COLLIDE CONSULTANCY SERVICES
Backed by a team of experienced professionals, our strategic services meet the needs of many clients - from small law firms to the Director of Public Prosecutions - we can provide you with the expert knowledge to assist with collision investigation needs.
Get in touch with us today to learn how Collide Consultancy can help.
Our core business lies in determining the causation of a vehicular collision. Whether it be speed analysis, vehicle orientation, line of sight, CDR data interpretation or any other number of related factors - Collide Consultancy specialises in providing in depth analysis on the cause of a collision, ready for presentation in court or other tribunals.
Slide to Stop - skid marks give insight into the rate at which a vehicle is decelerating. This in turn can be used, applying Newton's Laws of motion, to determine how much speed is lost by a vehicle.
Critical Speed Yaw - Remember playing 'corners' as a kid when riding in the backseat of Mum's car? If you did, you will remember feeling an outward force on your body as the car rounded a corner. The faster the car travels, the greater this force. When a vehicle attempts to turn at speed that is excessive for the turn radius, this force will cause the vehicle to lose traction and begin to side slip, leaving arced tyre marks. Through accurate measurements of the arc of these tyre marks, the speed of the vehicle can be determined.
Airbag Control Module (CDR) - Did you know that if your car has an airbag, it also has a 'black box' similar to that of an airplane? Sometimes, this data can be downloaded and the information contained within the 'black box' can provide insight into the motion of a vehicle in the moments leading up to a collision - speed, braking, acceleration rate, steering input - just to name a few.
Momentum - Just like billiard balls, vehicles are subject to the conservation of momentum. The area of impact and the final rest positions of vehicles can allow for the speed of these vehicles to be determined.
CRASH RECONSTRUCTION
An extension of Crash Reconstruction investigates the Human Factors surrounding the collision. That is, what was the driver doing? Should the driver have 1 - Been able to identify an immediate hazard
2 - Applied some avoidance mechanism to prevent the collision
When investigating Human Factors, the reconstructionist is generally looking at something known as Perception-Reaction Time (PRT). This is the time it takes for a person to identify a hazard, decipher that action needs to be taken to avoid the hazard and then implement an action in an attempt to avoid the collision.
As you would expect, this is a very dynamic figure and will not only change from situation to situation, person to person, but also can range within any individual under a myriad of different circumstances.
Through years of analysing real world crashes, simulated driving scenarios, lab test results and published data from hundreds of sources, an experienced reconstructionist can make educated evaluations of PRT times that would be expected for a driver in a particular collision sequence and apply this in the collision analysis.
Factors that can influence the PRT appropriate to a situation include - expectation
- distraction
- impairment
- environmental conditions
HUMAN FACTORS
CCTV ANALYSIS
As the digital world becomes smarter and cheaper, more and more collisions are being caught on camera, be it fixed CCTV systems or dashcams installed within vehicles.
Depending on the quality of the footage, it can be possible to determine the speed of a vehicle through forensic analysis of the CCTV footage, so long as the footage meets 2 basic criteria - a accurate travel distance can be determined
- an accurate elapsed time can be determined
While this may sound pretty straight forward, not all systems meet these criteria, and it can take in depth scientific analysis to assure that the speed calculations performed are true and correct.
Sophisticated laser scanning technology is utilised when performing a thorough CCTV analysis, allowing the reconstructionist to account for the effect of parallax (what you see from one position, isn't the same as what you see from another), which can often be the major form of error when conducting such an anlysis.
If the proper techniques are used, CCTV analysis can provide the most accurate speed determinations of all methods used within the reconstructionists tool kit, and can be vital in validating data collected from the Airbag Control Module.
3-D laser scanning technology allows a reconstructionist to collect data like never before, bringing large physical scenes into the office in the digital world, which can be navigated by the click of a mouse.
Scene Capture - The most basic of processes that the 3-D laser scanner is utilised for is the quick and easy capture of a scene. The laser scanner can capture a scene in a quick and hassle free manner, often without the need to close the scene, whilst capturing the location of all pertinent evidence. This can then be used to perform a virtual survey, creating a scaled plan of the scene.
Damage Profiling - While laser scanning is great for capturing a scene, the real benefits arise in the capture of damage profiles sustained by a vehicle. This allows for accurate orientation analysis, placing vehicles back together as they would have been at the time of maximum engagement, providing unprecedented insight into the trajectory of a vehicle moments before impact.
CCTV Speed Analysis - The use of a 3-D laser scanner is integral in plotting the positions of CCTV cameras within a scene, along with other physical structures, to allow for accurate travel distance measurements, that account for the effect of parallax, in order to make accurate speed estimates.
Site Assessment - Similar to the scene capture, laser scanners can be used to capture the layout of a site, be it indoor or outdoor, that can allow for thorough and accurate planning for things such as major events, effective space management, emergency procedures and security audits.
3-D Imaging & Terrestrial Survey
In the time and age we live in, the safety and security of the public is of the utmost importance to anyone holding event or designing a space that is to be populated.
Combining the intimate knowledge of crash and vehicle dynamics along with the sophisticated scene capture allowed by 3-D laser scan technology, Collide Consultancy are able to provide in depth scene analysis to allow for the secure design of a precinct and appropriate event planning based on the infrastructure of a site.
By accurately assessing a site, plans can be made to utilise existing infrastructure in order to minimise inventory and expenditure on security systems, whilst maximising safety and functionality. This relates to things such as: - implementation of hostile vehicle mitigation devices
- CCTV camera placement and positioning
- emergency evacuation paths
- access points
- congregational areas
- perimeter fencing
SECURE DESIGN & EVENT PLANNING
Prevention is better than cure.
Did you know that by increasing your speed from 40km/h to 60km/h, you more than double the risk of killing a pedestrian?
Did you know that if you double your speed, it actually takes you in excess of 4 times the distance to come to a stop?
Did you know that a person who has been awake for 24 hours is equivalent to a driver that is twice the legal blood alcohol limit?
Did you know that eating food after drinking alcohol will not reduce your sobriety?
At Collide Consultancy we believe that if we are able to teach drivers better habits and driving practices, we are able to create safer roads. As such, we enjoy presenting to groups of all sizes, educating parties on how to become a safer driver, and how to encourage those around us to be safer drivers, by educating them on why certain actions on our roads are dangerous, and the science behind road rules.
We also provide education programs for collision investigators, looking at basic evidence identification, scene processing, collision reconstruction techniques, preparation of expert statements and court presentation.
EDUCATION PROGRAMS
