Just over a decade ago, car accident investigations revolved around what witnesses remembered, what was written in the police report, and limited evidence submitted to insurance adjusters. Today, technology makes it possible to obtain even more detailed evidence from cameras, sensors, phones, and reconstruction software. Current technology can provide claims adjusters with information regarding a vehicle’s speed, braking history, movement, driver behavior, and other factors that are critical components in determining how a crash occurred.
Here’s how it works.
Vehicle Software Records Data Prior To Impact
Today’s cars generate a constant stream of information that can be useful in the event of a crash. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that 96% of 2013 passenger vehicles are equipped with event data recorders, which means this technology has been around for quite some time.
During an accident investigation involving a personal injury, speed matters. However, people aren’t great at judging speed, especially after an accident. Event data recorders can establish the facts surrounding how fast a car was traveling right before a collision to help investigators accurately assess the situation. The data collected by these recorders can also determine if the driver braked before the accident, when or if the airbags were deployed, and if the occupants were wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash.
All of this information helps investigators determine what really happened rather than just going off of witness accounts. Accuracy is critical because some personal injury lawsuits following a car crash can reach millions of dollars when certain facts can be proven.
Cameras Provide Visual Evidence
Video footage that captures the scene before, during, and after a crash can provide invaluable information witnesses might miss. This footage can be replayed frame by frame for clarity. The most common type of video footage comes from dashcams and captures key information, like lane position, traffic signals, vehicle movement, and what’s going on at the moment of impact from the driver’s point of view.
Sometimes passengers or outside witnesses capture additional context on their phones either before or during an accident. Multiple sources of video footage can help investigators compare witness statements to one another as well as what was captured on other cameras.
Smartphones Can Establish A Timeline
During a crash investigation, establishing a timeline is often a critical part of the investigation. Most smartphones produce a continuous stream of data that can become relevant after a crash. For instance, a phone’s internal GPS records can determine where the owner was at the time of impact, and timestamps for calls and text messages can establish whether someone was using their phone while driving. This is critical because distracted driving contributes to thousands of traffic accident deaths every year.
Software Can Reconstruct Accidents
Accident reconstruction is no longer limited to whiteboards and physical 3D models. With modern software, investigators can enter data collected during the investigation – including sensor data and photos – to reconstruct a collision. These software applications can recreate everything from roads and cars to obstacles and damage. They use known movements and distances to simulate a crash that produces the same damage to determine angles that can help establish fault.
AI Can Process Complex Data
Artificial intelligence tools can process large amounts of data that would take a human investigator countless hours to review manually. It can scan long video recordings to capture scenes with relevant information, analyze damage by comparing submitted photos to similar damage, estimate repair costs and medical bills, and make sense of witness statements. If there are any inconsistencies, an AI tool can pick them out easily.
However, there is a downside to AI. Many people submit AI-generated photos of damage to their vehicle to their insurance companies in order to maximize their payouts. This type of fraud is unfortunately common, and not all insurance companies are equipped to deal with this. It can be hard to distinguish a real photo from an AI-generated one without knowing what signs to look for. Insurance adjusters can ask for video footage and compare it to the photos, although that increases the amount of work the adjuster has to perform.
Data Can Determine Liability More Accurately
Having better evidence can make it easier to determine fault, especially if more than one driver is at fault. This prevents insurance companies from paying out too much while helping injured parties recover the compensation they deserve.
Vehicle Technology Still Needs Human Judgment
Although digitally collected data can significantly aid a crash investigation, human judgment is still needed to make the final determination regarding fault and payouts. Digital evidence provides investigators with a clearer picture of what happened, but human analysis determines how all the pieces fit together.
Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan: Unsplash
Priya Nandakumar covers enterprise technology and AI infrastructure for DevX, with a focus on the systems decisions that look fine until they don't. Caching layers, message queues, fault tolerance. She spent seven years as a backend engineer at two Series C startups before moving into technical journalism, and she still reads changelogs for fun.
