News and Information

Fatal Fire-Fighters Bus Collision on Hwy 401 & 403 on August 22, 2010

The latest twist of fate has involved a peculiar set of circumstances whereby a group of fire-fighters from Napanee, Ontario travelled to Windsor for a competition only to be involved in a collision near Woodstock, Ontario and being sent back to a London Hospital. Concerned relatives for the injured parties chartered a bus to visit these fire-fighters but on the return trip home that bus itself was involved a fatal collision, also near Woodstock, Ontario.

None of these circumstances are ever easy to report. Unfortunately, in the second collision involving the bus, the wife of one of the injured fire-fighters, Darlene Goodfellow, 49, sustained fatal injuries. Twelve others were also injured. In today's Kitchener Record newspaper there  was an article discussing how the three daughters of the deceased were escorted by local police to visit their surviving father, Davie Goodfellow, in a London hospital. These are never things that are easy to discuss in a delicate manner.

Again, while I accept the professionalism of our journalists and news media, I find the coverage lacking in substance. Could this event have been prevented? What actually happened? The public and relatives of the deceased are poorly served by that lack of substance.

I visited the site on August 23rd and the following photos explain some of the evidence. First, the photo below shows a view looking eastbound along the south, paved shoulder of Highway 401 just after it has divided from Highway 403. The truck in the background is just in front of the energy attenuator that was struck by the bus.



Although you cannot see the tire marks from the bus in this view it provides a general description of the surroundings. The bus travelled at such an angle that it was positioned in a similar manner at impact as the parked truck in the background. In other words the bus travelled completely off the eastbound lanes and began producing tire marks on this paved shoulder before striking the barrier. The photo below shows the area of the shoulder after the bus has already left the paved shoulder. If you look closely at the gravel area, just at the edge of the grass, you should be able to see the dual tire marks from the right side wheels of the bus.



If you are observant you will also notice that the surface of the gravel changes halfway through the visible tire marks. In other words the tire mark is well defined in the foreground but about halfway through you should see that the gravel/asphalt mixture has been greatly disturbed. To me, this is an indication that the driver has applied close to maximum braking. In other words, the earlier portion of the tire mark on the shoulder shows evidence of braking because I do not believe that such marks would remain beyond 24 hours if there had not been some sliding between the tires and pavement. But the latter portion of the tire mark that you see above indicates much more aggressive braking. The photo below now shows the right side tire marks of the bus in the more aggressive area of braking. You can see that those right side tire marks travel just to the right of the right side of the parked truck.


Next, the photo below shows the view just beyond the front end of the parked truck and we can now see the barrier that was struck by the bus.




What you should notice is that this energy-dissipating barrier was originally positioned at about the front end of the truck and that it has been compressed, like an accordian, into its present position. You should be able to see the rail on the ground on which the barrier was stationed and how it rode this rail as it was being compressed. Below is another view of the barrier and the rail upon which it rode as it was compressed.




And again, another view,  below, taken from the south side of the barrier...


...and finally a view looking westbound, looking down onto the compressed system.


While at the site I heard a highway maintenance representative comment on how well this device performed. Similar comments were also made by police during a news interview.

While I agree with the comments that the barrier did the maximum job that it was capable of, the fact remains that the bus used up all of the barrier's benefits and still had sufficient energy left over to move past the barrier and rollover. So is that the best that we could accomplish? Have the highway personnel and police determined therefore that this particular bus was travelling unusually quickly and that it overcame the design of the barrier system because of that fact? Yet, during a news interview the police confirmed that they are still investigating and that the results of that investigation will not be available for several months. I would say that the police have not determined the speed of the bus at this time and the comments made suggesting that the barrier was adequate and performed properly are premature.

I would venture to say that the bus was likely equipped with an event data recorder in the engine control module (ECM) and the downloading of such data requires special equipment that is not readily available to the investigating police - therefore the reason for the delay.

But several questions remain that were not addressed by any official news media. For example, one media representative stated at the site that she had been there on the accident date and she had not observed the tire marks that I have indicated in my photos. How could I be sure that they were collision-related? In fact, she rode her news truck over top of the tire marks (luckily after I had already taken my photos). It is clear, and understandable, that news personnel are not accident reconstructionists and simply miss the evidence that is literally at their feet. So the question remains: Why are there about 50 metres of pre-impact braking marks on the shoulder before the bus struck the barrier? To cause them would imply that the driver was in control of the bus and not asleep, for example.

I am now going to show you another view (below) of the area at the beginning of the tire marks. I have increased the resolution of the photo slightly. If you look closely you will see some faint, yellow crayon markings that are near the beginning of the visible marks.




Note that, at a speed of about 110 km/h a vehicle travels about 30 metres every second. So if the bus was travelling at this highway speed then the driver would have applied his/her brakes in the range of two to three seconds before impact depending on the actual rate of deceleration. One might question, if the driver had time to applied his/her brakes, why would the driver not steer away from the barrier? Would it make any difference at such a high speed with such a large vehicle?  These are the type of questions that result from this finding.

Another question that I already touched upon is the functioning of the barrier during the crash. This barrier absorbed all the energy it could have. It was crushed to the very edge of the concrete New Jersey barrier. So is that satisfactory? When you look at the photos of the compressed barrier you can see that the forward end is lifted up and is resting to the north of its original position. One might be convinced that, once the structure was compressed past the end of the ground rail it was then free to be displaced from its anchored position. It would appear that the bus rode over top of that front face of the barrier and this contributed to the instability and eventual rollover. But ideally what we would like to see is a controlled ride down of the striking vehicle such that it sits, on its wheels, in contact with the barrier until final rest. This is the point of many barrier systems that try to slow down the vehicle while keeping it upright and preventing the vehicle from being deflected into other dangers. For example if the bus had been deflected into the eastbound lanes of the 401 and then the bus was crushed by a road tractor hauling 80,000 pounds of cargo, and if all the occupants were fatally injured there would be a loud chorus of complainers criticizing the function of the barrier. So why is it satisfactory that the bus was deflected into the "elephant pit" of the deep median where it rolled over? My point is that a barrier system must exist that will protect the type of vehicles predominantly using the highway. It is easily seen that at least 50% of the traffic on Highway 401 is made up of large and heavy trucks and buses and these vehicles possess very high levels of kinetic energy. It may not be possible to slow these vehicles in a controlled manner while maintaining them upright but that is the discussion that should be carried on. If the present barrier was a couple of metres longer would that have been sufficient to dissipate the remaining energy of the bus rather than having it roll over in the ditch? That is an important safety issue that the news media have not touched.

A final question I will bring to your attention is the mechanism of injury to the occupants of the bus. First I must point out that, after the barrier impact the bus was not travelling very quickly and therefore the chance of sustaining injury from events after the barrier impact should have been small IF the occupants had stayed inside the bus during the rollover. Let's look at some evidence of the rollover. First let's look at a general view of the site near the final rest position of the bus. The view below is taken looking north-west (if we assume Highway 401 travels directly east-west).


I will simply point out that the distance from the impact with the barrier and the bus rest position is not long. Along that distance we can examine the debris. For example the photo below shows an area of fractured glass.


When glass is not strewn throughout the site like this it often means that the vehicle depositing the glass is not travelling quickly.



We also know the bus was travelling slowly at this time simply because we know its rest position was nearby. The problem with many rollovers is that occupants become ejected, or more correctly, partially ejected. We often believe that ejection implies that the occupant's body sails freely out of the confines of the vehicle. Nothing could be more wrong.

When we are ejected the vehicle follows us and crushes us. This is what nobody explains. When ejected our body travels at a similar speed as the vehicle from which we came out of. Over longer distances our body sometimes travels ahead of our vehicle and then sometimes the vehicle catches up and crushes us, or vise versa. So our body is in this death dance with a 4000 pound car, or a much heavier bus or truck. Obviously this is not a good thing and this is why it is paramount that we stay inside our vehicle during a rollover.

But the concern with buses is one that has been discussed over decades. Should passengers wear seat belts on buses? This is a long-debated issue with school buses. It was decided that a school bus should be equipped in such a way to minimize the chance of an ejection. So, for example, there were "bars" installed across the centre of the side windows of school buses to reduce the hole through which a body could escape. But Transport Canada, NHTSA and others have always been monitoring bus crashes to see if things are performing as they should. So to return to my question: how did the occupants of this bus in the current crash sustain their injuries? Were some ejected? If so then that is an important safety issue if the bus was travelling very slowly and near its final rest position when the ejection occurred. Again, the official news media simply failed to ask this question and failed to inform the public about this very important safety issue.

So maybe I am being a little harsh in my condemnation of the press. But I say, as always, that we need to learn from these events. Research confirms that scaring people into a change of habit is not a long-lasting solution. But educating people is a long lasting solution. If we understand what it is and why it is dangerous we will change our habits. We take so much time in educating ourselves about less important things yet something that can easily, and so often does, kill us is left to our ignorance.

Motorcyclist Fatal On Nauvoo Road, Lambton County, August 19th, 2010

It was reported that yesterday afternoon at approximately 1730 hours, Brian Eves of Alvinston, Ontario was killed when the northbound 1983 Suzuki motorcycle he was riding on Nauvoo Road in Lambton County, struck a post and wire barrier on the right (east) side of a curve. Police reported that "...the bike somehow left the travelled portion of the roadway..." but did not elaborate.

Below are several photos of the accident site taken at approximately 1330 hours this afternoon. All three views are looking northbound from just south of the point where the motorcycle struck the post and cable barrier.








In the third and final photo you should be able to see the three orange cones at the barrier, in the background, where the motorcycle stuck that barrier. Now some facts.

The impact with the barrier was not severe. In fact, there was only a single wooden post that was pushed over and that post was not even pulled out of the ground. Secondly, the motorcycle was re-directed from that impact and came to rest in the northbound lane about 13.6 metres north of the struck post. Thirdly, the tire marks and shoulder scraping from the motorcycle's travel off the road was only 16.0 metres long. Thus, the total deceleration distance is made of of 16.0 metres before impact and 13.6 metres after impact, or a total distance of about 30.0 metres. That is not a long distance. Coupled with the fact that the impact with the barrier was relatively moderate, it would indicate that the motorcycle was travelling relatively slow at the time that it began leaving the initial tire mark  and scrapings as it left the roadway. So what happened?

I guess you cannot expect a proper indication from the media or police because whatever happened is not being fully disclosed or revealed, or is simply unknown by them. The impact of the motorcycle with the post and cable barrier is very unlikely to have caused fatal injuries to the rider - unless he was extremely unlucky. He was going relatively slow by the time that he hit that barrier. But was he actually going slow as he entered the curve? I strongly doubt it. This roadway is signed with a maximum speed limit of 90 km/h and I would be extremely surprised if a motorcyclist travelling along the straight road leading up to he curve was not travelling 100 km/h or more. Yet the police and news media would leave the public to believe that a simple loss of control of the motorcycle at a slow speed led to his fatal injuries.

I would strongly suggest that something else occurred well back of where the evidence exists near the barrier. Probably near the point of about 100 meters south of the barrier impact where Brian Eves was first entering the curve. Whatever happened I cannot say because I was not at the accident scene to gather all the relevant evidence at the time that it was available to be gathered. I only hope someone from the investigating police looked far enough back from the barrier impact to see if there was any additional evidence which would explain the speed loss of the motorcycle by the time that it struck the barrier.

UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

It would appear that information about how this collision occurred has gone cold. I would have expected police to release further details and inquiries. Since none appear to be forthcoming I am obliged to release the additional photo shown below of some fresh scraps and a tire mark near the roadway centre-line.


The above view is looking north about 108 metres south of where the motorcycle struck the barrier. It shows some a fresh linear scrape on Mr. Eves' side of the roadway centre-line. It also shows a short, curved tire, scrub mark near the centre-line as well as an additional tire-mark on the centre-line just to the north. I did not want to release this information because I had expected the police to confirm whether they were looking for a hit-and-run driver or if they could confirm that there was a mechanical failure on the motorcycle. As it stands the evidence in this photo is suspicious and could very well be related to the collision events.

What Important "Accidents" Are Being Reported?

This morning I came across a situation of a Chrysler vehicle stopped and blocking the curb lane of Highbury Avenue in London and the angle of its left front wheel was noticeably peculiar. Here are some photos:



Above you can see the vehicle at its rest position and below is a closer view that shows a separated ball joint and the control arm contacting the road.


The photo below shows the view in the curb lane just behind the vehicle where you should notice an obvious scrape on the pavement. Once the ball joint failed the control arm fell onto the pavement caused the scrape.


In the photo below I have taken a close-up view of the beginning of the scrape to make sure that you can clearly see that it exists.




Finally, below is a good quality photo showing the separated ball joint. Indisputable.


The woman driving this vehicle claimed she did not know what happened. She was driving normally and straight in her lane when this occurred. We can see that she was not travelling very fast when the lower control arm hit the pavement because the scrape is only about 1 1/2 car lengths in distance. But it is unlikely that the failure occurred exactly at the point where we see the beginning of the scrape. I have additional photos and there is more to this than I will discuss at this time.

But my point is that in my previous article I had just finished stating how the City of Kitchener was bragging about their 20% reduction in car accidents and how I felt that collisions were likely not being reported. In the present case this was a disaster that luckily did not occur. If the woman had been travelling at any significant speed she might have been directed into oncoming traffic and we could have had a fatality. The scrape I showed you is visible but not all that visible and could be missed by investigators. A collision resulting from this failure would cause direct damage to the left front wheel area of the vehicle and we would never realize that the ball joint failure was pre-existing and not as a result of the accident.

Furthermore, the public does not realize that Chrysler Corporation has had a significant problem with ball joint failures that have been occurring since the late 1990s and certainly into the early 2000s. So far they have been able to avoid recalls because they have convinced many regulators at Transport Canada and the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that these failures are pre-announced, and they use the magical phrase that the driver "would have had prior warning" as in loud noises and things that they should have checked out. Besides, those vehicles are now old enough that Chrysler can say they do not fall under the umbrella of a recall because no one can be expected to protect the owner who drives a very old vehicle. Interesting.

So everyone hides behind something. The poor lady has to pay her repair costs, totally oblivious to the fact that she could have been killed. Yet our accident statistics show a safer world.

By the way, no police officer came to this site. A tow truck came by and hauled the vehicle away and there was no report filed with the Collision Reporting Centre. Neither Transport Canada, NHTSA nor Chrysler will be aware that this incident occurred. Safe driving everyone, you're in good hands.

Photos from Some Articles are Not Being Displayed - My Apologies

It has come to my attention that the photos in several of my articles are not displaying properly. Thanks to the comments of one reader I am aware of the problem and am seeking a solution. Please standby and visit again and hopefully the problem will be resolved shortly.

Kitchener Bragging of 20% Collision Reduction Is Not What Its Crashed Up To Be

An August 10th Kitchener Record article claims the region has experienced a 20% downturn in the number of reported collisions and attributes this to "safer cars, better-engineered roads and intersections, and better driving as the population ages, gaining experience and maturity".

While there is some truth with respect to safer cars, the remainder of the boasting needs to be toned down. As the saying goes "there are lies, then there are dirty lies and at the top there are statistics" - or something to that effect. We know the article falls into a deep well when the the Regional manager of transportation engineering, Mr. Bob Henderson is quoted as saying that he "...has no evidence that collisions are being reported less often".

How does Mr. Henderson know that collisions are not being reported less often? The article struggles at an explanation by saying "Traffic congestion on regional roads fell nine per cent in 2007 but did not change in 2008...". How does that relate to anything?

What is certain is that police are no longer attending a vast majority of collision sites. So it is up to the general public to come to a reporting center and admit to a collision. The general belief is that, since there are often two drivers, it would require both of them to refuse to report the collision in order for it to go uncounted. This is the brave fact upon which our Provincial statistics are based. Would you want some drug companies to run drug trials on such a premise?

I have been observing physical evidence of motor vehicle collisions for almost 30 years now. Lately I have attempted to attend a number of loca,l recent collision sites and report on what I have found there. Even more relevant is my attendance at a specific site on the outskirts of London where I have been observing the occurrence of loss-of-control evidence at a curve for the past year. What has struck me is the number of loss-of-control events that take place that are not reported. I know this from speaking with neighbours at the site, but I also confirm this from the physical evidence.

I also know the struggles of average persons who come to me and complain about being used by the insurance companies and the Provincial At-Fault rules. These are "Mike Harassment" rules that were introduced during the dark days of the Harris administration in Ontario that say that you are guilty of a traffic offense simply because your collision has taken on a certain geometric configuration. For example the rules state "If it cannot be established whether automobile "A" or "B" entered the intersection first, the driver of each automobile shall be deemed to be 50 per cent at fault for the incident". This might seem innocuous but insurers have another rule that says if you are 50% at fault then that is no different than if you are 100% at fault - you are at fault. Once you are at fault in two collisions your insurance premiums skyrocket. And the insurance industry could not be any happier with this because they can increase premiums to persons who may not have been at fault at all. All for the sake of expedience and cost reduction. Purely innocent folk are caught in a geometric scenario whereby they are judged 50% at fault in two events and suddenly their insurance rates hit the roof. And these persons have no ability to defend themselves because to do so would cost them thousands of dollars in legal fees.

Why would a sane person want to admit to a collision in such an environment? I know that a large number of single vehicle collisions are simply unreported. And how does that affect Mr. Henderson's statistics? Roadway problems that could have been identified if someone knew that loss-of-control collisions were occurring are left unidentified. And I have noted in severa recent articles that, although the press reported that alcohol and speed were involved they had no ability to realize that roadway problems were also a factor.

So, yes, to some degree, I agree that there are safer vehicles on the road. But safer roadways? Safer drivers? 20% collision reductions? All the rest of this is based on clever statistics.

Private Commerical Residential Roads Pose Exceptional Safety Issues

As much as I have been highlighting dangerous public road conditions lately, the situation for roads on large, private, commercial and residential complexes can be much worse. Private roads are not subject to normal inspection requirements by persons who are supposed to know a danger when they see it. I use the following recent case as an example.

Recently a residential development in London, Ontario had built a number of townhouse units close to the embankment of a local creek. The embankment contained a substantial drop but was also relatively stable due to considerable growth of larger trees and bushes on the bank. Also, a road was built between the townhouses and the embankment. However at a crucial location of a 90 degree curve in the private road a drain pipe was installed in the embankment, the trees were removed  and replaced with some smaller diameter rocks in the belief that this would supply sufficient stability to the bank. Well that was not the case. With springtime the rocks gave way and took the roadway down with them. Nature one, Engineers/Developers zero. Below is a photo of the roadway that I took on June 24th of this year.


Note everything looks fine and visible until you consider night-time conditions. Note there are no street lights. There is no reflective material on the barriers in the background. I know from previous cases that the concrete portable barrier you see in the background becomes invisible at night. Below is another view taken on June 24th taken from the creek below the washout. Considering the flat Ontario countryside this drop to the creek below is quite substantial.


The above photos were taken a couple of days after the washout and it was understandable that temporary measures were in place that would soon be replaced. But not so. I took some photos today which I present below. First is a photo which is very similar to the first one above.
 
Is there any resemblance to the the first photo? Certainly nothing has changed. The broken concrete portable barrier, lack of reflective materials and no warning sign to indicate that the roadway terminates. Here is a closer view near the washout.


Yes this is a private, residential road where speeds would normally be minimal and traffic volume would be very low. But I always use the example of a group of young kids in a car who are out on a Saturday night, looking for the location of a party, travelling to a little-known residential complex where they have never been before, and not paying attention. Perhaps the young, show-off driver has had some alcohol to drink, or worse. Some would say, well its their fault, alcohol was responsible, kids should not drink and drive. But that is not the complete story. They get onto this private road and the showoff driver speeds down it to impress someone. But he cannot see that the road ends and the pieces of the concrete barrier do nothing to prevent the vehicle from shooting over the embankment. The Sunday morning news reports on the latest tragedy. Someone scurries around and places some signs up and no one is the wiser. While we can work to reduce drinking and driving or inattention we can also put up proper warnings and barriers.

The view below is taken at 90 degrees to the views shown above. This is a view at the rocks of the embankment and we can see the other portion of the road in the background. On the far right you might be able to see the end of a guard rail which ends just before the place where it is most needed.

The next photo is a view from the other end of the road, showing a full concrete portable barrier and you can see the guard rail on the left side which is the same rail as shown in the photo above.
Again, while the portable concrete barrier looks very visible under daylight conditions you have to consider what would happen when you remove the lighting. There is a small residential lamp on the right side of the road in the foreground but its distance from the concrete barrier is likely to make the problem worse by brightening up the foreground and therefore making the background (where the barrier is) appear much darker to a driver.

And now the final photo below shows the view near the end of the guardrail and into the shady drop to the creek below.



In summary, we are fortunate to not realize that there are complex and detailed standards for roadway design and signage that help us to see and navigate on our roads. It is only when the design or warning fails to follow proper standards that we suddenly become conscious that the road is not what it should be. Unfortunately, as private complexes become bigger their roadways become bigger and they start to take on the appearance of a community of its own, with its own rules as to how it will maintain those roads. We have enough problems with acknowledging when our public roads are not what they should be. But when the problems exist in private developments there is little or no accountability to the public if they should wander onto the development's road.