News and Information

Peel Regional Police Officer Fatally Injured In Crash On March 1st, 2010

We are making it a habit to comment on Police fatal collisions lately. It has been reported this morning that a Peel Regional Police officer died of his injuries following a collision "in the Airport Road and Steeles Avenue area...". The marked cruiser was reportedly involved in a collision with another vehicle before its right side slammed into a light standard.

The accompanying photograph shows a cruiser with its right side pressed against a standard. The crush on the vehicle's right side is very severe indicating a high speed upon approach to the impact with the standard. Since the officer should have been located on the opposite side to the struck surface the issue of seat belt use comes to mind as many officers do not use seat belts as a consequence of their having to get in and out of their cruisers. But since the officer was most likely travelling very quickly, and most likely above the posted speed for an urban roadway, the wearing of a seat belt should have been required.

Next, I notice that the light standard has not sheared off at its base. This is not good. Lamp standards in the area of larger arterial roadways where there is expected to be a lot of traffic and a higher level of service for the road should require breakaway standards. The fact that this standard did not breakaway should be an issue that investigating police should be pursuing. There should never be this much intrusion into the occupant space without the shearing of the standard's base.

Next, the question arises: Why was the officer involved in an initial minor impact with another vehicle before this occurred? Was he involved in an emergency action that led to his high speed? If he was travelling much faster than the speed limit then he should have had his roof lights and siren activated. As I have said many times now, just because you drive a police cruiser does not make you invincible, or better in reacting to events than any other driver. And the same goes for the drivers who encounter a speeding cruiser, they also cannot react any better than they can for anything else. The speed of the cruiser also suggests that it was involved in a collision with another vehicle precisely because the cruiser was travelling faster than expected by the other driver. This is what commonly occurs. It also occurs whenever any vehicle is travelling much faster than anyone expects. People are not accustomed to reacting to vehicles that are travelling much faster than expected. So we await further details as to how this event unfolded.

Update: March 3, 2010 0915 Hours

Chief Mike Metcalf of Peel Regional Police just concluded a short news conference in which he identified the deceased officer: Artem "James" Otachakovski. Chief Metcalf indicated Constable Otachakovski started a shift at 1800 hours on March 1st and at about 2300 hours on his way to "assist another officer" in a non-emergency situation. Chief Metcalf was asked about the speed of the cruiser and Metcalf commented that he did not have any information about that because investigators were having problems removing the event data recorder of the Chrysler product. This is not unusual given the extent of crush on the vehicle's right side. 

Video taken at the site showed that light standard that the cruiser struck contained a pedestrian crossing signal so we know that this collision occurred in the area of an intersection. The video also showed the other vehicle which exhibited damage to its front end and there was an air bag deployment visible in that other vehicle.  The newer age of the other vehicle suggests that it also might have a downloadable event data recorder thus there should be speed data and other particulars available from both vehicles.

The question still persists: why was the cruiser travelling at such high speed in a non-emergency situation? Chief Metcalf indicates he cannot comment further because the investigation is continuing. But very often these details are left untold and it is an important matter. There are important issues regarding police involvement in many fatal and serious injury collisions. Some of those may be unavoidable due to the nature of police duties. But some may not be unavoidable. This issue has to see the light of public scrutiny rather than being left unreported. From the several collisions I have examined lately there is a pressing need to evaluate how police are trained in their driving activities because there are several questionable collisions that I have seen where officers have not acted in a safe manner and a collision could have been avoided with proper, defensive driver training and direction from police administrations.

Toyota Recalls Are The Tip of the Iceburg

While Toyota is feeling the pinch of public scrutiny over the timeliness of its reactions to defects in their vehicles this is only the tip of the problem that affects the industry and regulators as a whole. While working as an accident and defects investigator under contract to Transport Canada in the 1980s it was clear to me that many problems were not documented efficiently and properly and likely nothing has changed since. From Transport Canada's side, there were only about eight defect investigators to cover the whole country. Problems were not uncovered, not because they did not exist but because there were too few investigators and too much work. Its a simple plan: if you want to have things not get done then simply reduce the amount of staff doing the job.

From the Public Complaints side, official complaints to Transport Canada were rarely filed by the public because the public did not know that an official complaint system existed. This has not changed to this day. Even though summaries of public complaints are noted on the NHTSA website nothing like that exists on any Transport Canada site. Again, how can the regulators become aware of problems if they do not have a functional system available for the public to motify them of problems? The dark side of it is that the public can be an unpredictable and unwanted ally that regulators may not want. If the public is aware of something and it hits the broad media then it requires the regulators to react and do something - and sometimes the regulators simply do not have enough manpower to do the job. If the public is not aware, then problems can pass untreated, departmental costs are reduced and managers are rewarded. In the end public awareness is the big issue that both regulators and manufacturers are worried about because if there is a sufficient head of steam the whole house of cards  comes tumbling down. This is what appears to be happening to Toyota in the last few days.

OPP Police Cruiser Near Palmerston Making Turn Results In Fatal Collision in Palmerston Ontario

Details are still sketchy but a fatal collision reportedly occurred this morning on Highway #23 just to the west of Palmerston, Ontario involving a northbound police cruiser that attempted to make a U-turn. I was out at the site this afternoon and can indicate the following.

The photo below is a view looking northbound  on Highway #23 from just south of the final rest position of the southbound vehicle that was likely involved in the initial impact with the police cruiser.

About in the middle of the view you should be able to see some fluid stains formed in a "spraying" fashion indicative of high speed discharge. This is the area of impact between the northbound and southbound vehicles after the initial impact with the cruiser.  The actual impact between the cruiser and southbound vehicle is located further in the background closer to the parked vehicle in the distant background.

Below is another photo looking northbound and slightly north of the first photo. Here you should be able to see a single tire mark that crosses from the southbound lane into the northbound lane and then begins to move back into the southbound lane. This is the mark caused by the southbound vehicle after it collided with the cruiser.

At present the London television news station, A-Channel News, is reporting the event as if no collision occurred between the OPP cruiser and the southbound car. This sounds a bit strange.

Lets look at another photo below.

Below is yet a closer view of the area showing the beginning of the tire mark caused by the southbound vehicle.

You might begin to appreciate that a tire mark exists and must be explained. I cannot see any other explanation at this time except that a collision occurred between the OPP cruiser and the southbound vehicle and this led to the jamming of one of the left side tires of that southbound vehicle, resulting in its pull into the northbound lane where the collison occurred with the deceased's northbound vehicle.

Update: February 12th, 2010, 0730 Hours

Below is a photo looking south, along the east shoulder, showing the possible tire mark caused by the OPP cruiser as it made its U-Turn.

Again, there would be many vehicles that would arrive at this site and possibly some that would enter onto the east shoulder so this tire mark may be unrelated. On the other hand, it would have been important for police to protect any vulnerable evidence along the east shoulder because it would be related to the cause of the crash. So the likelihood that any unrelated vehicles would be allowed onto the east shoulder is low. Since I arrived at the site just as the roadway was opened, I was the first independent investigator on the site af ter the SIU/police completed their investigations, so again, it suggests that the tire mark you see above could be related to the cruiser.

Update: February 12th, 2010, 1625 Hours

It is being reported in the news media that the OPP officer was attempting a traffic stop with respect to the specific southbound vehicle that crashed and that the driver of that vehicle is under custody in hospital. My early opinion was that it would make no sense to make a U-turn for a traffic stop on an approaching vehicle because, once the U-turn was made, the approaching vehicle would be behind the cruiser. It would make more sense if the officer was making a U-turn in order to pursue a vehicle that had already passed his location. But if indeed the officer was attempting to stop the vehicle that was approaching him then the turn that the officer was attempting to make may not have been a U-turn, but that he might have deliberately turned his cruiser sideways across the road to stop the approaching vehicle. It appears the information being reported is inaccurate, either by the police, SIU and/or the media.

I have been having some problems inserting photos into this article and hopefully those have now been solved.

Update: Saturday, February 13, 2010

Today's media updates have released the names of the involved persons in this crash. Katherine J. McNally was the 21-year-old female, northbound driver who was killed when struck by the southbound Impala operated by 24-year-old, David G. King.

The media reports continue to provide unusual information. For example the London Free Press reported:

"Police say a Wellington County OPP officer was driving his cruiser north on Highway 23 doing routine patrol. The officer was in the process of making a U-turn to stop a southbound 2006 Chevy Impala for a traffic stop. When the officer activated his lights, he saw the Impala cross into the northbound lane and strike the McNally's Mecury Sable head-on."

The part about the "When the officer activated his lights, he saw the Impala cross into the northbound lane..." is quite misleading.  Clearly, as I have shown in the above photographs, there is a tire mark coming from the area where the cruiser would be located when it made the turn. I am doubtful that the turn that was made was actually a "U-Turn" but was most likely something else. The characteristics of the tire mark suggest that the tire is wobbling as if it is deflated or damaged. It would be odd coincidence that this tire mark would begin to be visible in the area where the cruiser made its turn yet there was no impact with the cruiser. Because the Impala travelled so far to the south it suggests that the impact with the cruiser was minor and the only logical explanation is that the contact was likely near the front end of the cruiser with the left side of the Impala. This is also consistent with the location of the tire mark near the right (west) side of the lane because it would indicate that the Impala moved to the right to avoid the cruiser, or something similar to that effect. Let me show you an even closer view (below) of the tire mark near the area of suspected impact with the Cruiser.

Above, is a view looking northbound in the southbound lane. Follow the top of the black shadow and you will find the diagonal tire mark caused by the left side of the Impala. Now follow that tire mark toward the background in the area where I have indicated that the impact occurred. Whatever the OPP officer was intending to do is unclear, but the most likely scenario is that the front end of this cruiser had to be at least across half of the southbound lane in order for the impact to occur while the Impala was on the west half of the lane.

It should be noted that both the Impala and the OPP crusier would have been equipped with event data recorders or "Black Boxes" that would record information about an impact. In most cases the crash data is recorded if there has been a deceleration experienced in a rearward direction, that is, if the impact force on the Cruiser was applied from the front rearward. A sideward impact force may not cause an event data recorder to sense an impact. However the Impala may have sustained an impact force that was of sufficient magnitude in the rearward direction that an event file might have been generated. There could be a Deployment file or a Non-Deployment file depending on the impact severity. A deployment file could be generated even if there  was no air bag deployment because the deployment could be with respect to the firing of a seat-belt retensioner (something that pulls the seatbelt webbing closer to the body). Also even though there were two impacts to the Impala both should have been recorded by its EDR under two separate files. Certainly the impact with the Sable would most likely have generated a Deployment file but the impact with the Cruiser could have generated either a Deployment or Non-Deployment file, depending on the actual situation.

Update: February 19, 2010 1730 Hours

As I have noticed a substantial number of hits to this article I think I should also add some additional thoughts and clarification.

The above photos were taken shortly after noon on February 11th and the collision reportedly occurred around 0130 hours. So there was a good 10 hours of opportunity for a number of investigators and emergency personnel to trample through the site and cause confusing evidence. Not to mention towing personnel. I say this to remind all that my comments are a personal assessment based solely on examining the site evidence. At the time that I began writing the article I had no information about who was involved (other than the cruiser), or any reported information about how the vehicles collided, etc. So it would be wise to take a step back and wait for the official information to unfold.

Let me add that I was not called to this site in any official capacity by any insurer, lawyer or otherwise. As you might appreciate from recent articles I have been disturbed lately by several incidents, trials, etc, and how things have been handled. One of those incidents (which still does not sit well with me) is the one in Elgin County where, in my opinion, an elderly woman was unfairly convicted because police did not do their job like they should. So, I have taken some interest recently in following some of these police-involved accidents. Which is partly why I attended the site of the unfortunate fatal collision involving Constable Hack last summer, near Rodney, Ontario. And it is partly why I attended the site of this present collision.

I have been through enough of these things to remain open-minded, but I am getting the impression that we really need to address the issue of police actions during pursuits, emergency responses and sometimes just routine driving. You cannot perform any better just because you put on a police uniform or that you have to get to the scene of something in a hurry. Your perceptions are essentially the same but with high speed your ability to react to them diminishes. This does not matter whether you are a police officer or simply joy-riding. From the incidents I have reviewed police need some debriefing about what their actions should be. I recognize that in some cases high speeds and maverick actions are unavoidable, but sometimes they are simply uncalled for and I do not see police administrations taking a proper look at this. Now, I am not saying there is any connection with this case, I have simply rambled off track to some degree.

With respect to the present case here are some additional photos for anyone interesting in looking at the physical evidence.

The above photo takes you quite close to the origin of the diagonal tiremark. If you look close enough you will be able to detect an orange "X" painted in the southbound lane, closer toward the roadway centre-line. Now here is a closer view around the area of the painted "X".

I am sure you can come to your own conclusions as to the meaning of the "X" in the vicinity of where the diagonal tire mark seems to originate. At the same time, it is important to remind all persons reading this article and examining the photos is that unusual evidence can occur from totally unrelated events. It is best to wait for some explanations from those who have seen all the evidence, not just what is visible at the site.

Testing To Estimate How Often Driver's Use Their Mirrors

In motor vehicle accident analysis there has to be a reasonable foundation for conclusions about what a normal driver is capable of perceiving and whether a collision was avoidable. Thus it is important for analysts to conduct a variety testing to understand how a normal driver might function under various driving environments. There are a number of sophisticated analyses that can be accomplished using fairly precise equipment.

At Gorski Consulting we have tried to conduct such in-situ testing using inexpensive, consumer-type video cameras.  The present article will discuss our most resent testing to estimate how often driver's might look into their mirrors while travelling in a variety of environments.

Before providing you will the results I first want to display a still frame from our video project that was generated from our testing.

What you see in the image above is the result of placing 5 video cameras in our test vehicle along with a sixth video camera that is mounted in the frame of the eye-glasses worn by the driver. The three views at the bottom are  from cameras mounted on a special platform anchored to the dash in front of the steering wheel. The large view looking through the windshield is from another camera anchored near that windshield on the same platform. A fifth camera was placed in the back seat and pointed at the steering wheel where we attached our typical green protactor that has been shown in other articles on this website.

Of particular interest is the special eye-glass frame in which is attached a video camera located approximately at the bridge of the nose of the driver. Obviously this allows us to videotape where the driver is looking. The view from this camera is shown on the far right in the above photo.

Our testing was performed on January 15, 2010 over a time period of about 1 hour. The route taken was in the form of a rectangle, generally on the northern outskirts of London, Ontario, Canada. Our test vehicle (1999 Buick Regal) started in east London, progressing northward on Clarke Road from Wavell until it reached the northern outskirts of the city, then it made a left turn to travel westbound on Sunningdale Road and travelled for several kilometres until it reached the western outskirts of the city at the intersection with Wonderland Road. The test vehicle then turned right to travel north on Wonderland. The vehicle continued to travel north for several kilometres until Ilderton Road where it made a right turn to travel eastbound. The vehicle then travelled back in an eastward direction on Ilderton Road until it reached the intersection with Clarke Road where it made another right turn to travel southbound back to where the testing began. If you look at a map of these directions you will see that the test vehicle travelling along a rectangular route.

This route was chosen because it contained a combination of urban and  rural roadway segments. It also contained a number of curves, particularly on Clarke Road and Wonderland Road. Beyond the testing that is reported in this article the data will be used for other purposes in the future, such as to study the actions of drivers as they pass through these curves. If the reader has been following our previous articles it can be noted that we have previously reported some detailed studies performed at an S-curve on Clarke Road just north of Fanshawe Park Road. That curve was included in the route taken in the current testing.

A partial listing of our results from this testing is shown below.

Here are some explanations regarding the above table.

The column "Location & Driving Actions" is just a description of where the test vehicle was located as it travelled the route and also what the driver was doing at the time that the he looked in the particular mirror.

The next column "Glance in Rear View Mirror" shows the timecode of the video at the time that the eyes of the driver began to move toward the mirror's location. So it is not the time when the eyes have reached fixation on that target, but it is the time when the eyes start to move or the start of the saccade between the fixations. Recall that the definition of a saccade is the abrupt movement of the eye from from one location to another.

The column "Glance in Driver's Exterior Mirror" is the start of the saccade as the driver looks in the mirror that is anchored outside of the driver's door.

The column "Elapsed Time Between Glances in the RV Mirror" refers to the elapsed time between the start of the saccade toward the rear view mirror and the start of the saccade for the next fixation into that mirror. So, for example, a driver looks in the rear view mirror, then looks in the driver's exterior mirror and then looks back in the rear view mirror. The elapsed time we refer to is the time between looking in the rear view mirror as if the look in the driver's mirror never occurrred. So far I have not conducted any calculations of how long the driver fixates on each mirror.

The column "Elapsed Time Between Glances in the Driver's Ext Mirror" is similar to the previous description. We look at the time when the driver's eyes first move toward the target mirror and then we look at the start of the next instance when the driver's eyes start to move toward that mirror. The difference between those two times is the elapsed time being referred to.

I have tried to separate the data into the types of action that the vehicle was involved in when the glances occurred. So I separated those instances when the test vehicle was stopped for a traffic signal or at a stop sign. I also tried to separate the data into those conditions where  the test vehicle was travelling through an urban landscape versus a rural one.

In the original table the rows showing the urban landscape were shaded in a brown colour and the rural was in green. I suspect that those shades did not show up very well when I copied the table into this article. The best I can do for now is to indicate that the first 22 rows of the table are in an urban landscape while the remaining 11 rows are rural. The rows where the vehicle was stopped are shaded in bright red and that seems to show up quite well.

A yellow shade was also included in the original table but it is not visible here because the full table has not been attached in this article. That yellow shade was used to indicate two instances where we had to stop the test vehicle to make repairs to the mounting of the video cameras.

To demonstrate how one might interpret the data we can look at an example at the beginning of the table. We see that the test vehicle is at the following location and performing following action: "NB on Clarke, Travelling Straight Ahead" and at the precise timecode of "00:06:39:16" the driver's eyes/head starts to move to the right to look into the rear view mirror. Next, at "00:06:41:11" the driver's eyes/head begin to move toward the driver's exterior mirror. Next, at "00:06:57:28" the driver's eyes/head begin to move toward the right again to look into the rear view mirror again. The elapsed time between the first movement toward the rear view mirror and the second movement is the value of 18.4 seconds shown in the 4th column.

The results from this analysis are not detailed at this time but  I can make the following comments. The test vehicle was travelling through an urban landscape for about 21.5 minutes and through a rural landscape for about 33 minutes.

During the travel through the urban landscape there were 39 instances where the driver looked in the rear view mirror and 18 instances of looking in the driver's exterior mirror.  This would mean that 1.81 glances per minute occurred in the rear view mirror and 0.84 glances per minute occurred in the driver's exterior mirror.

During travel through the rural landscape there were 60 instances where the driver looked in the rear view mirror and 23 instances where the driver looked in the driver's exterior mirror. This would mean that 1.82 glances per minute occurred in the rear view mirror and 0.70 glances per minute occurred in the driver's exterior mirror.

Now for some caveats. This testing was performed with only a single male driver. This driver's behaviour could be different from the average or normal driver. The driver was very alert through the process because he kept providing a verbal description of where he was looking and what was drawing his attention. This verbal description was documented on the audio of the six video cameras.  In my opinion, in a normal driving situation, a driver would not be so alert.

The durations of travel in the urban and rural environments were in several pieces and these were truncated to whole seconds, so you should not quote the per-minute values precisely but understand the numbers as "about" and not "exactly". I may do a more exact analysis later or if asked by someone to do so.

Preliminarily I noted that, as the driver approached a curve or travelled through it there were very few instances of looking in the mirrors. My preliminary thought is that the driver's attention was focused on the changing geometry of the road and in making minor adjustments to steering and speed to keep the vehicle within the travel lane. This need to apply additional attention to this task in a curve may indicate how a loss of control might occur. Simple events that might take the driver's attention away from the road might not be of much consequence when the vehicle is being driven along a straight road and the driver does not have to make many adjustments to steering and speed. However a similar distraction might cause the driver to fail to make a correction in speed or steering at the required time and cause the vehicle to wander out of the travel lane. This should be a greater problem when the curve has a smaller radius, or in other words, when the curve is "sharper" or the change in direction is more abrupt. Similarly, a curve should have a relatively constant radius so that there is a mininmum of steering adjustment required.

And finally a curve should contain a minimum of crests or sags (hills, valleys) to prevent the vehicle from changing its speed without the driver's input. We must remember that the effect of crests and sags in a curve causes the vehicle to either speed up or slow down and this has the same effect as if the driver steered left or right in the curve. This may not be obvious but you can test this concept by keeping the steering wheel at a constant steering input while travelling around a curve and then try light braking or acceleration and you will find that the vehicle either drifts to the outside of the curve (acceleration) or is pulled into the curve (braking) even though the steering wheel is kept at the same angle.

If a driver has to look into one of his mirrors while passing through a curve that might be sufficient to cause problems depending the the individual circumstances of each case.

Mis-Leading News Media Reports About London's Most Dangerous Intersections

Every year the London Police Force releases data on intersections within the City of London that have experienced the most traffic accidents. This year's release was broadcast yesterday and today by most news outlets. It should be clear to anyone that suggesting that more accidents indicate more danger is incorrect if the results are not controlled for other factors such as traffic volume. Indeed these reports do not control for any factors and no explanation is provided to the public in these news releases. It appears from the comments provided by the public that they are mis-led by the meaning of the data.

I had previously complained to the local television station (A-Channel news) in the fall of 2009 when they released similar information about a public poll of the worst roads in London (I believe the vote indicated Western Road was the worst). The spin of the subsequent news story never got to the core issue - that of mis-reporting and failure to report relevant roadway problems. Instead A-Channel opted to demonstrate how the roadway problem that I revealed on Clarke Road north of Fanshawe was quickly repaired when the City became aware of it. The fact that the problem existed throughout the summer and fall of 2009 and that roadway inspectors are required to inspect roadways as frequently as once a week seemed to pass by without mention. In fact, evidence at that site revealed that the safety problem was present much longer than in 2009 and that the City had made previous interventions but failed to do so in 2009.

The reluctance to discuss roadway problems is ingrained in the way our society functions. Little is reported about the large influence that civil litigation has on this process. When municipalities have millions of dollars to lose by admitting that problems exist on their roadways why would they admit to that? Municipalities have a monopoly on the inspection and record-keeping of roadway problems. They also control the budgets of the police who also have a monopoly on assessing the causes of roadway accidents. Clearly an objective evaluation should raise concern that roadway problems would be under-reported by these official agencies.

The most benefit to our society would occur if roadway inspectors were made independent of the municipalities who have a vested interest in hiding roadway problems. While plaintiff lawyers might have a field day with the availability of this objective data this can be held under proper control by the courts by recognizing that roadway personnel cannot fix every problem that exists, and by the courts being selective in punishing only those instances where the failure to maintain proper standards of safety were beyond reason.

But the present system is failing. Roadway problems that should be identified and corrected are being swept under the carpet. The official news media do not help when they provide such superficial and mis-leading data to the public while failing to raise the proper red flag.

"Because I Say So" Convicts Another Innocent Person

I happened to come across a newspaper article (St. Thomas Times Journal) this morning regarding the wrongful conviction of Joseph Dean Webber of armed robbery, forcible confinement and extortion due to the mistaken identification of him by the victim. These events occurred locally near London, Ontario, in November of 2006. While you might wonder what this has to do with motor vehicle accident reconstruction, very similar events occur in my field.

Mr. Webber spent 19 months in prison, and then his conviction was overturned upon appeal, not because of a fresh look at the available evidence but only because two other men confessed to the home invasion and that information could be substantiated. Only then was Mr. Webber's innocence proven. The newspaper article quoted that Mr. Webber was "Obviously...elated". And I suppose we should all be obviously elated. And maybe we should do all this again so we can be even more elated.

Mr. Webber's lawyer was quoted as saying "There's a long history of wrongful convictions in Canada based on false identification" and "With no other circumstantial evidence to convict some on those circumstances, it would be unsafe to convict".

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the history of wrongful conviction based on BISS ("because I say so") is wrong and shameful. In my opinion the judiciary is not totally faultless for this.

In my own experience I have witnessed a failure of some judges to admit that they are uncertain about the accuracy of evidence or sometimes they do not understand the meaning of evidence because of its technical nature. It is understandable that our society is becoming more and more complex. The quantity of research findings is vast. Experts abound with increasingly narrow fields of study and their discussions simply become incomprehensible. Some judges are willing to make interpretations based on superficial understandings while failing to admit that sometimes they are over their heads. The judge who is fair and admits that he or she cannot comprehend everything can be sanctioned by their own as unfit for duty or may lose their opportunity to advance to a higher court.

While the judiciary is not perfect, and I have experienced several examples of that, the main problem as I see is the lacking of proper investigation and documentation of events at their outset. It is easy to blame the judiciary when they make a false judgment when additional information such as confessions or DNA evidence clearly indicates the error. But when there is little in the way of solid fact or evidence a correct judgment is difficult to make. It places otherwise exemplary judges in a difficult position that need not be so.

Instead, what I have personally observed is that there is a terrible lack of proper investigation and documentation in my field, and I doubt that this is all that much better in criminal investigations. The most important person in an investigation is the first reponder yet that person is likely to be the most inexperienced and least trained person in an investigative organization. Such first responders, trample over key evidence destroying facts that could be cruicial. I have continually advocated the use of video and still cameras, hardware that is becoming cheaper and advanced with the passage of every day. Still, I hear from my police collegues that their departments cannot afford them to carry even the most rudimentary forms of still cameras. Even if measurements cannot be taken there is software available (i.e. Photomodeler in my field) that can take measurements from still photos. Evidence that is not collected or documented becomes a difficulty for more advanced analysts because they must now use more timeconsuming and complicated analyses, sometimes based on estimates of fundamental facts that hold the complete hypothesis in tact. Removal of that single card and the house comes tumbling down...or is propped up unscrupelously by those who are intent on gaining a result whether the supportive facts are there or not.

Our society deserves better. We have no moral standing for criticizing the despotic political institutions of other nations when we fail to take basic steps to secure the rights of all over vulnerable citizens. It is time that we gathered all those wrongful convictions into one heap, come to an understanding how they occurred, and take specific actions to make sure that we reduce those hidious results to a minimum.