Forensic Engineers and Consultants

Archive: Collisions

Why Pedestrians Overestimate Their Visibility: A Dive into the Psychology of Road Safety

When we step out onto the road as pedestrians, most of us assume that we are easily visible to oncoming drivers. However, research shows that pedestrians frequently overestimate their visibility, especially at night or in low-light conditions. This overconfidence can lead to dangerous situations, contributing to accidents and fatalities. Understanding why pedestrians overestimate their visibility is crucial for improving road safety and preventing accidents. Read More

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Human Factors and Halloween Hazards: Trip and Falls

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Trick-or-treating is a fun and festive activity, but it comes with certain hazards that can pose risks to children and even adults. In addition to vehicle and pedestrian collisions and accidents, tripping and falling while trick-or-treating is a common hazard, especially for children navigating unfamiliar and dimly lit areas at night.

Children and adults can face tripping hazards on walkways while trick-or-treating.

Tripping hazards can be mitigated through compliance with walkway safety standards such as ASTM F 1637-2021: Standard Practice for Safe Walking Surfaces. ASTM F1637 is a standard that provides Read More

Human Factors and Halloween Hazards: Vehicle/Pedestrian Collisions

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Trick-or-treating is a fun and festive activity, but it comes with certain hazards that can pose risks to children and even adults. In addition to trip and fall hazards while trick-or-treating, there is also an increased risk of vehicle/pedestrian collisions due to the increased pedestrian activity in the roadway at night.

Child trick or treating during Halloween in the roadway.

At night, there are two significant problems facing drivers that contribute to pedestrian/vehicle collisions: Read More

What’s Up Doc? Collision Scene Documentation & Techniques

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A proper collision scene documentation, lovingly referred to as a scene doc, will make or break the investigation… guaranteed! While not necessarily all inclusive, here are a few evidence collection / documentation techniques that have served me well over the years.

Some, if not most, collision scene evidence is short lived, and tire marks Read More

Civil Twilight Pedestrian Collision: A Case Study

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Susan, a 45-year-old runner, was jogging in the early morning approximately an hour before sunrise, also known as “civil twilight.” Civil twilight occurs both before sunrise and after sunset when the sun is below the horizon and the sky is partially illuminated. Susan was wearing dark athletic clothing and grey tennis shoes for her morning run. She was running on the sidewalk in a suburban area and began to cross the four-lane road at an unmarked crosswalk. Read More

The 9-Cell Collision Matrix – The Environment

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“Was a dark stormy night as the train rattled on…” Anybody? 1985? Scarecrow?  Come on… this was when Cougar was still a Mellencamp! Ok… it was called Grandma’s Theme… you’ll have to look that one up… but as I sat down to write this blog on the environment, that song kept running though my head. If you look it up, it will have a similar effect… just a little warning.

In our last installment of the 9-Cell Collision Matrix let’s travel down the wet, slippery slope of environmental factors that can contribute to car crashes, and maybe take a closer look at the things around us, at or near our crash scene that may reveal some important clues. Read More

What You Don’t See Can Hurt You-Undercarriage Crashes

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A 43-year-old man driving his small vehicle northbound in the right lane of a rural two-lane paved road, was on his way to his favorite hunting spot in the early morning. He had two passengers with him—one in his front passenger seat and one in his back left seat. It was dark outside, and the weather was clear and dry. Along the rural two-lane road were large wooded private properties with no ambient lighting illuminating the roadway. Further up the road, a log truck began to turn left onto the road. Unable to entirely turn left in one fluid movement, the log truck Read More

The Difficult Task of Avoiding Pedestrians While Driving at Night

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An alarming 6,516 pedestrians were killed, and 54,769 pedestrians were injured as a result of traffic crashes in 2020 (NHTSA, 2022). A large majority (77%) of these pedestrian fatalities occurred in low luminance conditions such as nighttime while only 20% occurred in daylight (NHTSA, 2022). This dramatic difference between pedestrian fatalities during the night and day is seen even when controlling for driver fatigue and alcohol consumption (Owens & Sivak, 1996). This phenomenon prompts the question as what is so dangerous about being a pedestrian at night? Read More

The Collision Reconstruction Matrix – The Human

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Murder, suicide, deceit, and intrigue… car crashes? You bet! In our next installment of the 9-Cell Collision Matrix let us dive a little deeper into the glue that binds all this together, the human element.

Photo by Mark Turner

Let’s begin with the most basic human element at the root cause of car wrecks, our old friend inattention. Inattention… a vast word that encompasses many lackadaisical conditions. The daydreaming 16-year-old in math class, the radio knob turner, the back seat talker, the quarter pounder with cheese eater, and perhaps the most offensive, the cell phone user. All very dangerous behind the wheel, and one very dangerous to your future… as it turns out, you will always need good math skills… ask me how I know? Driving is of course a divided attention endeavor, Read More

The Best Use of Visibility Aids – Contrast

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There are various visibility aids marketed for vulnerable road users (VRUs). Here, the term VRU is used to describe unprotected road users such as pedestrians and bicyclists. Visibility aids are designed to increase a VRU’s contrast within their environment, making them more distinguishable from the background to a driver. These visibility aids can include both active and passive ways to increase the VRU’s contrast, therefore their visibility. As the name implies, active visibility aids actively transmit light and are powered by a source (i.e., battery powered bicycle headlights and taillights) while passive visibility aids passively reflect light coming from outside sources (i.e., fluorescent, and retroreflective clothing).

There are a wide variety of active visibility aids to choose from on the market. For example, Read More

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