Ezra Hauer is Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto.
What should we do when tragedy occurs? We grieve, comfort the bereaved, pray for the injured, and seek comfort from our communities. That’s how it should be at first. But wouldn’t it also be natural to discuss how we can avoid lighting candles for car accident victims in the future?
But when you listen to the radio, read a newspaper, or watch the news, you hardly know that’s happening. Media coverage is extensive and full of sadness and compassion, but very few questions are asked. It seems like the death of a young hockey player in a Humboldt Broncos bus crash in Saskatchewan in 2018, or the death of a gray-haired grandparent in a bus crash in rural Manitoba in June, just happen every now and then. seems like an inevitable event. It could reasonably have been done as if there was any benefit to polite acquiescence. What explains this atmosphere of resignation, this unquestioning acceptance, this passive obedience?
Part of this explanation is the knowledge that in most cases, if the person involved in the accident had acted differently, the accident would not have happened – that we, the drivers, are the direct cause of the accident. It is based on. The other part comes from acknowledging that we humans make mistakes, and we all make mistakes and misjudgments. Have you ever noticed a pedestrian at the last moment and gasped, “Oh, I could have taken a life and destroyed my own”? It happened to me too. Do you ever drive a car when you’re tired and even sleepy? Sometimes I think so. Didn’t I just run a stop sign? With his wife by my side, I ignored the stop sign without slowing down. I wasn’t in a hurry, I was sober, fully awake, the sun was shining and the stop sign wasn’t hidden. Decades later, there is still no explanation for what happened. Thanks to an attentive bus driver who came to my left (who must have said some unprintable things), I can write about it.
It was bad judgment and mistakes that led to the Humboldt Broncos’ crash. This is the case with most car accidents. Knowing that it is we who cause accidents, that we can make mistakes, and despite centuries of attempts to improve road user behavior, we still make mistakes. Perhaps we can understand where the collective air of resignation and acceptance comes from. . What’s the point in asking questions if you can’t do anything?
However, there is ~. There are several things you can do to reduce the frequency of mistakes and reduce the damage caused by them. Consider a crash in Manitoba. To cross a four-lane divided road, the bus driver should pause and make sure nothing is coming from the left, then cross two lanes of the highway and make sure nothing is coming from the right. After checking, I had to cross two more lanes. fast lane. It’s a perfectly doable task, but it’s also one that can fail. Your foot may slip off the brake, you may press the gas pedal unintentionally, your vehicle may stall, or your driver may misjudge the speed of oncoming traffic and the amount of time needed to cross safely. there is. In fact, anthropologists tell me that humans are very bad at judging the speed of fast oncoming cars. This operation can and may fail. This intersection’s design has the dubious feature of having the highest rate of personal injury accidents of all at-grade intersections. So why was it built this way and couldn’t it be made safer? It could have been.
If there had been an overpass, these seniors would still be alive today. Yes, building a grade-separated intersection (interchange) is expensive. But look south of the Manitoba border. Interstates in Minnesota and North Dakota do not have at-grade intersections. The interprovincial highway builders decided to build a safer system than the builders of Manitoba’s Trans-Canada Highway. Shouldn’t we ask why?
If building an overpass is too expensive, there are cheaper options. An “intersection collision warning system” with sensors and flashing signs could be installed to warn motorists on the highway of vehicles attempting to cross, and to warn other drivers of approaching high-speed vehicles. It is inexpensive and reduces injuries due to accidents by 15-20%. Was this option considered and rejected? For what reasons was it rejected? Or if you turn the main road light green and a vehicle traveling on the secondary road sets off a sensor? You can also send intersection signals that only turn red to make such intersections even safer. Wasn’t that an option? Additionally, if the volume of traffic on a highway is so high that signalization is impractical due to significant delays for vehicles on the highway, traffic on the highway can be consolidated into a nearby interchange by a frontage road. Was that possibility considered and discarded? There are always multiple design options, and we know how to predict the number of crashes and how severe each one is.
There is no escaping the realization that road construction can become safer or less safe. And this realization leads to another important truth. In other words, while the primary cause of nearly all crashes is the actions of road users, the number and severity of road crashes are largely determined by the people who decide how and where roads are built. It is also true that Manipulated. So it’s worth asking whether the right decision was made when the Manitoba crossing was built. It’s also worth considering whether this and other intersections can be made safer. I find it strange that these kinds of questions are rarely raised in public. Because if these questions are not asked, we will helplessly repeat the tired formula of thoughts and prayers with the victims over and over again, only to find new victims each time. is.
The main cause of the Humboldt Broncos crash in Saskatchewan was that the truck driver ignored a stop sign on a narrow road. As always, the focus was on the violative driver. Was he speeding, impaired, tired, texting? None of these were true. And, as always, there was grief, anger, solidarity and offers of support, but little discussion about how to prevent similar tragedies in the future.
The truck driver was 29 years old, had little experience driving a truck, and had just received one week of training. At the time, in Ontario, truck drivers were required to undergo four to six weeks of mandatory entry-level training (MELT), but other provinces had no similar requirements. You don’t need any special training to know what a stop sign means. Also, as we now know, MELT (as implemented in Ontario) does not reduce truck crashes. The opposite seems closer to the truth. Probably because the inexperienced driver took part in his MELT training with a heavy rig. However, because it is common knowledge that training is required to operate heavy rigs, MELT mandates in some states became the government’s primary response to the tragedy. Is there nothing else that can or should be done?
There are several such actions, but only one is described here. The property where the Armley Corner intersection is located was overgrown with trees. The truck driver could not see the approaching bus, and the bus driver could not see the truck traveling at high speed until it was much too late. The results might have been different if the viewing distance had been 130 meters, as required by Saskatchewan standards, instead of the actual approximately 10 meters. Those trees have now been removed. However, there are many other intersections in Saskatchewan with inadequate viewing distances, and there is no systematic program to bring them into compliance.
Such programs are costly and may violate property rights. Many people would disagree. They will argue that you don’t need to increase your viewing distance, just follow the stop sign. True, but it misses the point. People do not intentionally put themselves in the path of oncoming traffic, except for those who are contemplating suicide. They may make mistakes, misjudge, become tired, distracted, or disabled, but neither they nor the completely innocent people in the crash deserve to die. Research has shown that short sight distances at intersections can lead to injuries. Failure to provide adequate viewing distances ultimately costs more money in such programs than the lives of the elderly, hockey players, and many others killed or injured at such intersections. is the same as saying that it is less important than the cost of freedom. Is that the right balance?
I can’t say. Engineers can predict the number of people injured, estimate minutes of delay, and calculate construction and maintenance costs, but their training and experience requires the ability to predict the number of people injured, estimate minutes of delay, and calculate construction and maintenance costs. There is nothing that allows us to balance and empowers us. This balance must represent long-term societal values, with guidance from wise elected representatives. They are the ones who decide how many people are injured and how many people die in the final report. Therefore, instead of wringing our hands helplessly when a tragedy occurs, instead of reciting tired formulas about our thoughts and prayers, instead of blaming and seeking revenge, we need to make sure that the government You should ask yourself whether it is doing its job and whether adequate security is in place. It is built into the systems you build and operate.