Roadway Crashes: A Systems Approach to Understanding Causes
Examining internal and external factors contributing to accidents
Exponent's team investigates both human performance and circumstantial issues that are key considerations in investigations, including visual and auditory perceptions, reaction time, attention or distraction, and fatigue; environmental aspects such as weather, lighting, and background noise; and operator traits like age, strength, size, and experience.
Exponent's extensive investigations yield evidence-based insights into the ways humans interact with products, technology, and systems, as well as what internal and external factors may have been at play during an accident. Our human factors scientists and engineers are uniquely qualified to analyze the behavioral traits and capabilities of people in different roles, including operators, pedestrians, drivers, and eyewitnesses.
Services
For 50+ years, we’ve thrived on solving unstructured problems that require bespoke solutions. Some of our services include:
• Assess human performance as a contributor to accident causation
• Analyze the visibility and available lines of sight in a visual environment
• Create perceptually accurate reproductions of low-illumination scenes
• Evaluate the likely effectiveness of additional or alternative safety-related information, guarding, or design interventions in accident avoidance
• Determine the role of attention and distraction on human behavior and safety-related actions
• Characterize human memory, information processing, and the potential for inaccuracies in eyewitness testimony
• Evaluate hindsight bias — the effect that knowledge of an outcome has on the perception and interpretation of prior events
• Consider potential for accident avoidance given human perception-reaction times
• Assess the potential effects of age, drugs, and/or alcohol, and existing medical conditions on human performance
• Evaluate the ability of the visual system to process and identify a potential hazard to avoid an accident
• Document accident scenes or in a site-inspection/recreation environment
Our Capabilities Are Unparalleled
With expertise in over 90 disciplines and hundreds of capabilities, tools, and methodologies — we get to the root of even the most complex challenges and give you the objective answers you need.
Accident Investigation & Reconstruction: Human Factors
Multidisciplinary accident reconstruction to identify root causes, reduce risk, and improve safety.
Improve User Research & Testing
Human factors investigations for data-driven product and process design decisions.
Occupational & Process Safety
Expert consulting support for mitigating human behavior-related work and process safety risks.
Product Design & Safety
Human factors and risk analyses to help clients improve designs for a range of products.
Centers for Scientific User Research (CSUR)
Pioneering scientific user experience research across the full lifecycle of consumer, industrial, automotive, and medical device products.
Experts
Our global and comprehensive expertise across industries gives us a deep understanding of current challenges, best industry practices, and the implications of emerging technologies.
Corporate Vice President, Practice Director and Principal Scientist
Insights
