Crash Bytes (June '05)

(Below are two sample animations. To play, simply click on the image and it will open and play in its own browser window. If you have any trouble viewing the animations, please click here to let our Technology Manager know and he will arrange for you to download the animations in another file format.)

Vehicle Accident Animation

If a picture is worth "a thousand words," how valuable and useful would a "video" of the actual accident sequence be? In many cases a visual representation of the accident can help to clarify the facts in a case. This can be especially useful in vehicle-pedestrian impacts where fraud is suspected. Until recently, creating a high-quality animation of an accident required a great deal of time and was prohibitively expensive. Not any more! Sophisticated software programs now allow us to dramatically improve animation quality and radically reduce time and cost. Animation of accidents is now surprisingly affordable.

Case In Point 1: A pedestrian claimed he was stuck by the insured vehicle as it backed out of a Home Depot parking space. Visually recreating the accident sequence from the depositions of the claimant and the insured clearly showed that, even at a relatively fast backing speed of 5 mph, the claimant (a 37-year old male in good health) would have had to be walking at the pace of an 87-year old man with a walker in order to be hit in this case. At a normal walking pace, this accident could not have occurred!

Case In Point 2: A claimant vehicle (CV) turned left on a yellow light and was struck broadside by the oncoming insured vehicle. Witnesses at the scene described the CV as moving "very slowly," implying the CV driver was being cautious, and the insured was reckless. Our calculations, however, determined that the CV was traveling at nearly 21 mph at impact. By creating a real-time animation of the accident sequence, we were able to clearly demonstrate that, although the CV was moving at an actual 21 mph, to an observer the CV appeared to be moving very slowly -- an optical illusion created by the differences between the speeds and direction of the two vehicles.