Background

Reportedly, a pedestrian was run over by a tractor trailer when she attempted to cross a street on foot with her son at a pedestrian crosswalk. The tractor trailer driver claimed that he did not see the pedestrians in front of his tractor trailer when the light turned green and he proceeded forward. Based on poor quality security camera surveillance video taken at the accident scene, it appeared as though the truck driver could have observed the pedestrians in the crosswalk.

Services Provided

Rimkus Consulting Group was retained to determine if the driver of the tractor trailer was able to see the pedestrians at the time of the accident. Rimkus was requested to participate in a joint inspection with another expert, review the surveillance video, and perform video enhancement.

During the course of our assignment, we reviewed security video that captured the event from a distance and at an angle that partially blocked full-viewing of the accident. Based on an examination the surveillance video, we concluded that it would be impossible to determine if truck driver could see the woman in the crosswalk due to the poor resolution and viewing angle of the camera. Therefore, Rimkus proceeded to create a 3D model, 3D camera match, and animation to match the surveillance video of the accident scene.

We made a survey of the accident scene to create a dimensionally accurate 3D model of the scene. After inspecting and measuring the scene, it became apparent that the intersection was not a standard T-intersection. The crosswalk was angled away from the tractor and the start of the crosswalk was approximately 18 feet from the front of the tractor. If the pedestrians had actually been in the crosswalk, they should have been clearly visible to the driver.

A 3D model of the intersection was built to scale and a 3D camera match was performed. An animation was also created to match the timing of the surveillance video. The 3D camera was then elevated to an overhead view to establish the locations of tractor trailer and the pedestrians as they moved around the truck. Based on our analysis, we verified that the pedestrians were clearly not in the crosswalk, but they had actually crossed within a few feet from the front of the tractor trailer.

We also performed a line-of-sight study to evaluate truck driver’s view of the accident scene from the cab of the truck. As a result of our analysis, it was concluded that the truck driver was not able to see the pedestrians, because the height of the truck hood clearly obscured the driver’s view of the pedestrians.