Research by Gorski Consulting indicates that vehicular loss-of-control events would need to be very obvious or deadly before they become noted in police-reported collision data.
The latest findings from an eight-year-long research study conducted by Gorski Consulting has revealed that 96% of vehicles that go out of control and slide through the opposing lane while travelling around the curve of an 80 km/h highway are never documented in any police data. While these results may appear astounding they are fully supported by actual photographic evidence documented from detailed examinations of the test site where the research has been conducted.
These disturbing results may be related to the specific site where the research is being conducted and it may be questionable how these extreme results may be generalized to other sites. Yet, without anyone conducting research of a similarly detailed nature the specific extent of the problem has to raise some alarms.
The site of the research is located on Clarke Road north of Fanshawe Park Road and Gorski Consulting has reported many previous findings on this website. One of the findings reported in April of 2017 indicated that over 80% of loss-of-control collisions and incidents were not found in the police data of the London City Police Service. That may not be as alarming because one could imagine that there could be many, minor, loss-of-control incidents in the Gorski data that may not warrant reporting. Many of these would not involve the crossing of a centre-line into opposing traffic. While that comment may be partially true, it fails to recognize that many significant incidents were documented in the Gorski data that should have been reported to police but were not.
This latest data is even more compelling because it only looks at the specific incidents where the loss-of-control vehicle was out of control when it crossed through the opposing lane. Twenty-six incidents or such occurrences were documented and only one of these was documented in police records which leads to the 96% value that has been indicated. Five of the most current cases have not yet been verified with police data however examination of the physical evidence indicates that these five vehicles left the collision site without evidence of police involvement.
It is possible that many of these loss-of-control incidents may be occurring at night-time when there are few vehicles travelling through the site and this could be why there have not been any vehicle-to-vehicle impacts in the 26 incidents. While that is a possibility it remains unknown, and cannot be known, without further resources that can monitor the site more closely during night-time hours.
This research raises the question whether police, researchers and government policy-makers are relying on an accurate data-set that allows for a proper understanding of the vehicular loss-of-control problem on our highways.
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