Due to copyright rules we cannot post photos of the collision site where two vehicles collided on November 3, 2020 in London Ontario. The fact that a criminal trial is underway almost five years after the collision date is strange in itself. Why such a delay occurred has not been explained.
Furthermore we cannot find any mention of the collision from local news agencies on the date that it occurred. At Gorski Consulting we are vigilant to reports of collisions occurring in the vicinity of London Ontario and throughout south-western Ontario so it is puzzling that we have no record of this collision being publicly reported at the time that it occurred.
News of the trial became apparent from articles posted on the local CTV News website, commencing on October 8, 2025. CTV never explained why there was such a long delay in the commencement of the trial.
Several photos of the involved vehicles at the collision site were available in the current CTV website articles. These photos showed the results from a typical angle collision causing both vehicles to travel to the south-east quadrant of the intersection of Southdale Road and White Oak Road in south-west London. It was obvious that a Hyundai Sonata sustained damage to its right side while a Mercedes had frontal damage. Such results would suggest that the Mercedes was eastbound on Southdale Road.
The pre-crash motion of the Sonata was not obvious from the visible evidence. Damage and rest positions like this could suggest that the Sonata was either southbound on White Oak Road or it could have been westbound on Southdale Road and made a left turn in front of the Mercedes. The CTV articles never provided an official finding from the police as to the pre-impact direction of travel of the Sonata.
It has been reported by CTV News that the alleged driver of the Mercedes, Bahaa Ali, claimed that the Sonata turned left in front of the Mercedes and, given the evidence visible in the photos, this could be one explanation for how the collision occurred. But then the situation becomes bazaar. CTV reported that Bahaa Ali claimed he was not the driver of the Mercedes. Bahaa reported that his younger brother, Muhannad, was the driver. Muhannad telephoned Bahaa that he was involved in a collision and Bahaa rushed to the collision site before police arrived. It was reported that Bahaa then told police that he was the driver of the Mercedes. So the public has become side-tracked by these additional complications.
At this point it is useful to introduce the concept of a “red herring” whereby some things are reported to distract the reader/viewer/listener about information to prevent relevant facts from being detected. Another description of this phenomenon is where a shiny red ball in introduced into the field of view to cause the viewer to look at the distracting ball while the magician performs tricks without being detected. It is apparent to us that this kind of trickery is taking place with respect to the relevant facts in this collision.
Another bazaar fact introduced into the reporting of this trial is that a police “forensic video analyst” testified that “from collected data from the area” (words reported by CTV) the Mercedes was travelling approximately 129 km/h in a 60 km/h zone. Wow, say the public, this fact clearly indicates that the Mercedes driver was a reckless maniac. Well, maybe, however that is not the full story. What the public does not understand is how collision reconstruction functions and what evidence is gathered and analyzed in the process. So we need a little “Collision Reconstruction 101” course to assess these reports.
A Course In Collision Reconstruction 101
Traditionally, police have used methods such as momentum analysis to reconstruct the speeds of vehicles. Such a method employs gathering information about the pre-impact directions of travel of the vehicles, the area of impact, the post-impact travel directions and final rest positions of the vehicles. This method has worked reasonably well in situations where vehicle pre-crash travel directions are at substantial angles, such as where two vehicles enter an intersection from different roadways. Momentum analysis begins to break-down when the two vehicles approach each other in a head-on scenario such that they approach each other along the same roadway. The scenario is referred to a “co-linear” collision because the both vehicles approach along a straight line. When such a head-on collision occurs investigators must take into account the crush in the vehicles and conduct an assessment of how much energy was dissipated in the collision. This crush analysis provides an estimate of the “Change-in-velocity” of the vehicles. Such a crush analysis helps the investigator with the momentum analysis because the calculated speeds must conform with the severity of the impact.
While Momentum and crush (energy) analysis can be performed via hand calculations, for practical reasons, they are best performed using computerized programs. Such programs have been available for decades, although police have never used them. The most common programs in North America are CRASH and SMAC, both originally developed under contract to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Various private vendors has incorporated this code into their own systems that are sold to various reconstruction and road safety organizations. The PC-Crash program is also popular program and it was originally developed in Europe. The bottom line is that, traditionally these were the methods used to reconstruct collisions.
Commencing in about 1999 event data recorders (“Black boxes”) began to be installed in light duty motor vehicles. Because of their ability to provide a calculated, pre-impact speed of a colliding vehicle event data recorders (EDRs) became very popular in the police community. All that was needed was some “decoding” hardware that could be plugged into the vehicle and a variety of crash data became available without the drudgery of gathering and interpreting the physical evidence. Now almost 100% of light-duty vehicles on the road are equipped with EDRs. However the decoding hardware is not capable of downloading data from every vehicle and here lies an important problem. When a vehicle is encountered where the EDR cannot be downloaded police must use the traditional reconstruction methods. And those who have become focused on reconstruction with EDRs become less familiar with understanding the physical evidence that needs to be gathered and interpreted.
Police also have limited knowledge of mechanisms of occupant injury. What injuries occur at what levels of collision severity and what kinds of collisions produce the injuries that have been observed. Again, police are focused on gathering data for the purposes of laying charges. Injury mechanisms are not viewed as part of that process in the police community. Yet knowledge of injury mechanisms can be helpful in understanding what occurred in a collision and therefore this could help police in their purpose of laying charges. It is just that most police services do not understand that this relationship exists.
Peculiarities In Reported Evidence
So, after reviewing this short summary of collision reconstruction techniques, what can be understood about the present collision? Firstly we see that there is no information about any downloaded data from an EDR. So this should be viewed as peculiar. Why not? One might surmise that police were caught flatfooted as, initially, the collision seemed of less importance because there was no indication of life-threatening injuries. But then that supposedly changed.
If EDR data was not available then the alternative would require the gathering of physical evidence to conduct a momentum and crush (energy) analysis. So was this done? It was not reported so. And if it was reported that speed was calculated from video then it should also have been reported if momentum and crush (energy) methods were also employed. In our view it is highly doubtful that these basic reconstruction methods were employed. However there has been no explanation provided why this was not done. Again, did police believe this was going to be a simple, non-life-threatening result? Did the death of the passenger of the Sonata catch them by surprise? Was it too late to gather the evidence once it was determined that there was a fatality? No information about this has been provided.
For an unexplained reason a passenger in the Sonata eventually passed away. But this is another peculiarity. Looking at the crush to both vehicles it appears that the collision was not of a severity where fatal results could be expected. Several views of the crush at the right side of the Sonata were provided in the CTV news articles and these showed insufficiency for the causation of fatal injuries. However nothing has been officially reported about that. And here is that “red herring”, or bright flashy ball, that redirects the public’s attention away from an important fact. It makes good copy to discuss who was driving, or how fast the Mercedes was travelling but the public does not want to know about the mysterious death of the Sonata passenger.
None of the CTV news articles ever indicated the seating position of the Sonata passenger who passed away. There was a greater threat to her if she was seated in the right rear seat because this was the location of the greatest exterior crush. But if she was seated in that position then it would be very peculiar if there was no one seated in the right front seat. But no one has mentioned if there was another passenger in that right front seat. What is visible in the photos is that there was minimal crush at the Sonata’s right front door, so if the deceased was seated in the right front seat her death would be quite unusual and unexpected.
There are ways to examine physical evidence that could also provide information to police about the identity of the driver of the Mercedes. Again, many police are not familiar with studying injuries and patterns of injury, yet that information can be used to identify a seating position or if a person was present in a collision-involved vehicle. But nothing has been said about what was presented at trial on this point.
The CTV news articles also described how a police video expert performed an analysis to estimate the pre-crash speed of the Mercedes. Again, no information was provided to examine how this was done so one has to surmise what was actually done. If video camera views were available, say, from property surveillance cameras, then analysis of that video can provide such a speed estimate. If so, it has not been explained where, long Southdale Road, that Mercedes was observed and its speed was calculated. What can be known is that the speed of the Mercedes was nowhere near the 129 km/h as estimated by police at the time of impact. So if the Mercedes was truly travelling at such a high speed this would have be at a substantial distance west of the intersection, or there should have been physical evidence on the roadway that the Mercedes was braked heavily on approach to the area of impact. But again, nothing of any such information has been publicly disclosed. So why would such speeds be publicly reported without an explanation of these peculiarities?
As a final comment, recently the Premier of Ontario Doug Ford said he would remove all speed cameras in Ontario because they are a municipal “cash grab”. And many persons would support this, likely because they were caught “speeding”, possibly only a slight amount over the posted speed limit. But rather than removing speed cameras altogether, municipalities could adjust their operation so that detection and ticketing could occur at a higher threshold.
However this collision is an example of the consequences that await the Ontario public if speed cameras are removed. Who will monitor traffic to prevent very dangerous drivers from travelling 129 or even 100 km/h in a 60 km/h zone? Police are not prepared to suddenly increase the numbers of officers positioned along numerous roadways in the hope that the select few dangerous drivers are apprehended. But speed cameras are much more efficient for that purpose. Speed cameras can remain operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Without such cameras there will be incidents where innocent drivers are killed by dangerous speeding drivers. Sorrow and sympathy counts very little after someone has already been killed. Preventative action through speed cameras will reduce the need for sorrow and sympathy.
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