On December 16, 2024, a 7-year-old boy, Dante Caranci, was killed shortly after exiting a school bus on Longwoods Road near Murray Road at the southwest outskirts of London, Ontario. Very little information was provided by investigating police and news media as to how the death occurred. This lack of information was discussed in a Gorski Consulting website article posted on January 8, 2025 entitled “School Bus Fatality Needs Transparency To Avoid Future Tragedies”. Just over six months later, on June 26, 2025, London City Police arranged a news conference in which they finally provided some basic facts.
Background
Police and news media reported that a school bus had come to a stop with its overhead lights flashing and that a stop sign had rotated out from the side of the bus. A large billboard erected at the news conference showed a school bus pointing eastbound on Longwoods road just east of Murray Road. It was reported that a 2023 Honda Pilot minivan, driven by Atir Gayyur Mir, 47, of Milton, Ontario, was westbound and approached the stopped school bus. For an unexplained reason Mir drove toward the school bus without stopping. At the same time Dante Caranci had exited the school bus and was crossing Longwoods Road, northbound, when he was struck by the minivan. It was announced that Mir was charged with dangerous driving causing death. Unusually, it was also announced that the bus driver, Jose Lema, 82, was charged with criminal negligence causing death. When asked why the bus driver was charged an unidentified police representative was quoted as saying “On Dec. 16, many safety steps were ignored by Mr. Lima, including failure to ensure, traffic was stopped, and it was safe for the child to exit the bus and cross the roadway.”
In an article posted by CBC news Acting Staff Sergeant Michael Anderson was quoted as saying “Reconstruction analysis showed Lema would have seen Mir’s car coming and not slowing down as Dante was getting off the bus, and it’s alleged he should have seen Mir’s vehicle coming”. However there was no information provided as to how police made that determination. From a review of the slim facts by Gorski Consulting there are concerns about this police conclusion of the alleged inappropriate actions of the school bus driver especially since no information was provided as to how that conclusion was drawn.
It is often stated that minimal information will be revealed by police because the matter is before the courts. And there is good reason why some information needs to be withheld. But too often this secrecy goes beyond reason, such that basic information that would not affect a court proceeding is withheld resulting in needless, detrimental consequences. The basic information that could have been released without jeopardizing the court proceedings is a description of what investigating police took into account in their investigation but not necessarily the detailed results of their investigation.
So, for example, did police conduct a thorough analysis and did they come to an understanding of a bus driver’s duties in a typical stop on a rural highway? Did they research what influences the bus driver is exposed to as he comes to a stop? Did police conduct a thorough study of where a bus driver looks and what he does before and during his actions to open the doors a school bus? Did police come to an understanding of the timing of the commencement of the bus lighting and the opening of the bus doors? What duties must a bus driver attend to as he brings a bus to a stop and how does the division of those duties affect what is he is able to detect and at what timing? What influence does a bus driver have on the actions of a child exiting a school bus? When a bus driver brings a school bus to a stop did police conduct a through analysis of what details of vehicular traffic a driver can see and what the limits are of perception of approaching vehicle speeds and distances? And what expert resources did police engage to gather all this input data? None of these explanations would affect the proceedings of an upcoming trial but it would help to clarify whether the police conclusions were based on a proper understanding and analysis.
Gorski Consulting has been involved in numerous analyses of police investigations over many decades. The unfortunate reality is that many of these investigations result in erred analyses and conclusions. Even simple problems like an over-reliance on what “witnesses” may say steers an investigation into unreliable conclusions. And the meaning of seemingly correct calculations have been misinterpreted. All these problems are often not revealed until a full disclosure is required prior to a trial and even then it requires a competent expert to reveal those errors. But the commencement of trials is sometimes delayed for years and during that delay an accused in believed to be guilty even though no one possesses a reasonably detailed understanding of the basis for such beliefs.
At this point it is necessary to address the issue of the competence of collision reconstructionists who intend to give expert evidence at trial. Often police reconstructionists are allowed to testify as experts because of the large organization that they represent and are a part of, and not necessarily because of their experience and competence. It is our opinion that reconstructionists with less than five years of experience are like green tomatoes; they are still tomatoes but they do not taste like red, ripe tomatoes and they need further ripening. I know this from experience in my early years of testifying at trials when I was recognized as a researcher and part of an accident research group providing analysis to Transport Canada. That position gave me credibility. At those times I testified as a crown witness in support of the prosecution in several trials involving fatal collisions. Because some of my work was in parallel with the London City Police I was able to testify at trial in support of their investigations. I have a vivid memory of how easy it was for me to be qualified as an expert, even though, through less than five years of experience, I was a green tomato who needed more ripening. And there is nothing wrong with green tomatoes. Even when they have been pulled off the vine they can be placed in the sun of a window sill and they will ripen. And every green-tomato reconstructionist can ripen when given time. In my view, police reconstructionists have to be accepted at trial to provide the results of their work but their findings have to be examined with caution. So it needs to be known who was the reconstructionist in the current case and something has to be known about his/her experience in what they are discussing.
This is important with respect to the guilt of the school bus driver. Given the general facts, a school bus driver is not well paid. And an 82-year-old school bus driver is often driving because they need that limited income during their retirement. So the likelihood that such a bus driver would have sufficient funds to properly support his defense is unlikely. Given the large costs associated with lawyers’ and expert fees it is likely that his defense will be affected by his ability to pay those fees.
While an operator of a school bus company must have mandatory insurance such an insurer rarely comes to the aid of a driver who is charged by police. This is because there are large defense costs involved but there is little benefit to the insurer. Whether the bus driver is found guilty or not is of little interest to the insurer except, or unless, the result of his trial might influence what outcome takes place in a subsequent civil trial. Almost exclusively Insurers only become involved after police charges are dealt with and a civil claim is commenced by the damaged party. Civil trials are where the real money becomes exchanged with respect to who pays for the damages of a collision. A Statement of Claim is generated by a lawyer representing the plaintiffs and that lawyer decides which entity will be named in the claim. These legal battles could take place between the insurers of the Honda Pilot which struck the deceased, it might involve the insurer who operates the school bus company, it might involve insurers of Student Transportation Services, and it might involve other entities if the plaintiff’s lawyer thinks there is a chance of secondary negligence of others, often with “deep pockets”, meaning they have money. Municipalities can be drawn into such Statements of Claim because they have the infinite taxpayers’ money available. So while the police investigation is in progress these insurers are already involving their legal representatives who are taking note of what is developing and they have some sense as to where the evidence will lead. The regrettable reality of this system is that insurers and their lawyers hire well-paid experts who conduct their work and their findings are provided in confidence to the insurers. Very rarely are these reports made available to a defendant like Mr. Lema in a criminal proceeding, even when evidence is uncovered that could help in Mr. Lema’s defense. However exceptions can occur if the insurer and their legal team believe that defending Mr. Lema might be a “feather in their cap” in the subsequent civil trial. This is how big money plays this game. But it needs to be appreciated that police are employed through public funds which, in theory, are also limitless so they are also big players in this complex network.
And all these players become nervous when a totally independent entity such as Gorski Consulting enters the arena with no obligation to anyone. There is much at stake to all entities and when Gorski Consulting can demonstrate decades of experience and acceptancy of expertise over many previous court attendances. This becomes of particular concern. If there was a way to silence this analysis many would wish that it be done.
However, Mr. Lema is placed in a precarious situation. It is important to ensure that someone is not found guilty because they could not afford to defend themselves. So it is important that the police investigation be scrutinized to ensure that it does not victimize this bus driver. And this is why it is important that police disclose facts about their investigation that would not reasonably interfere with a decision made in an upcoming trial.
Despite the continued lack of disclosed information the remainder of this article will review some of the important matters that need to be considered when evaluating the bus driver’s actions. Details such as the essential analysis and research findings required of the police investigation are unlikely to reach the public, even when a trial is conducted. Given the limitations imposed by the the lack of disclosed information some of the following discussion will need to be broader, but it could be narrowed in the future if additional information becomes disclosed.
Further Analysis
The police news conference has revealed that the school bus driver had been eastbound and had come to a stop in the eastbound lane of Longwoods Road just east of Murray Road. A view of the police billboard shown at the news conference is copied below. The view of this area can be appreciated by noting that a westbound left turn lane is widening into its full width near the left side of the view and this left turn lane is with respect to the intersection with Murray Road which is just out of view to the left of this depiction.
The shown stop location of the school bus exposes some safety problems. Persons at Student Transportation Services (STS) design school bus routes and they pay particular attention to ensuring that, when students exit a school bus, it is on the “door side”, or that the student is let off on the side of the road where they would not need to cross the road but walk to their residence off the right side of the road. But this is not what occurred at this site. At the time of the collision the student was let off at a location where he had to cross the highway in a northbound direction. Such a scenario is dangerous for two reasons. One, because the roadway at this location contains an additional, left-turn lane and therefore the student would need to travel a longer distance to cross the road during which he could be exposed to impact. Secondly, Longwoods Road in this area is posted with a 80 km/h maximum speed and average speeds of vehicles on such a highway are typically higher by at least 10 km/h than the posted speed.
STS will often require that a school bus drive past a drop off point, and travel to a location further along the road where there is an area to turn around, such as a parking lot, and then the bus is driven back to the drop off location but this time the student is able to be dropped off on the “door side” and does not need to cross a highway. At the present Longwoods Road site there is such an area about 600 metres east, where a bus can be turned around, as shown in the Googlemaps view below.
This location is a family restaurant on the south side of Longwoods Road described on Google maps as “Barnes Family Restaurant”. If the school bus needed to travel into London to drop off more children it could do so by travelling less than a kilometre westward along Longwoods Road to Kilbourne Road and then along Kilbourne into London. This procedure is performed along a number of other school bus routes in this area. So it is unusual that this did not occur. Did the bus driver ignore the route designed by STS and decide to drop off the child without turning around? Or did STS not create this route instructing the bus driver to turn around? In our view one of these two had to occur, but which one? And would it be an interference with court proceedings if, at the police news conference, they explained that this dilemma existed? We believe not. It would demonstrate transparency and provide information that the public has a right to know. Without this disclosure would the presence of this dilemma ever reach the public? After the trial begins several years later would a news reporter covering the trial ever reveal that to the public? In so many previous instances such information never reaches the public.
Bus Driver’s Line of Sight
An essential fact that must be determined is the eastward line of sight of the bus driver from the area where he brought his bus to a halt. The police claimed that Mr. Lema was in a position to see westbound traffic and that his action of letting Dante Caranci off the bus was inappropriate for that reason. The collision site contains a gentle curve such that the bus driver’s sight of westbound vehicles was limited. Determining the distance when the bus driver could first detect westbound traffic is crucial to the collision reconstruction. The overhead views of the collision site shown in the police billboard confirms that they either used a drone or a laser scanner, or both, to create detailed diagrams of the site. So it would not be a difficult matter to determine the bus driver’s line of sight with such technology. Because Gorski Consulting has not been officially retained in this matter it would not be financially practical to employ similar technology. However, an approximation can be made, for discussion purposes, using Googlemaps. That method is shown below by employing the “measure distance” tool. The measured distance below is just over 300 metres from a vehicle in the eastbound lane west of the area of impact eastward to a point where a westbound vehicle is shown driving in the westbound lane. Judging from the police billboard showing the bus stop position the actual line of sight might be shorter by about 20 metres. But at least we have not overestimated the distance.
In the above view we can see the measurement line passing through some trees on the north roadside so we know that the line of sight is not as long as what is shown, but it is close. On the other hand the shown measurement is a straight line, “As The Crow Flies”, so the distance around the curve would be slightly longer. Juggling these opposing facts, which counter each other, overall, a sight distance of 300 metres can be used as a conservative approximation for this continued discussion.
Average speeds of vehicles travelling on 80 km/h highways have been previously documented by Gorski Consulting at a number of locations in southern Ontario and, in our opinion, an expected travel speed of about 90 km/h would be reasonable to use in this exercise. At 90 km/h a vehicle travels 25 metres every second. So a distance of 300 metres would be travelled in about 12 seconds. Some complications, such as pre-impact braking, would change this scenario slightly but we want to keep this analysis as simple as possible. However, as an example, if the Honda Pilot was braked, at full braking for two seconds the speed lost on a wet pavement would be about 35 km/h.
Recently photos were taken at the collision site to demonstrate the visibility conditions. On December 18th, 2025 a vehicle was driven through the site in similar weather conditions and some of these photos were taken at a similar time as the collision. The photos below show the results of these demonstrations.
So this scenario demonstrates that, even in the best conditions, the school bus driver could not detect any westbound vehicle beyond 300 metres or 12 seconds before the vehicle reached the area of impact. However the unidentified police representative at the news conference stated:
“Reconstruction analysis showed Lema would have seen Mir’s car coming and not slowing down as Dante was getting off the bus, and it’s alleged he should have seen Mir’s vehicle coming”
So with considerable imprecision, police have stated that the westbound Honda Pilot minivan was less than 300 metres away when “some inappropriate action” was taken by the school bus driver. Or the Honda was less than 12 seconds away from the area of impact when the bus driver performed this inappropriate action. We cannot be more specific because the police statement does not contain enough precision. So for the purposes of this exercise let us insert a more precise term: At the time that the student was stepping off the last step of the bus the Honda was less than 300 metres, or less than 12 seconds from impact. Now we have something precise that we could work with because it could match the phrase above which discusses the point in time when Dante was “getting off the bus”. But this assumption cannot work because, if the student is stepping off the last step of the bus the bus driver must already have opened the bus doors. And if the bus driver had already opened the doors he must have made the decision to do so before that point in time. So we need to step back further in time and change the assumption.
So now we approach this by considering, at what point did the school bus driver form the decision of opening the bus doors and where was the westbound vehicle when he made this decision? The police claim that this was done when the Honda was less than 300 metres away or less than 12 seconds. And here we use the collision reconstruction technique of working backwards in time from the point of impact. Knowing the location of the point of impact we trace the student’s path backwards across the highway, around the bus that he exited, and through the bus interior to a point when initially left his seat. So this path has to occur in less than 12 seconds. And the school bus driver only opens the doors, as claimed by police, after he has observed the position of westbound traffic.
Identifying The Type of Involved School Bus
This scenario cannot be examined further until we consider what kind of school bus was involved and, again, police were not helpful because they did not identify the bus type. But we can look at their billboard and get some idea.
A typical, full-size school bus is about 12.4 metres long and it can be assumed that the width of a typical lane on many highways is about 3.5 metres. Looking at the figure of the bus in the police billboard, if it was a full-size bus its length would be almost 2 metres longer that the width of 3 highway lanes which would only be about 10.5 metres. But looking at the police billboard, if we were to rotate the figure of the bus by 90 degrees there is no way that it would stretch past the north and south edges of the pavement. So this was not a full-size school bus but something shorter and smaller. But there are several smaller school buses used in the London area. A very small school bus would be like a large GMC van as shown in the image below.
A larger school bus would be similar to the one shown below, though still not the size of a full-size school bus.
So one of the two types of smaller school buses shown above could have been the type involved in the collision being discussed. But there is no need to discuss this further since the specific bus will not be known. The type of school bus may be revealed at the upcoming trial. For the purposes of further discussion we will make the assumption that the involved bus was the smallest, similar to the 20-passenger GMC, van-based bus.
The photos below provide some details about the interior and exterior of such a small, van-based bus.
Bus Driver Duties While Approaching And Coming To A stop To Let Off Passengers
The point of all these concerns about bus types is because the travel distance of the child exiting the bus would be slightly different from one bus type to another. The time of passing through the bus interior, exiting the bus, and reaching the area of impact needs to be compared to the value of 12 seconds discussed above. If the bus driver could detect and identify the speed of the approaching westbound Honda Pilot when he had the opportunity to stop the student from exiting the bus then the time of that opportunity should be less than 12 seconds. So we need to consider if this 12 seconds is reasonable for all these actions to occur. Before this however we need to review the duties of a school bus driver on approach and during a stop to let off passengers.
As Mr. Lema approaches a stop location like this on Longwoods Road it would be expected that he would have done this before as most bus drivers have set routes that they perform daily. But that is not always the case. Sometimes replacement bus drivers need to be inserted when a regular driver becomes ill, has an appointment or something similar. A replacement bus driver may be a capable and experienced driver because he or she may be assigned to any route requested by their manager. Yet, even so, that replacement bus driver is unlikely to know the route well and is unlikely to know the students on the bus. Depending on the driver it may take one, two or even more repetitions before a route is completed without making some kind of error.
Upon approaching the stop location east of Murray Road Mr. Lema would understand that he would have to activate the flashing, overhead amber lights that warn other drivers that he is about to make a stop where it is required that all motor vehicles come to a stop. He would also be looking in his mirrors to note traffic behind him while alternating his focus with looking ahead at what vehicles are approaching his bus. His attention would also be drawn to the specific location where he must make his stop. Sometimes a parent or guardian is typically stopped on the roadside and a bus driver must detect that person and try to come to a stop near that person. This parent or guardian would take control of the child once the child exits the bus so it is important to stop at the person’s location.
It is always an issue with elementary school children that they do not sit passively in their seats and this is a continual problem that school bus drivers must deal with. The extent of this problem varies greatly from one route to another. When it involves a full size school bus that is fully loaded there is the potential for more disruptions. More children stand up while the bus is in motion. More children shout or throw things. And these disruptions must be dealt with by the bus driver. Some routes have more difficult children or there are children with special needs and then an additional person, a monitor, rides with the bus driver. In the scenario of a small school bus in a rural setting this problem would be less of an issue.
As the school bus came to a stop a bus driver would press the “Open Door” button. As the amber flashing lights would have been activated before the stop occurred it would be a reasonable expectation by a school bus driver that traffic would be slowing or stopped because it would be known that the flashing red lights would be activated shortly afterward and the stop sign would also begin to rotate out from the side of the bus. A bus driver’s attention would not be solely focused on whether traffic was still approaching from the front. The driver would also need to look in the mirrors to observe what was happening with traffic approaching from the rear of the bus. The driver must also confirm that the stop sign is rotating out from its position and that the flashing red lights are activated.
When considering when Dante Caranci may have stood up to exit the bus, one must consider the instructions provided by STS as indicated below:
When deboarding the school bus…
- Wait until the school bus comes to a complete stop before standing up
- Deboard in a single file line, one student at a time
- Use the handrail to help you keep your balance and use the stairs (especially in wet or snowy weather when the steps might be slippery)
- Stay out of the Danger Zone
- The Danger Zone is the area on all sides of the bus where children are in the most danger of not being seen by the bus driver (10 giant steps away from the bus in each direction)
- If you drop something within the danger zone, ask an adult or the bus driver for help
The first instruction noted above informs students that they should stay seated until a school bus comes to a full stop. And this instruction is often repeated to students by school bus drivers. So, for the purposes of this study, it needs to be assumed that Dante Caranci was seated until the school bus was stopped and then he proceeded to exit the bus after the doors were opened.
While, in theory, a bus driver needs his full attention on events occurring outside of the stopped bus, the practical reality is different. A bus driver may need to remind exiting students that they not forget things on the bus like their hats, mitts or backpacks. There might be questions or comments made by exiting students that a bus driver cannot just ignore. And sometimes a verbal response is necessary. Developments like these draw the bus driver’s attention.
Timing of Activations of Overhead Lights, Stop Sign and Door Opening
The flashing, red, overhead, roof lights do not activate until the bus driver presses the “Open Door” button. Also the stop sign does not begin to rotate out until that “Open Door” button is pressed. And the cross gate also does not swing out until the “Open Door” button is pressed. But the exact timing is not well understood. Small differences occur in the activation of these instruments. An example of this occurrence is shown in the sequence of photos shown below taken of a van-based GMC school bus coming to a stop on an 80 km/h highway.
While these “minor” differences appear unimportant they are relevant to a collision reconstruction. If we are talking about delays of one second for example, the Honda Pilot travelling at 90 km/h travels 25 metre in that single second.
Human Ability To Detect Vehicle Approach Speed
At the police news conference Acting Staff Sergeant Michael Anderson was quoted as saying “Reconstruction analysis showed Lema would have seen Mir’s car coming and not slowing down…” This is a loaded statement and how it came to be concluded was not explained. Well established research has shown that although an approaching motor vehicle may be within the field of view of a driver there is a limiting distance within which the driver can reliably recognize the vehicle’s speed. It is not clear whether Sergeant Anderson was aware of this finding.
In a report written in 2013 Gorski Consulting discussed the research findings regarding a driver’s ability to detect the speed of a vehicle in the driver’s field of field. A paragraph from that report is copied below:
“These results are not surprising since they reflect the findings of research into human detection and perception. In a research paper entitled “Relationship Between Velocity Detection and Driver Response Times in Vehicle Following Situations ” ( SAE Paper #2005-01-0427) Jeffery W. Muttart et. al. summarized the past research and conducted additional testing which confirmed that drivers could not reliably detect closing speed until the subtended angular velocity reached 0.006 to 0.0066 radians per second (or about 0.34 to 0.38 degrees per second). As shown in Table 1 the velocity at which the subtended angle changes in the range of 400 to 325 metres is below that threshold throughout the table. Such research has indicated that the expansion in size of a vehicle cannot be reliably detected until the vehicle is less than 200 metres away.“
Comments on this issue are also available from other prominent researchers such as Paul L. Olson, in his book “Forensic Aspects of Driver Perception and Response”, (1996). On Pages 53 and 54 he describes the issue as follows:
“A critical skill of drivers is the assessment of closing speed. It is used in judging the adequacy of gaps in traffic for such basic maneuvers as crossing, merging and passing. The fact that drivers generally perform these maneuvers successfully suggests that they can make these judgments with some accuracy. In fact, judgment of closing speed is something that available research indicates that humans do very poorly. Drivers survive in situations that seem to call for this skill only because they have learned that a gap is adequate when the approaching vehicle appears to be at least a certain distance away. If that vehicle’s speed is greatly different than assumed trouble may result because humans cannot discern closing speed with any accuracy until the gap has closed to a dangerous extent.
The problem lies in the cues that are used in judging closing speed. An important cue to distance is the angle size of an object. Thus, if an object such as a car appears tiny, we know it is far away. Change in image size is a cue to change in distance. That is, if the object seems to be getting larger, that means the distance is closing. Of course, there is nothing unusual about closing on another vehicle while driving. What is unusual, and potentially very dangerous, is closing at a high rate of speed. An important cue here is rate of change of image size. That is, if the object seems to be getting larger fast, that indicates a high closing speed. The difficulty here is that this cue depends not only on closing speed, but on separation distance.“
Matters like these have been discussed in several cases where Gorski Consulting was retained to explain why a fatal collision occurred. Billboards were created showing the changing size of a passenger vehicle in an observer’s field of view at 25-metre intervals. These billboards were intended to be placed at a distance of 5 metres from a judge or jury. This helped to explain that at viewing distances beyond 200 metres humans have difficulty judging the approach speed of a vehicle. At a distance of about 175 to 200 metres the size of the approaching vehicle begins to change sufficiently that its speed can be detected more readily. These billboards are copied below.
The observer’s task becomes more difficult in conditions of low contrast where the vehicle is difficult to distinguish from its background. Therefore the additional billboard shown below provides the viewing conditions in low contrast.
Conditions of low contrast may not only develop because of lack of difference in colour and shade in favourable weather. They can occur in instances of poor weather such as rainfall. Gorski Consulting confirmed that, at the time of the actual collision it was raining in the area of west London. But better information is required about the conditions at the actual site.
To repeat, the research findings explain that, in a scenario such as the school bus collision on Longwoods Road, the point at which the Honda Pilot could be detected by Mr. Lema, at the 300-metre distance, is not the factor that should be used to judge whether he was able to detect that the Honda was not slowing down. The research indicates that at any distance beyond 200 metres Mr. Lema would not be able to detect whether the Honda was slowing. It is only after the Honda reaches the distance of 200 to 175 metres that Mr. Lema had the opportunity to detect if the Honda was not slowing down. And this is only if Mr. Lema happened to be looking at the Honda at that precise time and distance. In the condition where his attention could momentarily be diverted to other important matters his attention could be returned to the Honda at a time and distance less than 175 to 200 metres. At a speed of 90 km/h the Honda would reach the area of impact in about 7 to 8 seconds from the noted distance of 175 to 200 metres. The issue then becomes: Could Dante Caranci be expected to react to the opening of the bus doors, leave his seat, pass through the bus interior, exit through the doors, move past the end of the cross gate and reach the area of impact in about 7 to 8 seconds? If this time is too short then the Honda was likely located beyond a distance of 175 to 200 metres when Mr. Lema made his decision to open the bus doors and Mr. Lema would not be able to detect whether the Honda was slowing at this viewing distance.
Time For Dante Caranci To Reach The Area Of Impact
For ease of analysis Dante Caranci’s path to reach the area of impact can be divided into 3 segments. First, the time to detect the opening of the bus doors, time to stand up from his seat and move to the bottom step of the exit doors. Second, the time to move from the bottom step of the exit doors to the tip of the open cross gate. Third, the time to move from the tip of the cross gate to where he was struck. We do not have sufficient evidence to determine what these times should be. But as an example we could consider the following times and then evaluate whether these values could be realistic. The first travel distance might be accomplished in 3 seconds, The second travel distance might be completed in 2 seconds. The third travel distance might be completed in 2 seconds. The total time to travel this distance would be 7 seconds and it could match the scenario if the Honda was 175 metres away from impact and travelling at 90 km/h.
Counting out these times in one’s head while making a mental image of Dante’s motions, it is doubtful that the first two motions could be completed in the assumed times of 3 and 2 seconds respectively. The times seem to be too short.
For the assessment of the third and final distance we do not have a good estimate of where Dante was located when he was struck. Rumours passed on to us from others indicate that Dante was struck when he was on the far shoulder. In other words the Honda driver steered to his right in an attempt to avoid Dante and this is why the impact occurred on that shoulder. It is still an imprecise estimate of what that travel distance might be.
We might estimate that a highway travel lane is about 3.5 metres wide but it could be slightly wider. The width of the developing left-turn lane at the stopped location of the school bus has not been measured but judging from the police billboard the left-turn lane was not fully expanded at the bus stop location. So a width of 2.5 to 3.0 metres might be an option. And then we do not know precisely where Dante would have been located on the shoulder where he was struck. So a distance of 1.5 metres could be a possibility.
Combining these distances involving two lanes, a partial left turn lane and a partial shoulder width could result in a travel distance of about 11 metres. We would then have to consider what speed Dante might have been travelling over that distance. Walking speeds could be in the range of 1.5 metres per second. Jogging speeds could be in the range of 3.0 metres per second and sprinting speeds could be 4.0 metres per second or higher. If walking the Dante could complete that 11 metre distance in about 7 seconds while springing the distance could be completed in about just under 3 seconds. But we have no reliable evidence at this time about what actually happened at the collision site.
The two photos below provide a vivid example of two young boys running across a highway in front of a full-size school bus.
Police may have additional information from video that they have not revealed. Many school buses are equipped with interior video cameras and these could be helpful in providing more details about the driver’s and Dante’s actions within the bus. These videos are less helpful in documenting outside events. Some school buses are equipped with backup cameras but these are generally not activated unless a bus is reversing.
Police may also have video from the dashcams of other vehicles or even from the Honda Pilot. These have the potential of providing the best evidence about matters such as the timing of the doors being opened on the bus and the motions of Dante Caranci while outside of the bus. Views from Surveillance cameras from nearby properties may be less useful because often they can provide views within a property while a view of a roadway maybe too far away especially in rural areas. It remains to be seen whether there will be public disclosure of such evidence but often the public will not receive sufficient details to assess if the evidence has been interpreted properly.
Discussion
It has been just over a year since a 7-year-old boy, Dante Caranci, was killed after exiting a school bus on Longwoods Road on the southwest outskirts of London, Ontario. On December 17, 2025 the London City Police posted a video of the boy’s mother along with the City’s Police Chief in which both discussed the importance of stopping when a school bus displays its red flashing lights and stop sign.
While the video was well-meaning if failed to acknowledge that why many drivers drive through a stopped school bus is because they do not do it intentionally. Much like many instances where a driver drives through a stop sign or a red traffic signal it is not an intentional act but a human error. We need a deeper understanding of why these human errors occur and what factors are involved.
Gorski Consulting had previously posted a website article on this collision on January 8, 2025 entitled “School Bus Fatality Needs Transparency To Avoid Future Tragedies”. In that article we emphasized that there was an unreasonable lack of disclosure about this collision and we made the following comment:
“When official information is not released about a collision this does not prevent public speculation about what took place – it merely emphasizes the gossip that is generated.”
This is not the first time we have made such a comment. If erroneous gossip was the only consequence of this lack of information then it would not be an issue of such great importance. However we have frequently stated that the failure to properly disclose how and why a person has been killed is the mechanism by which future tragedies fail to be prevented. It is an element of hypocrisy when persons are employed in an official capacity to prevent injury and death, speak of preventing injury and death, but then engage in actions that hinder the prevention of that injury and death.
The upcoming trial of the bus driver, Jose Lema, must not be about seeking revenge for a tragedy that will not be prevented by that revenge. The trial is an opportunity to uncover, precisely, what happened, why it happened, and most importantly whether something can be done to reduce the chances of a recurrence of this tragedy. Secrecy will solve nothing.
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