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Forensic engineering

Illuminating the truth

Accident reconstruction, human factors, biomechanics, audio analysis, visibility and lighting, and digital evidence. Analyses and methodologies carried out by the experts who developed and published them.

Publications
53+

Through SAE, TRB, HFES, and other venues, authored by our experts and peer-reviewed for rigor.

Experts and staff
11

Specialists in reconstruction, human factors, biomechanics, audio analysis, visibility, and digital evidence.

Practice areas
13

From collision reconstruction through injury biomechanics and digital evidence.

Offices
4

San Diego

Chicago

Los Angeles

Westlake Village

What we do

Practice areas

The reconstruction establishes what happened, the human factors analysis compares what happened to expected human behavior, and the biomechanics establishes what the forces did.

Collision Reconstruction

Determine the vehicles' behavior, how fast they were going, and how the driver responded.

Accident reconstruction

Physical evidence, recorded data, and physics resolved into an account of the sequence of events.

Motorcycle reconstruction

Speed, avoidability, and rider behavior analyzed by experts who race motorcycles themselves.

Event data recorders

Imaging and interpretation of vehicle, motorcycle, infotainment, and telematics data.

Testing and instrumentation

When your case involves a unique scenario, we design and validate the right tests for the case.

Human Factors

Evaluate what a person could see, how they responded, and potential avoidability of an incident.

Driver performance

Perception-response time, attention, expectancy, and what a person can reasonably be asked to detect.

Visibility and conspicuity

When an object became visible during an incident, determined with objective measurement and expert interpretation.

Premise liability

Slips, trips, and falls: surface traction, illumination, hazard conspicuity, warnings, and typical pedestrian behavior.

Biomechanics

Evaluate injury tolerance, did the forces in an impact cause the injury and forces on an occupant.

Biomechanical analysis

Whether the forces present in the incident were capable of producing the injuries claimed.

Audio

Determine speed of all manners of transportation modes, turn signal activation, brake pedal activation, bullet trajectory analysis, and more all from audio.

Audio analysis

Vehicle speed and other event timing recovered from the soundtrack of a recording.

Digital Forensics

Get measurable, defensible data from the scene, audio and video recordings, and vehicles.

Digital media analysis

Position, speed, timing and dimensions extracted from surveillance, dash camera, and still imagery.

Forensically accurate media

Night scene photographs and video calibrated to depict what a person would have perceived during an incident.

3D forensic mapping

Laser scanning, drone photogrammetry, and precise documentation of scenes.

Who does the work

Our team

Each of our experts brings their own expertise and specializations, spanning motorcycle dynamics, helmet biomechanics, audio analysis, photogrammetry, human factors, lighting, and more.

Henry V. Vega

PE, ACTAR

Accident reconstruction and audio analysis

  • Accident reconstruction, commercial and passenger vehicles
  • Audio analysis and speed determination
  • Photogrammetry, digital mapping, and video analysis
  • UAS scene capture and 3D simulation

6 publications

Tyler Shaw

MSBE

Motorcycle reconstruction, helmet performance, and biomechanics

  • Motorcycle reconstruction
  • Accident Reconstruction
  • Helmet performance
  • Biomechanics

3 publications

Justin Ngo

PE, ACTAR

Accident reconstruction, human factors, and vehicle testing

  • Heavy truck and passenger vehicle reconstruction
  • Human factors: perception, attention, and response
  • Premise slip, trip, and fall analysis
  • Vehicle testing, instrumentation, and data analysis

4 publications

Christopher Romo

ACTAR

Accident reconstruction and biomechanics

  • 3D reconstruction and collision simulation
  • Biomechanics and occupant kinematics
  • EDR, HVEDR, and infotainment data acquisition
  • Mechanical inspection and restraint system analysis
Meet the whole team

Peer-reviewed research

We publish the methods we rely on

Our experts author papers for SAE, the Transportation Research Board, and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. This is a small sample of what we've published recently.

See all publications

Nitere Software

The measurement toolkit behind our visibility work

Nitere Software offers a rich implementation of Lumina's peer-reviewed camera calibration and luminance estimation methodology.

We use it in our own visibility and conspicuity casework, and it is available to other practitioners who need the same kinds of measurements.

About Nitere Software

Request a case review

Send us the incident location, the date, and what is in dispute. We'll discuss what analysis is possible with the evidence that exists, and what it would take to get.