While driving along a busy four-lane highway in Fresno, Mr. Scott saw some large debris that had fallen off a garbage truck earlier. This obstruction had forced previous drivers to go around the #2 lane of the highway and posed a serious threat to quickly-approaching drivers. Mr. Scott, in his Ford pickup truck, quickly decided to put his emergency lights on, park on the highway, and clear the debris on foot.

While Mr. Scott cleaned this trash, a separate driver named Mr. Arenado approached Mr. Scott’s vehicle at highway speed in a commercial box truck. A Prius drove ahead of him as they approached Mr Scott. Mr. Arenado claimed that at the last second, the Prius swerved out of the way and while driving at about 70 MPH, Mr. Arenado crashed into the Ford pickup. He and his passengers in the box truck suffered serious injuries and were rushed to a hospital for emergency treatment. 

Mr. Arenado’s trucking company planned to file a suit against Mr. Scott for endangering him and other drivers on the road. However, Mr. Scott’s legal team claimed he undertook these actions to make the road safer for drivers and avoid further risks. They also argued that Mr. Scott’s vehicle with its emergency lights would be much more visible to oncoming drivers than the littered debris.

3D Forensic was contacted by Mr. Scott’s defense team to perform a perspective-recreation and line-of-sight analysis of the accident lead-up for Mr. Arenado to verify whether he truly couldn't have avoided this high-speed collision. 

Challenge:

Show Mr. Arenado’s visual perspective moments before the collision

Solutions:

1. Capture environmental data and perspective film
2. Model and animate the incident based on accident reconstruction and forensic evidence
3. Analyze potential line-of-sight issues preventing Mr. Arenado from perceiving Mr. Scott’s Ford

The team set out to capture environmental measurement data necessary to reconstruct the incident. Because the incident occurred on a major highway, the team would need to exercise extreme caution. Laser scan measurements were taken at multiple stations on the shoulder to ensure sufficient surface measurements were taken despite passing vehicles. They also took several drone videos and pictures by flying adjacent to the highway. Without having to shut down the very busy roadway or put specialists in a dangerous position, 3D Forensic was able to effectively obtain precise measurements through lidar scanning and photogrammetry.

The team then scanned Mr. Arenado’s box truck so they could accurately illustrate and match the driver’s true eye-level perspective in the animation. 3DF calculated the precise eye-level of the driver, then brought a vehicle with a similar driver-seat height to the scene and drove the same path as Mr. Arenado to capture his eye-level perspective of the accident.

3D Forensic then modeled and animated the incident with essential measurements in the 3D Working Model. The team used emergency response photos to model an accurate representation of the highway scene. The scene was set with the Ford truck parked with its emergency lights on and placed where the accident reconstructionist had determined. Then the team input a 3D model of a Prius maintaining a consistent speed ahead of Mr. Arenado until the collision was less than four seconds away. Thanks to 3D calculations of the driver’s perspective, the animation very closely matched the drive-through video taken after the scan.

Four accident scenarios were rendered; two with the Prius maintaining a close lead, based on Mr. Arenado’s testimony, and two the Prius leading at a greater distance ahead Mr. Arenado. One of these two situations were additionally rendered with a few neighboring cars maintaining highway speeds and two were rendered without any other vehicles nearby on the highway.

These animated reconstructions effectively showed that Mr. Arenado’s line-of-sight to the parked Ford pickup wasn't impeded, even when trailing the Prius. The seat of his vehicle was about four-and-a-half feet tall from ground level, placing his eye-level perspective at about seven-and-a-half feet from the ground. This elevated the driver’s perspective much higher than the average vehicle and visually exhibited to the jury that this accident could have been prevented if Mr. Arenado was paying attention to the road.

Given this fact, he would have plenty of time to perceive and react to a stopped vehicle with flashing lights ahead of him. The defense was able to capitalize on this demonstration and declare that the accident happened due to Mr. Arenado’s negligence.

After attorneys showed 3D Forensic’s productions to the jury, they deliberated and returned a verdict reflecting how Mr. Scott was not the primary cause of this accident. His attorneys were astounded and pleased with the result of lower-than-expected punitive damages.