Trolling. I've had enough, and reported that post for review.
On another note ... Last night, on the way home from a family engagement, I took a short detour and passed by the location - which is the east side of the new intersection between the 404 and Queensville Sideroad. It is a more-or-less continuous downslope between the top of the new bridge and the location of the collision. The slope would not have blocked line of sight for a few hundred metres. The jersey barriers are obviously not there. I maintain that a correct course of action for doing a turn-around behind the jersey barrier would have been to stop halfway around the turn before re-entering (crossing) the traffic lanes and look out the side windows. This would have been not more than 2 seconds before the collision (any more than that, and the car would have cleared the oncoming lane) and it would have been easily possible to see that far on accounting for the slope alone. Where the bike would have been at that point would have been somewhere near the intersection of the new ramp from northbound 404 to Queensville Sideroad. Straight line of sight.
It does not appear that there would have been line of sight for the 300 - 350 m that the SIU gives - but there is around 250 m from the top of the bridge to where I think the collision happened. (I couldn't find the memorial in the dark, I'm going by where the photo of the collision shows that the road is still 4 lanes and has not yet gone down to 2 lanes.) This would have been about 6 seconds at the speed Clayton was going.
Looking at the intersection now cannot account for the effects of the temporary barrier - but if the jersey barrier itself had been high enough to block the line of sight ... then it wasn't a safe location to make that turn.
For about the bazilliionth time in this thread, no one is disputing that Clayton's speed was much too high for conditions - but:
- It would have been easily possible to see the oncoming bike from the location where the U-turn was done, if the reasonable action of stopping to look directly out the side windows had been taken before crossing the traffic lane.
- If the cop had relied solely on a rear-view-mirror check before making that continuous U-turn and we accept the math from the SIU's statement that this took about 8 or 9 seconds, there probably would not have been visibility from where Clayton's bike was at the time due to the crest of the bridge.
- In reality, mathematics tells us that driving in a half-circle of 13 m diameter at 25 km/h only takes 3 seconds. The circle would have had to be in that range because the stated curb-to-curb turn diameter of that car is roughly the same as the width of a 4 lane road. The real maneuver is a bit more than half a circle because of having to turn out of the traffic lane first, but 4 or 5 seconds from the time of first leaving the eastbound lane until fully completing the maneuver into the westbound lane (which did not happen ...) is not unreasonable. In THAT timeframe, Clayton's bike would have been coming over the top of the bridge before the cop car left the eastbound traffic lane. If the cop had bothered to look in his mirror at that time, the bike would have been visible in direct line of sight. (5 seconds is about 200 m at 150 km/h and there is more than 200 m from the top of the bridge to where the collision happened.)
Clayton was speeding, no question ... but the U-turn was not done in safety.
On another note ... Last night, on the way home from a family engagement, I took a short detour and passed by the location - which is the east side of the new intersection between the 404 and Queensville Sideroad. It is a more-or-less continuous downslope between the top of the new bridge and the location of the collision. The slope would not have blocked line of sight for a few hundred metres. The jersey barriers are obviously not there. I maintain that a correct course of action for doing a turn-around behind the jersey barrier would have been to stop halfway around the turn before re-entering (crossing) the traffic lanes and look out the side windows. This would have been not more than 2 seconds before the collision (any more than that, and the car would have cleared the oncoming lane) and it would have been easily possible to see that far on accounting for the slope alone. Where the bike would have been at that point would have been somewhere near the intersection of the new ramp from northbound 404 to Queensville Sideroad. Straight line of sight.
It does not appear that there would have been line of sight for the 300 - 350 m that the SIU gives - but there is around 250 m from the top of the bridge to where I think the collision happened. (I couldn't find the memorial in the dark, I'm going by where the photo of the collision shows that the road is still 4 lanes and has not yet gone down to 2 lanes.) This would have been about 6 seconds at the speed Clayton was going.
Looking at the intersection now cannot account for the effects of the temporary barrier - but if the jersey barrier itself had been high enough to block the line of sight ... then it wasn't a safe location to make that turn.
For about the bazilliionth time in this thread, no one is disputing that Clayton's speed was much too high for conditions - but:
- It would have been easily possible to see the oncoming bike from the location where the U-turn was done, if the reasonable action of stopping to look directly out the side windows had been taken before crossing the traffic lane.
- If the cop had relied solely on a rear-view-mirror check before making that continuous U-turn and we accept the math from the SIU's statement that this took about 8 or 9 seconds, there probably would not have been visibility from where Clayton's bike was at the time due to the crest of the bridge.
- In reality, mathematics tells us that driving in a half-circle of 13 m diameter at 25 km/h only takes 3 seconds. The circle would have had to be in that range because the stated curb-to-curb turn diameter of that car is roughly the same as the width of a 4 lane road. The real maneuver is a bit more than half a circle because of having to turn out of the traffic lane first, but 4 or 5 seconds from the time of first leaving the eastbound lane until fully completing the maneuver into the westbound lane (which did not happen ...) is not unreasonable. In THAT timeframe, Clayton's bike would have been coming over the top of the bridge before the cop car left the eastbound traffic lane. If the cop had bothered to look in his mirror at that time, the bike would have been visible in direct line of sight. (5 seconds is about 200 m at 150 km/h and there is more than 200 m from the top of the bridge to where the collision happened.)
Clayton was speeding, no question ... but the U-turn was not done in safety.