Accident Analysis Using Geotab and Smartwitness Camera
*Please note we are no longer offering SmartWitness camera solutions. Contact us and we will help set you up with one of our other great camera solutions!*
In this post, we will look at a recent accident of one of our client’s vehicles equipped with Geotab and Smartwitness Camera.
Background:
The client is a large floor tile retailer in Ontario and Quebec. They have equipped the Geotab system on all their vehicles and have also equipped Smartwitness KP1 Cameras in two of their delivery trucks in Montreal. The vehicles travel across Quebec and travels over 2,000 km a week. The client’s primary use is to track the usage of the vehicle and make sure that it is being driven carefully. Thus, they have opted to purchase Smartwitness KP-1s dual camera systems for their vehicles. This is system features 2 cameras, forward and driver-facing and is integrated into the Geotab system.
GPS Tracking Hardware: Geotab GO7 – Base Plan
Camera Hardware: Smartwitness KP-1s – Dual camera system with front and driver-facing camera.
Tracking software: MyGeotab web tracking platform, with Smartwitness integration.
Accident:
- The vehicle arrived at a yard near Montreal on 12, June 2019 to drop off a delivery.
- At 2:35 pm the vehicle was leaving the yard.
- To exit the property the vehicle was looking to make a left turn.
- From the angle of the camera, it looks like he may have been right at the edge of the curb to merge on to the road.
- The drivers start to drive on to the road
- At this point, a silver sedan drives in front of the truck on the opposing lane.
- The client’s passenger side front corner collides with the rear of the silver sedan.
Analysis:
To analyze the accident, we need to look at data from both Geotab and Smarwitness systems. First, we need to examine the Geotab data:
We can see through the Geotab tracking history that the vehicle was making a left-hand turn. We can also tell that he was exiting the property in the current way. However, the Geotab data does not give us the whole picture.
To see exactly what happened we need to see the data from the Smartwitness cameras:
Here is a quick video analysis of how we analyzed the accident:
Smartwitness systems will automatically detect accidents and save them on the system. Therefore, we can go back and retrieve them for further analysis or directly view them on the system. Smartwitness will also save the data from the sensors in the camera. You can download the data and analyze it with the video in software provided by Smartwitness.
During our analysis of the video, we can see through the sensor data, that the vehicle was accelerating just before the time of impact. This can be confirmed by looking at the video closely and watching the yellow centerline. From this we can determine the primary cause of the accident to be that the truck moved forward too soon, closing the space for the silver sedan and colliding with the vehicle.
Important information to note: The drivers facing camera was turned away on purpose by the driver of the vehicle. This was allowed by the client. If the driver facing was showing the driver, we would have been able to see what the driver was doing before the accident.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, both the Geotab system and Smartwitness cameras both worked as intended. Geotab tracking system showed where the event occurred and the cameras show how the accident happened and what caused it. In this case, the accident occurred when the client’s truck was trying to make a left-hand turn on a 2-way street. The vehicle accelerated to early, closing the gap for the oncoming silver sedan and clipping the passenger side rear bumper of the sedan.
