Despite the fact that most of the miles driven in vehicles are during daylight hours, the majority of vehicular accidents occur at night. This is due to obvious reasons, such as decreased conspicuity of road hazards or pedestrians, but also due to physical and cognitive limitations of human perception and performance. Exponent personnel evaluate and quantify human capabilities and limitations in perception and response, taking into account variables such as headlight illumination, driver expectancy for a hazard, driver fatigu,e and visibility of a hazard. Using various software tools we can assess the likelihood that a particular hazard could have been perceived with sufficient time for a driver to avoid an accident.
Additionally, Exponent has the capability to photographically capture and reproduce accurate pictures of low-illumination scenes. This technique--which has been empirically validated, published, and admitted in Federal court--provides Exponent personnel the unique opportunity to display calibrated photographs that accurately exhibit the visibility characteristics afforded to a person at a dimly lit accident scene. By adjusting camera placement, camera settings and removing distortions introduced by the display medium (e.g., a monitor or printer), we are able to produce photographic representations of the scene that closely replicate the perceptual experience of an on-scene observer.
This service can be provided on short notice to document accident scenes immediately after they an incident happens or in a site-inspection/re-creation environment. This same photographic technique can be applied to non-vehicular matters as well, including slip/trip-and-fall accidents, evaluations of signage visibility, or any other situation requiring imagery of dimly lit environments.