Government to use 3D images of Road Accident Sites

Jan 6 2012

The last thing that is probably on your mind when you sign up for car finance is that you will one day be involved in a car accident.  Unfortunately this happens very frequently ñ all of us are familiar with the long tailbacks that often take place after the road has been blocked by a car accident.

Before the road can be opened up again investigators first have to survey the crash site in order to establish exactly what happened and who or what might have caused the accident.

At least the long tailbacks that usually follow a road accident might soon be reduced to a significant degree.  The government plans to use the latest technology to address the problem.

They plan to use image scanners to generate 3D images of the whole accident site.  This will enable investigators to immediately view the whole site on a computer screen instead of having to laboriously build up an image, section by section.

According to calculations this will reduce the average time it takes before the traffic gets flowing again by about 39 minutes.

During 2010 motorway accidents caused 18,000 cases of partial or full road closures in total lasting more than 20,000 hours.  This, of course, meant at least 20,000 lost working hours ñ a significant cost to the economy.

The Department for Transport says they allocated £2.7 million to 27 police forces in England to purchase these scanners.  The money will become available in January 2012.
 

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