"Crash Day" from the Institute of Traffic Accident Investigators
This June sees the return of our very successful research day where you will be able to attend - for free - and view many staged crashes. We are hoping to have a number of stands and some ''audience participation' events.
This year will find us at a new venue, Darley Moor, the configuration of which will ensure different impacts than you would have seen before, if you have attended the 'pre covid' events.
The event is outdoors and will follow all appropriate Government guidelines and will only be cancelled if required under those guidelines.
As we get nearer more details of the day will be added to this description.
So, book early to avoid disappointment, as when capacity is reached, we will have to stop accepting bookings.
For a sample of what you might see, here is a high speed video of a Vauxhall Vectra into X-Type Jaguar video: https://youtu.be/aVFJjT9JLu8
Currently the itinerary for the day is:
09.15 Safety Briefing
09.30 Crash 1 – Head-on - Both Cars moving at 20 mph
09.50 Crash 2 - Stage Accident - Multiple Collisions to demonstrate different mark types
10.30 Crash 3 – Head-on - Police Car into Police Car at 30 mph
10.50 Lecture Room: Continual Professional Development and the introduction of the Certificate of Professional Competence” – Mr J Keenan Chairman of ITAI
11.30 Crash 4 – Side impact - Vehicle into Vehicle
11.50 Lecture Room: “How Safe are Electric Vehicles” – Mr P Mitchell – Delphi Technologies
12.30 Crash 5 – Head-on – Police Car into Police Car at 50 mph
12.50 Lecture Room: “Rapid Scene Harvesting” – Mr M Rowe – Leica-Geosystems
13.30 Crash 6 – Side impact – Vehicle into Vehicle
13.50 Lecture Room: “Digital Photography for Forensic Collision Investigators - an overview!” – Mr A Sinfield – CameraCal
14.30 Crash 7 – Side impact - Police Car into Police Car at 30 mph
14.50 Lecture Room: “Understanding different types of Virtual Reality” – Mr Alex Harvey or Mr Bradley Woodward – RIVR
15.30 Crash 8 – Side impact - Police Car into Police Car at 50 mph
16.00 Crash 9 – Lamp Post Collision – Car into Lamp Post
16.30 Crash10 – Shunt Impact – Bullet Car into 3 static vehicles at 60 mph
SPECIAL OFFER!
If you are attending and can bring your DSLR camera, Cameracal, who provide affiliated photography training courses will be at crash day and are offering Camera and Lens calibration and sensor cleaning.
Camera and Lens calibration
Whilst cameras and lenses are precision items, they are built to tolerances, which mean that their autofocussing systems do not operate at their optimum straight out of the box. Indeed, perhaps the easiest way to think of it is in terms of a rifle and a telescopic sight. Placing a telescopic sight onto a rifle does not guarantee that you will hit the centre of the target you are aiming at. The sight and rifle need to be zeroed, to ensure they operate in unison and that your aim is true (notwithstanding windage and other atmospheric conditions). A camera and lens are the same, they both require to be properly married to each other, to ensure they are focussing exactly where you want. Even though you may place your focus point on the subject, the camera's focussing system will likely be focussing slightly in front or behind the subject. This results in the subject not being as sharp as it should be. This issue can become worse over longer distances and certainly if you are relying on images for measurements or for photogrammetry it may result in soft images. The auto-focussing system in camera can typically account for up to 20% of the issue, with the remaining 80% being in the lens. This can generally be corrected by calibrating the system and this process also identifies the optimum aperture to shoot at, and also seeks to increase the resolving resolution of the lens.
When you want the best possible detail from your camera and lens, it is imperative that they are calibrated. Unless you drop or knock your equipment you shouldn't need to have them recalibrated for a year or so, although wear and tear will eventually cause the calibration to drift.
If you book a calibration with Cameracal they will also send you a full calibration report.
Sensor cleaning
Digital cameras that utilise interchangeable lenses, will over time, allow dust and other substances to settle onto the sensor. In-camera sensor cleaning modes, simply shake/vibrate the sensor. This will dislodge some dust or debris, but it is generally more of a token effort than a really useful facility. Sensor contamination will manifest in images as small indistinct spots, or smears in the image. This is often more noticeable on light uniform backgrounds. Mirrorless cameras are even more prone to contamination than DSLR's due to the lack of a mirror in front of the sensor, which does reduce the flow of dust to the sensor. Contamination can be removed by cleaning the sensor using swabs and cleaning fluids and Cameracal provide this service, together with 'Dust off Delete' reference images (a clean mapped image of your sensor), which can be used later to remove contamination from images, using software (Nikon and Canon only). Some contamination can actually eat into the glass sitting in front of the sensor and cause damage.
If you require your camera to be checked over during the crash test day, Cameracal will be on-site to clean your sensor or calibrate your system and the following link MUST BE USED to prebook a time slot for this to be done.
https://cameracal.co.uk/pages/car-crash-day-2022
Flyer with more information: CameracalCrashDay2022.pdf
