ORLANDO —The Florida Highway Patrol and Orlando Police Department plan to start a three-year pilot program to document how new technology that digitally maps out a traffic fatality scene helps speed the investigations.
As an investigator interviews witnesses, the machine takes over the duties formerly done by tape measure through a laser scan of the crash scene, saving time.
Officials see wide-ranging benefits to the scanning technology.
“You could potentially prevent an accident through using this technology, (save on) costs of health care, people who are waiting in traffic (and) additional emissions,” said Corey Quinn, chief of technology and operations at the Central Florida Expressway Authority.
FHP and OPD are hoping for $300,000 in funding for the project. The MetroPlan Orlando Board and the Central Florida Expressway Authority may each vote to approve $100,000 in their next public meeting. The Florida Department of Transportation has already pledged $100,000.
“Oh my gosh, we used to do diagrams by hand,” said Karen Livengood, a crash scene investigator with OPD. “This does it all for you and you can actually go in later and pull extra measurements.” OPD started using a Leica C10 3-D scanner in 2011 through a Department of Homeland Security grant.
If the funding is approved, OPD will get a second scanner and FHP will get its first.
In the United Kingdom, the National Police Improvement Agency bought scanners for 27 police forces, which reported an average time savings of 44 minutes per crash in their investigations. The San Diego Public Works Department reported a drop in investigation times from three to four hours to less than one once it started using laser scanners.
But besides the obvious time-saver in reducing traffic, a highway crash scene has serious implications for the safety of drivers.
Studies have shown that a crash risk is six times higher in the presence of an earlier crash and that secondary crashes from congestion are estimated to be the result of 20 percent of all crashes.
“First off, people get stupid” while in traffic that’s because of a car crash, said FHP Sgt. Kim Montes. “They drive down the wrong way. They cut the median. They take risks that they normally wouldn’t. … The longer a road stays closed, the more opportunities for secondary crashes.”
According to the expressway authority, 54 traffic homicide related incidents closed roadways for a total of 270 hours in Central Florida in 2014. This technology, they expect, would reduce that by about 15 percent.
But does the quickened-pace of documenting crash scenes compromise the investigation?
“It’s the other way around,” Livengood said. “(The jury) can actually walk through the scene without being in the scene.”
“I wholeheartedly love Leica — I absolutely love it. I think it’s the greatest thing around,” Livengood said.
