fatal Rollover Trial Is Complicated
The complexity of a heavy truck rollover will never be properly discussed in any news media reports of trial proceedings. This is due to the fact that, in many trial proceedings, that complexity is rarely acknowledged or properly evaluated.
A trial is presently underway with respect to a fatal collision that occurred on January 6, 2021 at the intersection of Bradley Ave and Jackson Road in the south-east industrial area of London, Ontario. It has been reported that Christopher Hamilton was driving a Hydro-vac truck which rolled onto a passenger car causing the death of the car driver, 39-year-old, Sarah Jones.
Official news media covering Hamilton’s trial indicate that he was charged with dangerous driving causing death. A focus of the news media was that certain “mandatory safety forms were not filled out on the day of the collision”. While not irrelevant, this fact should have little to do with whether Hamilton’s actions were dangerous and caused Jones’ death.
Not unexpectedly, the official news media also reported that the defense lawyer, Phillip Millar, spent considerable time grilling a health and safety manager for Royal Fence Ltd., Terry Didluck, for his actions in attending the collision site. Millar suggested that the company had sent Didluck to the site to conduct his own investigation. Even if Didluck did precisely that, it can hardly be called an unexpected activity. As an employee and company-owned vehicle was involved in a fatal collision it would make complete sense that a health and safety manager of the firm would attend the collision site to get further information as to how the collision occurred.
Official news media reported the Crown’s contention that the truck had working brakes but that it had “extreme weight” and that Hamilton’s speed was too fast. The Crown Attorney was quoted as saying “He didn’t leave time or space enough to brake”. These comments and allegations cannot be evaluated without more detail. What was meant by the comment “extreme weight”? Was the truck loaded above the provincial legal requirements? That was never clarified. And the comment that Hamilton did not leave time or space enough to brake, was there evidence that Hamilton did not brake? These are very important facts that have not been explained.
The travel direction of the truck was never revealed in the news media articles. However from the evidence at the site it is clear that the truck would have been travelling southbound on Jackson Road and then was in the process of making a right turn onto westbound Bradley when the truck rolled over. Some of the characteristics of the site and remaining evidence are shown in the following photos taken on October 29, 2023.
It would also seem unusual that, upon approaching the intersection with Bradley Ave, Hamilton would not stop for the stop sign since his view to the east would be limited by trees as shown in the two photos below.
Even if he did not come to a complete stop it would seem unusual that Hamilton would travel into his right turn at any great speed since he would need to evaluate the approach of westbound vehicles on Bradley. Many turns performed by drivers of passenger cars are done at speeds of about 20 km/h and a speed of a 30 km/h would be above average. However a heavily-loaded hydro-vac truck would need to make the turn at a slower speed.
The location of the gouges in the centre of the intersection pose an unusual situation because of their location. Presumably these gouges were caused when the Hydro vac truck began to rollover. However, why is the truck rolling over so early in its right turn? In typical rollover scenarios the rollover should begin after the truck has been turned to a critical angle which would be expected to be further to the south and west.
One might conclude that the gouges in the centre of the intersection were caused by the underside of the car that was eventually pushed to the southwest and then crushed by the truck. Since there has been no indication by anyone as to the position of the car before the impact this possibility cannot be nullified. However the gouges begin north of the centre-line of Bradley and it is difficult to believe that the car would have been in the wrong (westbound) lane as the collision unfolded. So it appears more likely that these gouges are from the Hydro vac truck.
One might also argue that the gouges at the centre of the intersection were caused by another major collision. However there has been no news report of a major collision at this intersection since January, 2021. Also if the gouges we caused by another collision it would be a large coincidence that the involved vehicles could have been travelling westbound and southbound and, after impact, they would have to travel into the same area where the Hydro vac truck was found.
Thus important questions about this collision need answers but these have not been provided in any news reports of the trial.
The official news media also reported that “In an agreed statement of facts the court has heard the industrial vacuum truck was travelling too fast in the intersection when the crash occurred”. While that may be the case, the fact that these facts were agreed upon by the opposing lawyers should not leave one with reasonable assurance of reality. Lawyers are not technical analysts and what they agree upon may be totally illogical. There has been no information provided as to how the speed of the truck was determined. The simple fact that it rolled over does not necessarily mean that the speed of the truck was unreasonably selected by Hamilton.
Many modern trucks are now equipped with engine control modules (ECMs) which are capable of retaining collision data, very much like passenger cars. But even when such trucks are equipped the recording ability is often shut off by the vehicle owner/operator. Even when such a recording is available specialized hardware is required to conduct the download and such hardware is less available than a download for a passenger car. So there is strong doubt that police ever conducted a download of collision data from this truck.
Why the truck rolled over may only be partially related to its speed. The propensity for motor vehicle rollover is affected by two parameters, one being the vehicle’s track width and the other being its centre-of-gravity. The track width is the lateral distance measured from the centres of two wheels, the right front and the driver’s tires for example. The centre-of-gravity of vehicle is a vertical measurement of how high the centre of its mass is from the ground. The track width does not vary from one journey to the next, but the centre-of-gravity can change depending on the cargo being carried and this is particularly important with heavy trucks. The news media reported Hamilton’s assertion that “…he had no way to safely check the load he was carrying” and, in a roundabout way, that comment is true. He might have some idea whether his truck was carrying a load close to the maximum allowable but he has to be able to appreciate how that weight would affect whether his truck would rollover. And there is no training or data that could tell him that.
With respect to many light vehicles the track width and centre-of-gravity has been studied for many years to the point that a specific measure, the Static Stability Factor (SSF), has been developed so that light vehicles can be compared to each other for their propensity to rollover. The SSF is determined by dividing the vehicle’s track width by twice the vehicle’s centre of gravity, or SSF = t/2h. Most light duty vehicles possess a SSF somewhere between 1.00 and 1.50. The lower the value of the SSF the greater likelihood that the vehicle could rollover. Agencies such as the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) have published such data to inform consumers about the safety characteristics of the vehicles they might purchase.
But what about vehicles such as Hydro vac trucks? There is no such data available. Certainly neither Mr. Hamilton nor Mr. Didluck would be aware of the SSF for the Hydro vac truck. And more importantly, the SSF value would change drastically depending on whether the truck was full or empty because the truck’s centre-of-gravity would change. But there is more.
The characteristics of the cargo being carried also has a relationship on the propensity for truck rollover. When a solid mass is carried the propensity for the load to shift can be rectified by strapping the load solidly to the truck. But when a liquid cargo is carried it cannot be strapped down and it has the propensity to slosh back and forth within the container in which it is stored. This is why for tanker trucks that carry liquids on a regular basis, baffles, or partitions, are purposely built into the tank to reduce the amount of sloshing and therefore reducing the potential for causing rollover.
But vehicles such as the Hydro vac truck do not necessarily carry liquid cargo. Sometimes the cargo may be substantially liquid and sometimes it may not, depending on what is sucked up. If the cargo on a particular day is more like a liquid it will slosh back and forth no differently than any liquid in a tanker truck. And this is where Hamilton’s comment is correct. How could he know the liquid character of the load he was carrying? He could likely know the cargo’s weight but not the percentage of its liquid form. When liquid sloshes in a holding vessel it has the effect of changing the lateral force that tips a vehicle over. Did the opposing lawyers who agreed “on the statement of facts” understand this? Unless there was an expert there to guide them it is likely that they would know nothing about this issue.
And so what about expert involvement? Will Hamilton’s trial include testimony by competent and unbiased experts who can guide the court through technical issues that they do not have the ability to determine on their own? Even when such expert opinion is available too often it is seen as an impediment to the court’s previous and obvious knowledge of who is innocent or guilty.
And here is the application of “lawn mower justice”. Lawn mower justice is where the justice system rides over top of all persons whether they are innocent or guilty. Without the public’s knowledge and intervention, the lawn mower continues to run because there is minimal accountability. The importance of catching and punishing guilty persons supersedes those instances where an innocent person’s rights are violated.
Why Does Nathaniel Veltman Plead Innocent In Multi-Death Muslim Trial?
With the re-explosion of the Isreali-Palistinian conflict the numerous incidents of hate crimes everywhere pose an even greater danger to all mankind. It exposes the obvious that many do not wish to acknowledge: hate only creates more hate, and intolerance only breeds more intolerance.
The greatest distributor of hate and intolerance in the current time is the internet. Not that it has to be that way. The internet has been a distributor of many good things. But because we refuse to post warnings to all that the internet’s drug can destroy our reasoning it has also become a poison. And the more we take, like any drug, the more damage it has on our critical reasoning. No better example exists than the senseless killing of a family of 4 Muslims in London, Ontario in June of 2021 by a crazed “white nationalist”, Nathaniel Veltman, who lost all sense of reality.
The Veltman murders would not be reported on this website, like so many murders, except for the fact that they occurred by use of a motor vehicle that became a convenient weapon. And so at rare times the reconstruction of motor vehicle collisions comes in touch with the purposeful taking of lives for wicked ends.
Initially, the trial of Nathaniel Veltman in Windsor, Ontario left questions regarding the pleading of the accused. He pleaded not guilty. Veltman, was described as a white nationalist. At the opening of the trial Crown Attorney Sarah Shaikh provided evidence of what Veltman told police: “I thought I needed to send a strong message” and “I was planning on killing” and “I knew what I did. I don’t regret what I did. I admit that it was terrorism”. Given these statements it seemed peculiar that Veltman reportedly pleaded innocent to the murder charges against him. Yet none of the news media attempted to explain this paradox.
Over the years I have been involved in a number of collision analyses where various entities have tried to twist the facts to fit some form of devious purpose. Reconstructionists have tried to twist the evidence to suggest that an unintentional collision was, in fact, purposeful. Police have misreported evidence in order to incriminate some innocent party. Lawyers have been notorious, on both sides, for twisting the facts, and surprisingly, judges have done the same. Therefore I become suspicious whenever someone lays out a theory of intent where a collision has occurred.
However the information coming from the Veltman trial has been compelling. A description of his past history matches the theory that Veltman was purposeful in murdering the Muslim family.
I cannot enter the mind of such a useless creature because there is no mind there to enter. As I’ve observed previously when attempting to reach similarly lost creatures, they do not have a capability to listen. They are merely devices that spew out their indoctrinated views which they have developed over many years of misguided logic. I am reminded of a lyric coined by Bernie Taupin, the guy who writes the words to Elton John’s songs. In the killing of John Lennon, mourned in the song “Empty Garden” Taupin’s lyrics commented “Its amazing how one insect can damage so much seed”, or something to that effect. Its that word “insect” which applies to Veltman. No capability to understand anything except destruction. Yet John Lennon was instrumental in touching the world with many positive lyrics including those from the song by the Beatles entitled “All You Need Is Love”, in which the lyric was repeated over and over again: All you need is love, all you need is love, all you need is love. How much has that advice gone by the wayside in our internet world where: All you need is hate, all you need is hate, all you need is hate.
I understand the importance of freedom of speech and thought. Even those who continually grind on our minds, like fingernails on a chalkboard, must be tolerated because those freedoms are so important.
In the last few days the lawyers from Veltman’s defense began their side of the story by bringing Veltman onto the stand. The news media quickly reported his words: “I was an outcast”. And so began the re-building of Veltman’s character. He was home-schooled by his strictly religious mother from kindergarten till grade 11. The battle with the very strict mother caused him to hate her. He began to recognize he was not normal and his “abnormal behaviour” was attributed to being home schooled. Once he was allowed to attend public school he began hanging out with the wrong crowd, drinking and using drugs. He started to visit extreme websites and started to “constantly watch this conspiracy theory garbage”.
From past experience it will be difficult for the jury, and the general public, to believe that Veltman was somehow not in control of his actions and that it was all because “The devil made me do it”, as if comedian Flip Wilson’s buying a red dress can be of any comparison. Even though there is a defense of insanity, that theoretical concept does not enter the minds of many when they also balance it with the need for vengeance.
But I return to the issue of internet brain-washing and our communal responsibility for its consequences. The internet has allowed the formation of isolated chat groups, much like isolated villages in the Amazon rainforest. There, persons of similar viewpoints, gather to encourage each other’s frustrations, often led by a fanatical shaman or two who possess better skills in inflaming those viewpoints. Misinformation is piled onto more misinformation like a pyramid, growing higher and higher in the minds of those who become less and less capable of separating myth from reality. In the minds of the indoctrinated there is never a belief that they have been indoctrinated, that possibility is out of the question. In such minds there is no such thing. If one were to bring them into a psychology course and spend substantial time describing how persons become brainwashed it would be a difficult task to get them to admit that such a thing is possible, let alone that they might be victims of such brainwashing. There were earlier times, before the internet, when such indoctrination and brainwashing existed only in limited contexts. But that is no longer the case. Now there are vast percentages of the human population that are affected. And few realize it.
Whatever the courts decide to do with Nathaniel Veltman is only one part of the issue. The other part is that we, as a society, are also to blame for allowing such a large number of easily-manipulated persons to become manipulated. As an analogy, in our society we understood the importance of telling our children about simple traffic dangers, such as looking both ways before attempting to cross a road. Now we are simply saying nothing. Let the children be free to discover the danger themselves, and if some pay the ultimate price, so be it. That is not the way it should be. The weaker members of society need our guidance. We need to tell them that crossing the internet “road” can be dangerous and we need to explain why in a manner that they can understand.
Painted Cycling Lane – Changes in Lateral Paths of Cyclists & Motor Vehicles
Further analysis has been completed by Gorski Consulting from the video documentation session of August 29, 2023 on Colborne Street north of St James Street in London, Ontario. The purpose of the research is to document the lateral position of cyclists and motor vehicles in order to provide some objective evidence about the safety of painted cycling lanes.
The research has been ongoing since early April, 2023 and a number of articles have been posted to this Gorski Consulting website. In the spring and summer three video sessions were carried out when a cycling lane had not yet be installed. Then, it August the cycling lane was painted. An additional session was conducted on August 29, 2023 so that this data could be compared to the previous dates when the cycling lane did not exist.
The lateral position of traffic units at the site was enabled by painting orange dots at 5-metre intervals along a distance of 50 metres. The dots were painted laterally across the northbound lane of Colborne at 20-centimetre intervals over a width of 3 metres. The zero point for this dots was the edge of the east concrete gutter of Colborne.
We now have completed documenting the traffic units by separating them into four categories: 1. Cyclists, 2. LTC Transit Buses, 3. Light Duty vehicles and 4. Heavy duty vehicles. The table of all these results is shown below.
This table now contains the data from observations before and after the painted cycling lane was completed.
Along the bottom row we can see the overall averages for lateral paths of all the traffic units. Before the cycling lane was installed the overall average position of all traffic units was 0.94 metres west of the concrete gutter. After the installation of the painted cycling lane the overall average of all traffic units was 1.57 metres west of the concrete gutter. So, overall, traffic was moved further away from the right side of the lane. Yet there are important differences when looking at the categories of traffic.
Looking at cyclists, their paths were moved slightly closer to the right of the lane and this is in contrast to the motor vehicles in the other three categories. Before the cycling lane was created cyclists rode at an average of 0.71 metres west of the concrete gutter. After the cycling lane installation that average was reduced to 0.58 metres. While the difference of 13 centimetres appears slight, it can be noted that the width of the cycling lane includes a junction between the concrete gutter and asphalt surface. This junction produces a potential danger that cyclists could lose control of their cycle when riding along that junction.
With respect to the three remaining vehicle categories their paths were all taken further away from the cycling lane and this is an important improvement. There have been criticisms of painted cycling lanes, particularly by cyclists who consider them of little effect, and some of that criticism is valid. However, it needs to be acknowledged that the findings from the present research indicates that there is some benefit to painted cycling lanes in that they help to separate cyclists from motor vehicles.
However not all painted cycling lanes are the same. Under certain conditions there can be safety problems which do not exist at the Colborne Street site. Situations where there is a curve in a roadway can cause traffic units to wander out of their normal position. Situations of upgrades and downgrades can also cause such wandering. And certain road characteristics such as surface depressions or manhole covers can cause such wandering. Each site and each roadway needs to be evaluated according to its unique conditions and mediation should be applied when necessary.
More broadly it needs to be acknowledged that cycling lane characteristics are not the only causes of danger and conflict to cyclists. In the analysis of motor vehicle causes it has been known for many decades that the acronym “HVE” applies. The Human, the Vehicle and the Environment are all broad categories of influences on collision causation. So too HVE applies to cyclist collision analysis. The Human that operates a cyclist obviously has an effect on collisions much like in motor vehicle collisions. And the cycling Vehicle cannot be ignored. Unusual cycle characteristics such as excessive widths can cause problems even in protected cycling lanes.
The concept of “clear zones” on roadways has been applied for decades so that motor vehicles are less likely to strike an immovable object such as tree or pole. Deformable and displacing barriers reduce the consequences of such interactions. But barriers are of minimal benefit in incidents involving cyclists. Cyclists have minimal protection when contacting anything, even of relatively minor mass, such as a post or a curb. In many instances the initial contact may be less severe than when a cyclist falls and hits their head on road surface or curb. Fatal head injuries, particularly when a cyclist is not wearing a helmet, are not uncommon in such instances.
The collection of objective evidence is a key objective in conducting cyclist safety research. But just as important is the dissemination of that research to the users of the road, the vast majority of whom may be unsophisticated and inexperienced in understanding what is dangerous to them.
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