Possible Errors Occurring During Accident Reconstruction Based on Car “Black Box” Records 2002-01-0549

The authors simulate the vehicle motion in situations where typical defensive maneuvers in road traffic are being carried out, namely straight braking, singular lane-change and “J-turn”. They reproduce the vehicle motion (i.e. velocity, vehicle's C.G. trajectory and yaw angle) by using the simulated “black box” outputs. Thus, they operate in a way that is similar to that employed by forensic experts who analyze the “black box” outputs. The employed simulation method provides means of comparing the simulated exact values of velocity and of the vehicle's C.G. trajectory to the readings obtained by integrating the “black box” outputs simulation. Estimation of the error produced by the expert employing the “black box” outputs can be made in this way. The body pitch and roll are sources of longitudinal and lateral acceleration recording errors because a gravitational acceleration component for the respective direction is added in simplified version of the device. The results show a possibility of occurrence of significant values of the error, in particular, in situations where maneuvers producing a large share of lateral movement are made.