Video Analysis in Collision Reconstruction | EP 88 | Mark Crouch | Aug 3, 2023 | 2PM Eastern
Mark is the Head of Investigations at Forensic Collision Investigation & Reconstruction Ltd., and has a Master’s Degree in Applied Physics (MSci. Hons.) from the University of London. Mark worked for the Metropolitan Police as a Forensic Collision Investigator for several years before forming FCIR. He has conducted investigations into hundreds of road traffic collisions, attending collision scenes, writing detailed reports, peer reviewing the work of others and researching new techniques within the field. Just this year, he released the second edition of Video Analysis in Collision Reconstruction and he teaches others how to work with video evidence for collision investigations. Join us as we discuss his work and how video evidence plays an important role in collision investigations.
Originally Aired on: August 3, 2023
Video Analysis in Collision Reconstruction | EP 88 | Mark Crouch | Aug 3, 2023 | 2PM Eastern
Mark is the Head of Investigations at Forensic Collision Investigation & Reconstruction Ltd., and has a Master’s Degree in Applied Physics (MSci. Hons.) from the University of London. Mark worked for the Metropolitan Police as a Forensic Collision Investigator for several years before forming FCIR. He has conducted investigations into hundreds of road traffic collisions, attending collision scenes, writing detailed reports, peer reviewing the work of others and researching new techniques within the field. Just this year, he released the second edition of Video Analysis in Collision Reconstruction and he teaches others how to work with video evidence for collision investigations. Join us as we discuss his work and how video evidence plays an important role in collision investigations.
Originally Aired on: August 3, 2023
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;54;16
Speaker
Hey everyone, it’s Eugene here. And welcome to Forensics Talks. This is episode 88, and my guest today is Mark Crouch. Now, Mark is currently the head of investigations for Forensic Collision Investigation and Reconstruction Ltd. And this is a company that is based out of England. If you are working in the collision, investigative or reconstruction area, you probably know about Mark and his company.
00;00;54;19 - 00;01;19;12
Speaker
Mark's background is in applied physics, and he actually got his master's degree from the University of London way back, and he went on to work for the Metropolitan Police as a forensic collision investigator for many years before forming his current company, FCIR. Mark does a lot of work with calculating vehicle speeds from video. And in fact, he released a text a while back on just that video analysis in collision reconstruction.
00;01;19;14 - 00;01;39;00
Speaker
And just earlier this year, he released his second edition. Now, this conversation was prerecorded, but we will be airing this at the regular time, and we may be watching simultaneously. So, if you have any questions or comments from Mark, go ahead and put them in the chat window. Thanks, and hope you enjoy the conversation. Hey, Mark, thank you so much.
00;01;39;00 - 00;02;00;23
Speaker
I really appreciate taking the time for being here today and looking forward to asking you a whole bunch of questions. No problem. It's so good. SPETH Good spirits. Great. Yeah, well, you know, it's funny because we really haven't spoken all that much. And I really first, I've seen you online, I've seen the posts, I've seen a lot of the work that you've been doing but never really spoke to.
00;02;00;27 - 00;02;22;14
Speaker
And I guess there were a bunch of people around you that I knew. And you know, your name comes up and then really, I think the first time I actually ever heard you speak was at the RECs conference in Orlando. So, the, you know, loose presentation. And so, thanks to Lou Peck yeah, he did a really good job there to only get you there today.
00;02;22;16 - 00;02;45;24
Speaker
Yeah, he was like the Steve Jobs of Rex you know very polished, very polished presentation. So, I want to talk to you about your beginnings. And I mean, I know you're involved in, you know, sort of tech stuff and a lot of different things, but what before Mark was, you know, doing university and stuff like that, were you running around?
00;02;45;24 - 00;03;12;11
Speaker
Were you like the nerdy, sane science kid where you always into tech stuff? Like what? What was your or your hobbies and things like when you were younger? Yeah, I'm not really into the tech stuff, I don't think. I guess I always had a bit of an analytical mind. My dad taught me to look at things and see how they worked as opposed to just, just, you know, kind of accepting that it and, you know, he, he was quite a lot into electronics and things like that.
00;03;12;11 - 00;03;32;05
Speaker
So, it was always some machine, or something taken up on the kitchen table and you know, so I kind of grew up in an environment where things were being tinkered with and played with. So, I think that naturally kind of you kind of grow up in this environment where you just want to kind of play with stuff.
00;03;32;05 - 00;04;03;00
Speaker
And that's kind of where I think a lot of my thinking comes from. I mean, just find out how it works and why it works. Is that what led you into studying physics? Yeah, I guess it did in a way. I mean, like lots of people on their kind of educational journey, there were lots of touch points, really inspirational physics teacher and sort of so we do in the UK something called A-levels, which is what we take when we have between sort of 16 to 18.
00;04;03;00 - 00;04;30;28
Speaker
So that that bit of study you do in the couple of years before you go to uni. And so, A-levels for us had a really, really good physics teacher that kind of inspired me to, to go on and take physics as a degree, which is a, you know, not for everybody is it? No, no, not at all. I remember being in university and thinking, you know, those people over in marketing and business, you know, they're having a good time, they're having their coffees and stuff and know suffering over here.
00;04;30;28 - 00;05;05;15
Speaker
Why did I do this to myself? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that feeling very well. Lots of things take time, but, you know, some really good friends and something I look back on really fondly. Yeah. And. And there's a certain camaraderie, too. Like when you get into these scientific fields. I think, for example, in, in more artistic or creative disciplines or, or areas of study, I've noticed that some people sometimes they're more in competition with one another, whereas, you know, engineering students are always after the same answer, so they're often helping each other and, you know, try to get to the same place, which, which is true.
00;05;05;15 - 00;05;24;03
Speaker
I found that we had a really good group of, you know, people that worked together helping each other. So that's important. Yeah. And I was really lucky. Same to me. I mean, you obviously can't speak about what it was like for other arts degrees or other things, but yeah, that, and that was very much encouraged by lecturers a unique to, to work on problems together.
00;05;24;03 - 00;06;02;08
Speaker
There was a, you know, a real emphasis on, on kind of so a problem sheet skill that would still gets me haunts me so, so the homework problem sheets are a little bit more grown ups than homework. A university which we used to get lots of, we were actively encouraged to work collaboratively on that, you know, not plagiarizing obviously, but working together through problems to unpick solutions, which again I think is a really good skills have, particularly when you enter a forensic discipline because it's about, you know, you can't just have all of the answers yourself.
00;06;02;08 - 00;06;20;05
Speaker
So, working collaboratively is a really important skill. Scientifically it is, yeah. Well, so I mean, collision investigation is not something that most people that I know anyway, you know, thought about before they went into university thinking, hey, I'm going to be a collision investigator. So, I imagine you probably had something else in mind maybe before you. Yeah. Let's see.
00;06;20;08 - 00;06;41;24
Speaker
I was going to be a banker for some reasons. I'm a stocks and shares or a business analyst or because everybody had said, you know, you go to these career fairs and it's you know, if you're a physicist and you're an analytical thinker, you can make lots, lots of money doing that. So that's what I was lined up for, kind of a four-year university and doing my masters.
00;06;41;24 - 00;07;14;03
Speaker
So, I was like, yes, I'm going to go and do that. And I finished university. And I was quite lucky at that point because I had a fully funded place. I also had some job offers, companies the other ways, you know, my thoughts from doing and then the shiny thing came out of the corner of my eye. When the Metropolitan Police in London were increasing speculation, investigators and I'm still not entirely sure why when faced with those two offers on the table, I decided to go for the shiny thing.
00;07;14;07 - 00;07;44;25
Speaker
Yeah, but it's it and the and the rest is history for going into a job that I just love. Yeah. How long were you there for? So, in the police, I was there for eight years now. Eight years in there. So doing exactly the same as law enforcement collusion investigates is pretty much around the world. So going called out to the live crash scenes, collecting the information, doing the analysis work, producing a report, and then ending up in court with it.
00;07;44;25 - 00;08;09;23
Speaker
Typically, was there a lot of set up at the beginning in terms of your training? Do you have like a mentor that they put you with? Like how did that work for you? Yes. So, there were a number of courses or introductory courses that all collision investigators had to do in the Met. It was done in-house as opposed to outsource, but similar level of courses.
00;08;09;25 - 00;08;38;28
Speaker
So, you had a crash course for about six months. In doing all of that kind of training and then out to a unit to two in London. So, traffic carried sort of road traffic policing unit that had it as a specialism and assigned to the collision investigation unit and assigned to mentor within that unit. So yeah, yeah. So, some kind of mentoring based system was for what it was built.
00;08;38;28 - 00;09;03;22
Speaker
So, and these were these all-internal programs that they had or was it was their external training that you take they're taking as well. Yeah. Mostly internal. Mostly internal. There were a few external courses and certainly as time progresses there's more and more it's and of course is to do but mostly internal. Okay so this was what this was what year when you began?
00;09;03;25 - 00;09;37;00
Speaker
2008. 2008. Okay. So that was it. That was a different realm back then. I mean, technology was different. Maybe some of the ways that people investigated were a little bit different as well, would you say? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I think in terms of the technology around collision investigation there, you know, the data on vehicles was, you know, starting to be used in about 2008 at that kind of time.
00;09;37;00 - 00;09;58;02
Speaker
We just started moving in terms of the video world from analog based systems to digital, the most that change happened, you know, sort of a few years before that, the systems that were out there. So, the evidence you were actually guessing. You know, I remember starting on and getting videocassettes to work on and also seeing these ring as well.
00;09;58;05 - 00;10;32;13
Speaker
There were still mixtures of taking manual measurements. Well, measurements take measurements or a TPS basing system surveying on a on a pole 3D laser scanning didn't happen for us until a couple of years after I started, so I still speak quite fondly of it, though, about those kind of times because you do learn a lot from old techniques, so a new ones come along well, one, you realize how powerful all they all to you realize how lucky you are to be working on something that much time.
00;10;32;13 - 00;10;54;15
Speaker
It's easy. But yeah, I'm kind of pleased. Certainly, for the first couple of years, had the experience of doing me doing the old because it's valuable. Yeah, there was a very big grant or there was a lot of money that became available somewhere around 2010 or 2011 in the UK to buy new technology like laser scanners, right? There was a big program that came about.
00;10;54;15 - 00;11;23;20
Speaker
So, I'm not sure where the government got the money from, but I think the intent was, was it was it to help clear roadways, which it helps to minimize time? Is that the idea? Yes. So generally, the business case was written around road closure times because it has a huge impact on the wider economy. So that's so it was written for and justified that actually you can save closure times by 3D laser scanning as you would do in in more conventional techniques.
00;11;23;23 - 00;11;54;20
Speaker
Yeah. So that's what it did. It did it did. At that time, were you working at all with photogrammetry or drones or anything like that? So not, not at that time. And certainly, in London, drones weren't really a thing that could be readily access. Whilst police do have some exemptions to fly into no-fly zones, there's lots of protected real estate, shall we say, in London that gets very twitchy if you put a drone up over.
00;11;54;22 - 00;12;18;07
Speaker
So typically, in London drones aren't used photogrammetry again. Was not really, I'd only really been touched upon at that time it was something that became more readily available later on, mainly because of processing power. You know computers had to catch up with, with the sheer amount of work that needed to be done in getting a useful model out of photogrammetry.
00;12;18;09 - 00;12;37;19
Speaker
Yeah. So, what was your progression like then at the at the police? Did you begin, you know, sort of in a junior position and then you're sort of learning, you move up, you sort of in that an intermediate position. But after eight years, where did you end up. Yeah. So, I exactly as you say. Yes, you become more and more qualified with more and more experience.
00;12;37;19 - 00;13;11;03
Speaker
You can do more things. So, starting off being able to deal with some lower-level collisions, moving on to collisions that we would call a failed to stop collision or a hit and run more typically where the car or the driver had fled the scene because there's more of a forensic awareness around that. Then collisions involving police vehicles like fatal police crashes, various different stages of signing off and then moving onto mentoring myself.
00;13;11;05 - 00;13;34;28
Speaker
You know, you get to a stage when people come in and you then have to teach them how to do things. Yeah. Did your team there have like was everyone a generalists or was it where did people focus in on very specific areas and say, okay, you know, I'm going this direction, Somebody else goes in another direction and then you sort of help each other in that regard, Or was everybody sort of trained similarly?
00;13;35;00 - 00;14;00;07
Speaker
Yeah. So, from the organization's point of view, everybody was trained similarly. You had to be able to do everything that being said. So as is fairly natural, I think in, in large organizations, people have a natural flavor for something or something that particularly interests them. And then my take a little bit deeper and kind of work in their own time in things and breeds and grow it and publish things.
00;14;00;07 - 00;14;33;10
Speaker
And then you end up in a situation where you have inadvertently found yourself as the specialist in something without that really ever intending to be. Yeah, people are. Ask Mark Gino's about that, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it's quite amusing, but it's funny when you recount that story to a number of specialists like yourself or, or Jeff and those kind of people, everybody has a broadly similar story that, that they didn't set out to be the specialist in their field that people now say they are.
00;14;33;13 - 00;14;51;09
Speaker
It kind of failed them. Yeah. And the other way round. Yeah. Yeah. This is very true. Very true for sure. You know, it's sort of a rare thing where maybe not that rare, but you know, where somebody is in the police. I mean many people have very lengthy careers with the police and they, they finish they start and finish their careers.
00;14;51;09 - 00;15;21;05
Speaker
There. But, you know, after eight years, something motivated you to make a jump. And I'm just wondering what happened at that time that you said, you know what, I think I need to go out on my own or I need to do something. What motivated you? Yeah, a mixture of different things, really. Certainly, in the structure that was in the police at the time, there was kind of limited options to sort of be promoted and still work in the field that you love doing, you know, to, to take big promotions.
00;15;21;05 - 00;15;51;07
Speaker
I mean, you move away from doing the thing, the thing that you really enjoyed doing in terms of the requirements and staffing numbers. It's always difficult to recruit, which means your really experience collusion. Investigators get more and more asked of them. And at that time, we were my wife was pregnant with our first child, so it was like I'm doing quite a lot of nights and weekends.
00;15;51;10 - 00;16;17;02
Speaker
And it was a case of, oh, is this is this the thing that we want to do? And then just a bit of a bit of good fortune, really. I think I got approached by the London ambulance Service or else they were looking for a head of driving standards, which was essentially a 9 to 5 job and manage your own calendar.
00;16;17;04 - 00;16;40;24
Speaker
And at that point I'd already started setting up a setting up FCO private collision investigation company. So, everything just kind of aligned in that point that I could step off, build the company whilst doing a job that was 9 to 5. So, I just got very lucky really with timing, very fortunate in the way that that sets up.
00;16;41;02 - 00;17;05;22
Speaker
Yeah, the UK seems to be a place which is somewhat similar here in North America in that the collision investigation field is, is a healthy industry, let's say, whereas there's, there's other countries where it just there's no like South America and stuff. It's not as it's just not as prevalent. So, was there obviously some good opportunity for you, but did you see an opening where you're like, hey, I know I can do this?
00;17;05;22 - 00;17;34;26
Speaker
And yeah, this is something that, you know, is going to really work out. Yeah. I mean, you never really know. You never really know where this is going to work out. I looked at a number of different companies and had some very tempting offers to go and work for them. But you sit in the situation or certainly idea of going, look, they do some really good stuff here, but they could probably just do it a little bit better here or, you know, or like look quite strong here, really like what they tell you with that.
00;17;34;28 - 00;18;00;25
Speaker
And then you sit down and go, well, hang on a minute. If you're actually think you can do it better, if you actually think you can do it, you should probably get off your backside and do it then. So, I did. And the rest is kind of history. Yeah, but it was it was born more out of it's difficult when you have that conversation because it sounds like you were speaking ill of your counterparts.
00;18;00;25 - 00;18;19;06
Speaker
And I'm really not it was just it was just a way of I just want to explore this a little bit more. And you might not have freedom if you work within the structure that already exists. Yeah, I, I had I always go back to thinking when I went out on my own, I mean, I was working at another company, and I had a great job.
00;18;19;06 - 00;18;36;01
Speaker
I was getting paid well and everything, but something just told me I just need to go out on my own. But it's scary at the beginning because you're like, oh my God, you know? And you know, you have a young family, right? So, I'm imagining, I know what's going on in your head. But there was a time where I said, okay, this is what I'm going to do.
00;18;36;08 - 00;18;55;10
Speaker
When I first start, I thought, this is what I'm going to do. And I started doing certain things. And then after a time it was this is what I this is what people are asking me to do. So, there was there a little bit of a difference there. And then after a couple of few years, this it came to my mind, this is what people actually need.
00;18;55;16 - 00;19;15;05
Speaker
So, it's like they didn't even realize sometimes what they needed. And I'm wondering if you had a similar kind of progression where you started to see these little these little epiphanies come up in your head identical to that, identical to that, you know, you set off with the idea of like, I want to do something slightly different here.
00;19;15;07 - 00;19;39;12
Speaker
And then people go, oh, we've never we've never really seen that before. Or the way that you've done that. And then you go, Okay, all right. So, if they like that and they might like the next step and then the next bit, and then you continue to grow in that. So, it's a very similar kind of set up but you have the freedom to do that when you when you're sort of going out on your own.
00;19;39;15 - 00;20;00;19
Speaker
When you start you can move your feet quite quickly and change direction if you need to. So yeah, I think the same story we get from a lot of people that we speak to who set up on their own, they might do something and they're really responsive to the feedback of their customers and their clients. Yeah. I want to ask you about video.
00;20;00;19 - 00;20;52;14
Speaker
Were you always working with video right from the beginning of your work with the police? Yes. So, working in Metropolitan Police in London. So, in the middle of London is probably one of the most dominated areas of video footage. So very early on in my collision investigation career, we were getting crashes captured on video. And I think when you have that kind of information being given to you, information that you can work on and you've just come out of university where you've worked on optics modules and things like that, you kind of get a bit of an affinity to that because it seems a bit like a sort of a comfortable pair of slippers.
00;20;52;17 - 00;21;16;24
Speaker
And whilst we were getting a vast amount of information on video, there was very little sort of research or very little kind of information out there about what you should do with it or how you can use it. And lots of information out there about why you can't use it. I think, you know, it was dominated at that time about why you can't use video in various different formats.
00;21;16;26 - 00;21;39;10
Speaker
And I think early on in my career there were lots of cases that I was looking at and watching colleagues do where you had the collision captured on video and there was almost like this acceptance where you can't do anything with that and just put it in the top drawer. And me probably being young and enthusiastic at the time, shall saying it was a case of, well, I bet you can.
00;21;39;13 - 00;22;00;21
Speaker
I reckon you probably can. And that's kind of what spurred it on. I felt very it just felt wrong that we had a cracking bit of evidence. You could see what was happening and yet apparently there's nothing we can do with it. It just felt real. It just felt wrong. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And video is an interesting one.
00;22;00;21 - 00;22;24;23
Speaker
I mean, I, I have, I've seen things like I've always been sort of working with video. It's always there. So, you know, not as much and not as much when I first began in 2005, but you could see the progression and growth of video with, you know, these different types of cameras, in-car cameras. And originally it was CCTV, it was, you know, cameras stuck on the side of buildings and things like that.
00;22;24;23 - 00;22;46;26
Speaker
But now that has changed incredibly. But I tell you, it's a scary field video analysis. And part of it is because, you know, I've been involved with the I have been to some of the lever presentations and I've been part of some of the Forensic Video Analysts Association presentations here in Ontario and the people that have been working there for a very long time.
00;22;46;29 - 00;23;07;19
Speaker
They don't they've got their black book. You know, it's like the Harry Potter Black, Black magic book, where they've got all these little secrets and codes and passwords and it's just something that you need to know from experience. There's often not a lot of there isn't a step-by-step procedure that's going to give you all the answers.
00;23;07;26 - 00;23;30;13
Speaker
And that to me is like it's difficult. It's a difficult thing to deal with. And at the same time, the way the video behaves, it's still advancing itself. Whereas, you know, you take something like DNA, for example. The DNA is the DNA. You might have different techniques for sampling it, but the DNA doesn't change in video.
00;23;30;14 - 00;23;58;05
Speaker
On the other hand, it's different to that because the way in which that DNA is constructed, if you like, of a video file is changing. And so, the time that new codecs or new compression techniques or high resolutions record that that that fundamental structure is being changed. Yeah. So, what might be good for on Tuesday. So, you know you have to crack video on a Tuesday you may be very different on the Friday.
00;23;58;07 - 00;24;17;02
Speaker
I exaggerate there a bit. Yeah, but it's the fact that it's a moveable feast and you need to be on it. You need to kind of keep up to date with it. Well, you're not kidding because, you know, just recently I had a video that I thought was just regular video. It's just from a regular CCTV camera.
00;24;17;05 - 00;24;37;11
Speaker
And, you know, you dump it into your software and I'm like, something’s going on here and I don't get it and send it off to the experts. And they're like, we’ve never seen this before. First time, the first time in so many years, never seen this before. We need to figure this out. And then a week later or so happened again, and that was with a in-car Tesla video.
00;24;37;13 - 00;25;01;23
Speaker
And they're like, never seen this before is something new going on here. So, you know, when you're faced with constant barrage of new and different things, that that's a very tough situation to be in as a video analyst. Yeah. And I think also one of the biggest challenges is, is the people understand forensic science because they've watched it on the television.
00;25;01;23 - 00;25;28;02
Speaker
Right. And before we get even into the sea. And so, it affects they understand that things like DNA or fingerprints is specialist. We need somebody that's specialist on that video. Well, I can see what happens. So, everybody starts from a position of thinking they're an expert, whereas and that's kind of unique to some of the other forensic disciplines where people start from a position of understanding, they don't know.
00;25;28;04 - 00;25;52;03
Speaker
They might have completely overexaggerated expectations of what can be done. Sure. But they start from a position of acceptance that they don't understand. Video is the complete opposite because everybody thinks they know what they can see well, and they believe it. And that's the thing. So, they they're used to recording their, you know, their kids on their phone or their family or whatever.
00;25;52;03 - 00;26;12;28
Speaker
And they look at the video and they say, yeah, that's what I saw. And then so I think there's yeah, they see somebody else's video and they accept it as truth. And there's a huge there's a huge educational piece around that video. The whole point of video compression is to try and tricky. The whole point of its existence is to try and deceive you.
00;26;13;00 - 00;26;30;21
Speaker
And when you break down those kinds of barriers, you know, you do start to get people onside. But there's a huge educational piece that we need to do about video. Yeah, I think well, let's talk about maybe some of the things that can get you in trouble when working with video evidence and maybe start it at the source.
00;26;30;21 - 00;26;54;02
Speaker
So, for example, like you just talked about the camera and the way that it records, what are some of the things that can cause some problems? Yes. So, the camera is always trying to order more modern-day digital cameras. What they're trying to do is take light in. It lands on a sensor and it's trying to convert that the analog lights into a digital signal.
00;26;54;05 - 00;27;22;10
Speaker
So, there's a conversion process before you've even started. And in that sampling, in that digitization of a signal, there will be errors involved and you can sometimes control those. Some of those are set up so that it will behave in a certain way under certain lighting conditions. But you have to accept the first thing that you're looking at with any bit of digital footage recorded from video is you want never looking at the original signal that came into the camera.
00;27;22;13 - 00;27;50;17
Speaker
Never can be. So, it's before you even get it. You've gone through a process, and we have to start against that backdrop. I think whenever you're looking at something on the screen, it's already been processed, already been processed and there's nothing you can do about that. So, you might have the situation where sensors become oversaturated, and you end up with this situation where they they've oversaturated the sense that there's no resolution.
00;27;50;17 - 00;28;10;15
Speaker
You're going to get above that level because it has already exceeded the limits. Also, a lower threshold as well, the same kind of thing. It doesn't matter how wonderful your software is, it doesn't matter how skilled you are. As a video analyst, that signal has been lost before you've even started. MM. And also in low light conditions.
00;28;10;15 - 00;28;31;00
Speaker
We have to understand that a sensor, what a sensor is actually trying to do is to amplify the signal that it gets in low light conditions. It's not getting much light, so it's going to try and amplify the signal side, but in amplifying the good bits that we want, the light, the bits that we want to see, we're also amplifying all of the other bits we don't like.
00;28;31;02 - 00;28;54;08
Speaker
So, noise, for example. So, in low light conditions you introduce noise purely by the camera itself. So, we need to sit back and kind of understand from a from the very, very beginning of light landing on a sense from being converted to that digital signal. What's happened long before we've touched it, because that can make an effect to any analysis we do, yeah.
00;28;54;10 - 00;29;14;11
Speaker
And then now we've got this signal. Now we want to record it somehow or put it onto a chip. We want to put it onto, you know, in the past it was tape, but now it's obviously a digital recording. And so obviously there are well, some people just I mean, we have storage capabilities now that are much greater than they were even ten years ago.
00;29;14;11 - 00;29;38;27
Speaker
But people still want to save space. And so, compression is great for saving space. But when you're doing a nice analytical, you know, case or project, you want to look at something. If you're looking at bits and pieces of things stuck together, then that's a problem, right? So yeah, you've probably seen some really interesting cases of compression. Yeah.
00;29;38;29 - 00;30;08;29
Speaker
And we need we need compression, as you say, we need compression because we're trying to write a huge amount of data and store it somewhere and we need and there were two issues with that. One is the physical storing of it. So, if we stored every single bit of information we have without any compression, I mean, the storage we require is huge, but also the time it would take to write that information would also be huge because we're writing a huge amount of data to a physical device.
00;30;09;01 - 00;30;31;21
Speaker
Even if it's up in the cloud, we're still recording it to a physical device. So, we're trying to shove a vast amount of data through a file. And if we don't filter some of that information out or compress that information, well, it's going to be a nightmare to store. But long before we even get to store it, we can have real trouble writing it and any useful time to that device anyway.
00;30;31;21 - 00;30;55;19
Speaker
So, we need compression. Compression is something that we have to have, but compression in reducing that file size the way that it does, it strips all of that high fidelity information, all that high frequency, the detail, the bits that we want as forensic scientists, you know, all of those nice edges with defined lines between colors, the bits that we want to measure from.
00;30;55;21 - 00;31;27;03
Speaker
Yeah, sort of get blurred. And the reason for that is just really, really simple is that our brains are really clever. We can interpolate data, we can take a really incomplete image, like a blurry photograph, for example. And we know what that's a photograph of because our brains are really clever at putting a picture together with incomplete information and all compression does is it plays on your plays on your brain, pleasing you, being really clever.
00;31;27;09 - 00;31;58;18
Speaker
So, if I strip out a load of that high frequency data, a load of those fine edges make it a bit blurry, in essence, your brain will be absolutely fine. It will go, Yeah, I know what that is. But what it does mean is when you're measuring to something, when we spend our time as forensic analysts zooming in on bits footage because we've got all the time in the world to analyze speed of footage, Well, we actually measuring to something that was there were we measuring to something that was designed to trick us.
00;31;58;20 - 00;32;19;02
Speaker
And that's the difficulty. Yeah. What are some of the more difficult cases that you've had to work on when it comes to video? Are they typically nighttime cases? Are they cases where maybe the subject vehicle is not well framed, maybe it's off in a corner of the video? What kinds of things come to mind for you that were like really a challenge for you?
00;32;19;04 - 00;32;42;26
Speaker
Yes, there were two things, particularly in Collision investigation. One of the common questions is vehicle speed. And in order to get a speed on a very, very basic mathematical level, we need to know a distance and we need to know what time. So, if we take distances and say, well, actually that's just two positions, what I need to know is position and time.
00;32;42;28 - 00;33;06;20
Speaker
And they're very different things in terms of video dealing with that positioning, but it's working at where a vehicle is. Yeah, things off in the distance, featureless roads, those kinds of things are very difficult. You might be able to position a vehicle quite accurately in in one direction, say on the x axis, but then on the Y axis that might be tricky.
00;33;06;20 - 00;33;40;25
Speaker
So, you might know how far along the road it is. But what is the question as well? Which line is it in, for example? And it's somewhere in the distance. So, you might be able to answer parts of a question, but not all of the question. Yeah, So that's the that's the difficulty with positioning. That being said, with the introduction of 3D modeling photogrammetry laser scanning that you can you have access to more information than you think you do, and you can use a number of different techniques to position where a vehicle leads, and we can come onto later.
00;33;40;27 - 00;34;12;10
Speaker
Sometimes you position where it isn’t, and you get a position effectively on the negative approach to answering a question rather than the positive answer. Yeah, and then timing and timing can be very complicated, particularly if it's been changed or converted, whether it's been trans coded in some way, how it's been handled, because it is very easy, very easy to mess around with the timing information on a video.
00;34;12;11 - 00;34;31;25
Speaker
And that can be very dangerous because you a lot of the time you may be unaware that it has changed. Yeah. And oftentimes you don't have a lot of videos of the vehicle. Well, if something is speeding past the video, you know, the faster it's going, the less time you have, so the less frames you have to work with.
00;34;31;25 - 00;35;01;07
Speaker
Then if there's a, you know, a variable frame rate, if there's a problem there, then it's much more sensitive to error. Exactly. Exactly. And so, our job is to accurately report those errors and accurately report the distances. And sometimes, although I would say fortunately, quite rarely, but sometimes the answer is that that video you have provided me with or I can't give you an answer, or I can give you an answer, but the tolerances on it are just huge.
00;35;01;07 - 00;35;31;01
Speaker
You know, 70 mile an hour plus or -40 miles an hour. Well, it is. And answering that is the best I can do. But, you know, is not a helpful answer, is it? Yeah. What kinds of tools have you look, let me ask it this way. Initially, when you began with some of the speed analysis, what kind of tools were you using maybe seven years ago or whatever, and how was that evolved and what kinds of things and tools or software, hardware, whatever, are using today to help with speed analysis?
00;35;31;03 - 00;35;52;09
Speaker
Yes. So back when I started, we used to do a few things like take a vehicle back to a scene, look at the live feed of the camera and position it with the with your colleague down on the ground and you're in the control room somewhere and it's a several hours of a of a game called left to beat relative it effectively.
00;35;52;09 - 00;36;24;16
Speaker
And so, you get those positions correct. We're walking down the road and positioning cones at known intervals so you can sort of do a reverse projection going backwards and to calibrate to drive through. So, driving a vehicle through at a known speed were techniques that were used quite routinely. When I first started, there were difficulties with that, particularly working in London, because it's not that easy just to close a road.
00;36;24;18 - 00;36;55;06
Speaker
And if you do just close the road, it has some very significant impacts on local industries, local businesses. So, the just shutting the road approach is not really used a lot now. And there are some significant issues with doing a calibrated drive through, for example, if the timings are different. Well, you haven't got a match, right? And so those were kind of things that I started with.
00;36;55;09 - 00;37;14;00
Speaker
And then we've moved forward quite a long way with the use of 3D modeling. However, that comes, however you get a 3D model of the same because it allows you to do that positioning. Take a viewpoint from a camera setting like a reverse projection and you can do that left a bit right of it with a model of the vehicle.
00;37;14;05 - 00;37;40;27
Speaker
So why would you close the road? You can work in the 3D environment in in it's that in the same way right. And yes whilst there are some tolerances involved with the model, I'm still yet to be I'm still yet to have somebody that that can tell me they can position something more accurately on the street trying to drop the car off of a crane, off of the back of a of a tow truck they can in 3D modeling.
00;37;40;27 - 00;38;03;29
Speaker
And maybe that's a challenge to some of your listeners to see whether or whether anybody can beat me on that challenge today. Yeah, yeah, there's that. In terms of the software that you talked about. So, you know, you're saying that there's photogrammetry software and again, just it's not a promotion, but I'm just wondering like what kinds of tools are in your toolkit?
00;38;04;02 - 00;38;30;03
Speaker
Yeah, we, we have quite a few different tools really. So far from the video analysts’ point of view. We use five we use accident investigators, formerly input ICE. We have a bit of software called of you. We'll say Photoshop as well. And the video equivalent which is totally escape. You know for some reason that I can't think of now.
00;38;30;06 - 00;39;02;13
Speaker
And so, we have quite a few different software suites with different strengths in different areas. For 3D modeling, what we tend to use we we've got Ricoh, Laser scanners here that we use for any point cloud work. However, that generates it providing is accurate enough. And you know and you know the any tolerances involved in in what you're going to measure too doesn't really matter what used to produce that 3D environment providing is valid.
00;39;02;15 - 00;39;37;07
Speaker
And then for a lot of our reverse projection work, we use PC Crash, which is a specialist simulation software for collision investigation. And part of the reason for that is it handles physical point clouds quite well and has a vast library of 3D vehicles that we can use where we need to. But again, as you say, we try and be across a number of different it's software because there's no one tool that deals with every single case you're going to deal with.
00;39;37;10 - 00;39;55;12
Speaker
And actually, most of the bits of software out to do it pretty well. So, it's just which one are you most comfortable with Really. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I know that myself, you know, 3D studio Max and you know, there's other things that you can use sort of modeler I've been using for automotive for a very long time.
00;39;55;15 - 00;40;19;02
Speaker
Yeah. But it just depends. And sometimes there are situations where, for example, for a model won't work because it's too stringent and, you know, it's an excellent program, but it needs certain criteria to be met. And if those criteria aren’t met, then you need a more flexible solution, but which may actually introduce a little bit more subjectivity, but it'll still allows you to do the analysis.
00;40;19;04 - 00;40;53;07
Speaker
So yeah, there's a most people have yeah, most people have a collection of tools that they use. So, I get it. And ultimately and I know that certainly with some forensic science, regular, you know, you have this bit of software approved and that is the one you must use. I get that. And I don't necessarily disagree with that position as a whole, but I more strongly say for a position, well, the forensic analysts needs to be able to use their judgment, their expertise in which bits of software they are using and why.
00;40;53;09 - 00;41;20;01
Speaker
I mean, it's their responsibility to justify the decisions that they make and providing they are well made observation and well made thought out scientific principles behind it, that should be fine. I'd like to see a situation, or I'd like to hear of any situations where somebody has quite properly used two different bits of software and got wildly different answers.
00;41;20;03 - 00;41;47;11
Speaker
Because certainly in my experience, when people have analyzed something properly and given it the correct level of care, the bit of software they used doesn't even really become a conversation because actually done properly you can get to the same result if you know how to use it properly. So, I very rarely, very rarely have a discussion with an expert on the other side about which bit of software they chose to use.
00;41;47;15 - 00;42;09;24
Speaker
They rarely. Yeah, well, fortunately, I think inclusion investigation. Mm. Don't matter. And so, you know if you're talking about if it's that sensitive then you're doing something wrong. You know typically a lot, a lot of techniques we might be if we're talking right so for into the, the deepest, darkest areas of measuring something, then you might get down to that level.
00;42;09;24 - 00;42;35;01
Speaker
But I agree with you broadly speaking. Mm. Don't make a huge amount of difference to the calculations. But again, if you're in that situation where they do well, you need to know how accurate your measurements are and that needs to be reported because it might be the case that okay, you're good here to do. Mm. Accurate measurements or you step back and go, Look, we can't do it here because we don't have the tolerance.
00;42;35;04 - 00;42;57;08
Speaker
The real danger is in any discipline going in, claiming a tolerance that you just don't have when it matters. Mm hmm. Let me ask you about light boards. And I'm wondering what experience you've had with light boards. I have seen, you know, when in Paris and Andrew Fredericks came around and actually there's one back there down there that I have.
00;42;57;10 - 00;43;17;19
Speaker
But I thought it was an interesting concept, you know, to help sort of get a gauge systems performance on timing. But I had seen some things in the UK that were pretty interesting, different structures of light boards and things like that. I was wondering if you could sort of tell me what you're using or maybe you know, what you've seen so far and where this is all going.
00;43;17;22 - 00;43;37;26
Speaker
Yeah, so I was part of the team that worked on the home Office light port in the UK so that the large board with banked lights, the flash in the certain sequence for those of you that are listening, that don't know what a light port is, it is essentially a clock. It is a clock with its digits separated.
00;43;37;28 - 00;44;10;01
Speaker
So, lights that flash at different rates and depending which light board you have, they flash at different times and different sequences. But the principle behind it is it's just a big cork with and series of lights that flash at different rates. And what you can do is by recording that bank of lights flashing when you come back to it and looking at it frame by frame, you can work out the time displayed on the clock, on the light board in one image, go to the next image and work out the time displayed on that image.
00;44;10;03 - 00;44;33;28
Speaker
Subtract the two times and you get the time interval between the two. So, it's a relatively simple concept, but just in a in a board that flashes lights at you. Really? Yeah. So, I'm, I was working on the team that developed the one in the Home Office in the UK, so I've probably been using a lot for the best part of 15 years now.
00;44;34;01 - 00;44;58;14
Speaker
And I think that a really powerful tool you have to be careful, particularly at nighttime scenes that you don't oversaturate the camera by flashing lights. That's it. That you can change the way it records, particularly with timing in that particular environment where you suddenly throw a load of light at the camera and it switches back from night, make to day modes and you get a very different recording, right?
00;44;58;14 - 00;45;21;17
Speaker
So, you have to be a little bit careful. But generally speaking, it's a very useful it's a very useful device for working at the time interval between images. Is it safe to say that it is? A because obviously when you have video this recorded and somebody hands it to you afterwards, well, you weren't there with the light board at that time to guarantee you would be.
00;45;21;24 - 00;45;50;28
Speaker
So, is it a way of understanding what the variability of the system might be in terms of frame rate timing? It is. I mean, you touch from a really important issue about acquisition of video because like any forensic exhibit, the way that it is recovered from the scene is really important. You can do some you can do some damage that you're never going to get back to it if you recover it badly.
00;45;51;00 - 00;46;21;16
Speaker
So, acquisition is important, as is the entire evidential chain. But the way that you get its importance and yeah, the timing device will give you an indication of the footage that you sampled, and you need to then take a series of steps to work out. Well, is that sample that I took representative of the footage at the time of the collision or has something else happened to it?
00;46;21;18 - 00;46;44;07
Speaker
Yeah. And you actually have done together and actually I've noticed recently that you've released a second book on video analysis and conclusion reconstruction. So, tell me about what motivated you to do the first one, because writing a book is not a simple thing for me. So yeah, so, so, so the first book was never actually intended to be a book.
00;46;44;10 - 00;47;12;20
Speaker
The first book that we produced or the first edition as it is now, because we can talk about it retrospectively. And whilst I was working in the police with my colleague Stephen Cash, it was actually my, my working partner at the time and now works for the FCO and we had developed a series of tools just by working in the collision environment that we had with video coming across the desk.
00;47;12;20 - 00;47;47;26
Speaker
We spent probably the best part of ten years or certainly eight by that point of developing a series of tips and tricks of how to measure. It was only a list of tips and tricks in that in that first rendition. And it was all in our heads. And as you said at the very beginning, you know, you have people that are specialists, you know, that little black book, but only specialists in looking at that history, sort of, you know, it's some kind of magic potions book.
00;47;47;29 - 00;48;08;22
Speaker
And what we had was something like that in our head, and we thought, well, hang on, hang on a minute. Right. This this can't be right. Why don't we start writing them down? And it was only designed in the very, very first idea to be a manual, sort of a manual for use within the Metropolitan Police. It was never meant to be anything more than that.
00;48;08;25 - 00;48;27;02
Speaker
But as inevitably, things as you're writing, you build a bit more into it and you do a bit more and you think a bit more. And when we sat back and looked at what we'd actually written over the period of about two years, we went to what if we were to cover around that that wouldn't have looked like a book.
00;48;27;05 - 00;48;50;07
Speaker
So, so there wasn't a huge amount more ideas than that that took a salary of different routes to peer review and getting different presses written. And it looked three so it could be properly, properly put out into the marketplace. And but we never set out to write a book at all. It was just a series of different techniques and that's why it reads just like that.
00;48;50;12 - 00;49;18;29
Speaker
It reads like a series of different techniques that you can use in different scenarios because that is exactly how it started. So that's great. And so, with the first release was what year, 2017 and 17 and the most recent one was it just like this year? Just this year. Just this year. So, the changes that we've made to that are like most things, you know, tech techniques need updating, refreshing.
00;49;19;01 - 00;49;39;19
Speaker
Many of them have stayed the same, just, you know, different artwork, different, you know, different ways of explaining a few different things. But a lot of them have stayed the same. So, we've introduced things like software-based solutions and a little bit more in that 3D modeling type area. I know you do training as well. I'm just looking at your website here.
00;49;39;19 - 00;50;15;28
Speaker
I'm trying to see if there is or if there are training courses that are listed here or anything, but you have a course that you run as well, right? Yeah, we do. Through the Institute of Traffic Accident Investigators all by title. Not sure i0i try for short w ww dot i t I to org and that's there are various courses listed on there and actually so that's the UK body of collision investigators although we've got many members worldwide and on there we offer a number of different courses and webinars and things like the one that we see on the screen.
00;50;15;28 - 00;50;38;11
Speaker
If you go to, if you click on events on that top line and click on events at the top and scroll down a bit, you get to the five-day course, which is there. But you can see we offer a number of different things. So, Geoff Mozarts Course is there as well. So, in terms of the Institute, we offer a number of different webinars and training courses for all different areas.
00;50;38;13 - 00;50;57;13
Speaker
I think you did a webinar recently. I did. I did one on the mobile light. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, yeah. So, we try and have we try and mix it really, which is good. Which is good. And so, I mean this is, this is in collision, you know, it's a five-day course which is pretty lengthy and video analysis and collision reconstruction.
00;50;57;13 - 00;51;27;22
Speaker
So, I mean is this a02 hero type of thing or what do you think it is? It is. We spend about three days of that course dealing with some of the basics of video. So, the first couple of days or more heavily leaning on just forensic video analysis. So not that you're going to be a forensic video analyst by the end of day two, but we spend a lot of time understanding about what video is, what it does, what happens under the hood.
00;51;27;24 - 00;51;47;21
Speaker
And we spend a lot of time doing that long before we start talking about measuring speed of cars. The reason is, if you understand what the video is doing, it will help you when you come to make your measurements, or possibly more properly, it will help you not make mistakes when you will fall into traps, when you're measuring speeds of vehicles.
00;51;47;24 - 00;52;09;25
Speaker
Yeah, I've had some really great experiences and very, you know, counting frames with a light board is not exactly the most fun thing to do, but it is very sort of educational when you see what the camera is actually doing under different lighting conditions. But it's a bright sunny day or when it's lighting is really dark, you can see how it just shifts and changes.
00;52;09;28 - 00;52;28;04
Speaker
It's really interesting. Yeah. And when you see things like, you know, that button that says Dean to light an image, you know, you just think it pulls the images apart, which of course it does. But what does that do to the timing? If we pulled those bits of the image apart, what are we looking at? We time now are like different.
00;52;28;06 - 00;52;54;25
Speaker
So that's a spoiler alert. They can be. Yeah, but, but just understanding what principles are at play. Yeah. So, Mark what, what areas do you see in in video analysis that require a lot more research and testing. Yeah. So, I think there is to two areas really. One of them is the thing that's scaring a lot of people.
00;52;54;25 - 00;53;29;13
Speaker
I think in forensics. AI And in terms of things like videos, deepfakes, people being able to manipulate video and it's difficult to spot. So, we're in a situation where it is becoming ever easier for people to tamper with evidence. And that's one of the real reasons why we have to get the acquisition beat right. We have to have control of that exhibit from the very beginning and not let other people get involved with it.
00;53;29;16 - 00;54;01;11
Speaker
What is that going to look like? Genuinely? I have no idea what that's going to look like in the in the future. But it is one of the reasons why we need to be really tight on getting hold of that exhibit properly. The area that I think is going to expand the most is things like machine vision. And so, in terms of automating calculations, can you give a bit of software the road dimensions and then click go and it will calculate all of your vehicle speeds for you?
00;54;01;14 - 00;54;36;29
Speaker
There are some very interesting tools at the moment being developed, so Analyzer Probe has just come out with something that does that, which I think is a pretty impressive trio's tool. I think if you're going to go to court and something, you need to be calculating it yourself. But if you wanted to get a sort of speeds that vehicles typically drive down the road or those kind of things you can do, and I think it has a real strength for those of us in private practice when we're going back to roads after some are not closed and we're standing by the side of the road, you know what kind of speeds vehicles are going
00;54;36;29 - 00;54;54;13
Speaker
to be coming around that corner, you know, does it help us from a safety level? But I think this automating process is going to be something that's going to be really interesting to watch. Oh, can you tell me more about this? So excited. I haven't heard about it. So is it where you give it some dimensions and things like that or.
00;54;54;15 - 00;55;19;05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So Analyst Pro is a tool similar to the PC crash and the view virtual crash, you know, along that similar sweet suite of tools and it has a function within it where you can do a video analysis, give it the dimensions of the road correct for any distortion in the in the lenses. And then from that it detects pixel changes.
00;55;19;05 - 00;55;54;25
Speaker
So, threshold of pixel changes. And when it uses a bit of machine vision to add a bit of height to detect that that shape, that outline is a car and it is moving in that direction, it can count pixel displacement against the dimensions you've given it and then produce a vehicle speed. And it's, you know, let's say you wanted the vehicle speed, so down a particular section of road or freeway or whatever it goes, have you can do that in a matter of minutes as opposed to a matter of well, it's in a couple of days, probably.
00;55;54;27 - 00;56;22;23
Speaker
Right. You know, you obviously have to testify at trial. And I'm just wondering about when you bring speed analysis or video evidence at trial, do the courts do this counsel, do, you know, posing defense and things like that? Do they do they really understand what it all means? Do you get good questions about video or do they kind of just rely on you and like, you know, yeah, what's the speed?
00;56;22;23 - 00;56;58;10
Speaker
And that's it. And they don't really ask difficult questions. Yeah. So, we it depends really whether you are kind of contesting or not giving your giving your evidence. And I think most of the stuff, particularly in a civil forum where I've got lots of the discussion that has been done in advance, you know, what the issues are coming and the and the quality of the questions you get is almost directly linked to the quality, if you will, of the experts on the other side.
00;56;58;12 - 00;57;23;12
Speaker
So, you should if you have somebody really good on the other side, have most of the issues ironed out. But there is a huge educational piece that you need to do in the box, and they are of giving good evidence in my view, in any discipline is to be a teacher. It's to educate the court because by very definition you are there as an expert to assist them in something they don't understand.
00;57;23;19 - 00;57;44;27
Speaker
If I understood it already, you wouldn't be there. So, your job is to educate. So, it does take a bit of time. You can spend a lot of time talking in the box, just trying to explain to people some of the basic concepts of what you're doing. But I always find that if you spend that extra bit of time, you can get accused to being a little bit for both sometimes.
00;57;45;00 - 00;58;03;22
Speaker
But if you spend that bit of extra time educating people, when you come to give your conclusions, the kind of understand that if you just jump straight in with the answer you've got, well, what they going to do? Well, I'll have to believe one of the two experts that's saying different things. Which one I'm going to choose. Yeah.
00;58;03;24 - 00;58;21;22
Speaker
Is it pretty much a standard now where, like, for example, in most forensic sciences, there's been a focus not always on the answer, but on the error and trying to understand the variability, error rates and all that sort of thing. And is it pretty much across the board where people are reporting, for example, range or speed?
00;58;21;22 - 00;58;43;09
Speaker
Well, this is the man, this is the max, you know, and this is what we have for the average maybe there's a standard deviation, something like that. Is that typically how people are reporting all of this today? Yeah, and that's coming I think probably when I started there was two schools of thought. One is not presenting a range and the other one is presenting a range that we haven't really thought about.
00;58;43;09 - 00;59;04;17
Speaker
We just put plus or minus five months now and everything because we can NEET. Neither of those are acceptable by the way. Well, what we need, what we need to do is try and work out as best as possible how accurate our measurements are. Most of the time, that's most of the time that's possible to actually calculate it.
00;59;04;19 - 00;59;25;23
Speaker
There are a few occasions where you have to use your opinion. I think both are valid in my view, providing they're well thought out. And I will explain to the Court of how you arrive at your tolerance. I think both are valid, but it often I find it often takes longer to work out what your tolerances are, the more your actual answer is yes.
00;59;25;26 - 00;59;47;16
Speaker
And that's a tricky one. Sometimes people for people to get into their heads, you know, it's harder to work out, you know, kind of how accurate you think you are than just from the normal calculation. That's why I asked the question, because it's really you know, a real expert understands the limitations and they understand the errors that are involved in something like that.
00;59;47;16 - 01;00;08;04
Speaker
And it's so important because, you know, if you calculate what I found, you know, this car is going at 70 miles an hour, but the error is the context, right? So, if it's plus or -20, well, you know, that doesn't help you all that much. But if it's plus or minus three and you know, you have some data that can back that, that's obviously a lot more helpful.
01;00;08;09 - 01;00;32;07
Speaker
But you're right, it's a lot more difficult to nail that down. And actually, you're allowed to use more than one discipline, particularly in collision investigation, which is multi-disciplined. Let's say you do, do you or it's 50 mile an hour plus or minus ten miles an hour or whatever. But immediately out of commercial, you have this motorcycle that's gone into a wall, and you can calculate it shortly of a wheelbase.
01;00;32;07 - 01;00;57;10
Speaker
Well, actually, that's what the video tells me. This is what this alphabet of research tells me immediately afterwards. And you get you cross over your friend diagram and then you are entitled to say, well, actually, looking at these two different techniques, I think the answer is here. But again, that's part of the explaining it and you're talking about tolerances of two different techniques where they overlap and providing.
01;00;57;10 - 01;01;19;08
Speaker
That's what explains. I think that's really important too. But as you quite say, you know the tolerance is that what take the time. Yeah. So, Mark, what is next for you. What is what's what would you have planned, What kinds of things you talk about that you'd like to see happen in the near future for, for FCA Yeah.
01;01;19;09 - 01;01;54;01
Speaker
So, while we do always expand, always trying to find the right kind of people. But I think what, what we are quite excited about, what we like to do is, is use technology and develop new techniques of doing things so understand what is, what the problems are coming over the hill and we can forecast some of those autonomous driving and the data that's stored on vehicles and try and get slightly ahead of the game really and try and understand what opportunities are going to be available.
01;01;54;01 - 01;02;18;12
Speaker
Because if we wait for autonomous driving to land upon us and then we go, Oh goodness me. What is the profession of collision investigation going to do about that? Then it's gone. It's gone. You know, it's a past discussion. So, it's just about understanding what's coming up. So, think. Yeah. So how many are just if you can talk about your team very quickly, how many people do you have on your team?
01;02;18;12 - 01;02;48;15
Speaker
And I know you're multifaceted and you work in many different areas, like different areas, but maybe you can just explain very briefly about your team and kind of areas of expertise. Yes, we've got six on the team, have five collision reconstruction and a compliance administrator who talks with lots of the things that we need for various accreditations and making sure things are calibrated and basically us in line when deadlines looming as well.
01;02;48;17 - 01;03;11;09
Speaker
So, in terms of the structure of a fee earning, we do a lot of civil work and some criminal work, but we have different specialists. We have to be able to do everything, but we have people that are more naturally drawn to things like telematics, for example. So, vehicle borne data or video, those kinds of things. So, we try and split the work up.
01;03;11;12 - 01;03;39;00
Speaker
We also try and maintain split in the civil world as well as of doing claim and defend the work more or less equally, because I think as an independent expert, you need to demonstrate that you're in dependent and also think when you're when you're discussing things with people, you just look at more rounded expert. If you do see both sides deliberately in inverted commas, because the science is the science, it doesn't matter right to which side to instruct you.
01;03;39;00 - 01;04;00;23
Speaker
You know, it's it doesn't magically change physics, but I think it does present the thought of being a professional expert. If you if you do take instructions from both teams. Mm hmm. Yeah, that makes sense for sure. And we'll look, we've kind of getting on in time here, and I think we've just probably scratched the surface. I know you work in many different areas, and I probably should have.
01;04;00;23 - 01;04;17;20
Speaker
I wanted to ask some more questions about testimony in trial, because I think that's really interesting. There are obviously some differences between the systems of justice, you know, in the UK and here. But look, Mark, I want to say thank you so much for your time for answering some questions. And if people want to get a hold of you, can they just.
01;04;17;25 - 01;04;42;00
Speaker
Is the website easy to. Yeah, pleased to see if you go to our website is a contacts page like this and then feel free to email that officer, I see I are on the left-hand side or use the consent form. Yeah. I'm more than happy to get in touch. And you're on LinkedIn, you're on the social media, you post fairly regularly some cool stuff that you're working on too.
01;04;42;00 - 01;04;57;26
Speaker
So yeah, if people want to get a hold, yeah, we definitely know how so. Excellent. Absolutely. Mark, thanks again. Really appreciate it. No problem with. So, take care. All right.