Vehicle data shows accelerator down, brakes off, moments before fatal crash on Riverside Drive | CBC News

Crash data downloaded from Petronella McNorgan’s vehicle and presented in court Thursday shows the accelerator on her Honda CRV was almost fully depressed and her brake pedal wasn’t applied at all as it sped through the intersection of Riverside Drive and Wonderland Road. 

The court heard testimony from London Police Const. Bradley Yeo, a traffic specialist who interpreted the crash data retrieval information, known as CDR, from the 79-year-old’s car. 

Yeo explained the vehicle’s computer records five seconds of data in half-second increments leading up to the moment the airbags deploy. In this case, the “deployment event” happened when McNorgan’s car struck a lamp post as it drove onto the sidewalk of Riverside, an instant before striking a group of girl guides in a collision that left an eight-year-old girl dead on November 30, 2021.

The recorded data includes information such as the vehicle’s speed, whether or not the brakes were applied, the engine’s revolutions per minute (RPM) and the position of the steering wheel. 

In the five seconds leading up to the moment the lamp was hit, the accelerator’s pedal position is shown at 99 per cent depressed, except for one half-second increment when it was 85 per cent. The “service brake” column shows as “off” throughout the five seconds, which Yeo said indicates the car’s brakes were never applied in the five seconds before the collision. The vehicle’s speed is recorded at 102 km/h five seconds before the airbag deployed and 103 km/h at the moment of impact. At one point over the five-second span, the computer recorded the car’s speed at 121 km/h. 

Yeo was asked what the data would show if the brake and accelerator had been applied at the same time: “They both would register [on the data]” he said. 

McNorgan, 79, is charged with criminal negligence causing death and seven counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm in fatal collision. In addition to the girl who died, there were extensive injuries to seven other people at the scene, most of them children. 

McNorgan has pleaded not guilty.

A witness at the scene who spoke to McNorgan that night and who testified on Tuesday told the court she told him that her brakes had failed.

‘Misapplication of pedals’

However, another police officer who testified Thursday said he believed the crash had nothing to do with brake failure. 

Const. Jared Park of the London Police Service’s traffic management unit spent eight hours investigating the crash scene at the intersection that night. 

Park testified that because the CRV’s brake fluid reservoir was full, and because McNorgan had said her brakes failed, his preliminary conclusion was that the crash was caused by what he called the “misapplication of pedals.” 

He explained this means he believes the driver pressed down on the gas pedal, instead of the brake pedal. Park inspected the car’s brake reservoir at the scene. The court was also shown a photo of McNorgan’s CRV taken under the hood during a police inspection in a secure yard five days after the collision.

The photo shows the car’s brake fluid reservoir — its cap removed for the photo — had the brake fluid filled to the top.

“I don’t believe there was a leak in the system given that the level hadn’t changed and it was still really full,” Park testified.

Park also said the car had to travel uphill to continue through the intersection without slowing down, which was another reason he believed the driver was pushing down on the accelerator instead of the brake.

“There’s been other cases of pedal misapplication, it does happen,” he said.

The car eventually came to a stop on the south side of Riverside Drive, near a green space known as the Cancer Survivor’s Garden.

More testimony from mechanical experts who examined the car is expected when the jury trial continues Thursday afternoon.

No witnesses testified Wednesday, as the Crown and defence worked through details about how evidence from an agreed-to statement of facts could be presented.