The Crash Recorder (CR): Potential and Limitations for Accident Analysis

More information

Main author

Aberle, T.

Co-Authors

Zahnd-Sinzig, B.; Strauss, P.

Type of media

PDF

Publication type

Lecture

Publication year

2011

Publisher

20. EVU Conference, Graz

Citation

Aberle, T.: The Crash Recorder (CR): Potential and Limitations for Accident Analysis. 20. EVU Conference, Gratz

The Crash Recorder (CR) is a low cost accident data recorder developed by AXA Winterthur in cooperation with a British electronic company. It’s an easy low cost wire free installation for passenger cars. The CR requires no external power supply and no complex start up procedure. This simple device records only acceleration data 20 seconds before, 1 second during and 10 seconds after an accident and saves the data with an actual time stamp to a non-volatile memory.
Since 2008 AXA installed nearly 22’000 CR's to passenger cars of customers and collected nearly 1’000 sets of data. The accidents range from minor impacts to more severe high speed crashes. A first statistical claims analysis shows that the group with CR has 15% less accidents (third party liability, TPL) compared to a similar group of customers without Crash Recorder. To conclude if this is due to a preventive or a selective effect is impossible.
Two authentic accident analysis’ show the possibilities of the Crash Recorder in this field. The first accident is a rear end accident. The Crash Recorder data are unambiguous. For one-directional accidents the CR data are the basis of the analysis. The pictures of the damages of both cars are only needed for the
validation of the results.
More challenging is the analysis of complex accidents with phases of skidding or even flying. Obviously the Crash Recorder data alone can’t help a great deal in such cases. Nevertheless the data can be a key element combined with additional facts e.g. detailed layouts of the scene of an accident, pictures of the damages and the accident scene, etc..
The Crash Recorder will never substitute a detailed accident analysis but with CR data, the limits of the results in the report can be smaller.