The Laboratory of Risk & Safety Analyses (est. 1995) is an affiliate of the Institute of Risk & Safety Analyses (est. 1974). The Laboratory provides thorough accident assessment, technical consultation, product testing, and detailed research work. Our staff members hold degrees in Science and Engineering fields, with many holding postgraduate degrees. We specialize in reconstruction, materials, biomechanics and human factors evaluation. Our work actively involves transportation, industrial and recreational accidents, premises liability, product integrity and warnings, computer modeling and more. The nature of our work involves both litigation (defense and plaintiff) and non-litigation. Example studies include the following:

Low-Speed Collisions & G-Forces Comparison Study

In the event of an automobile collision, it is important to understand whether the associated forces and accelerations would be sufficient to cause injuries. To illustrate the series of events generally occurring during a collision, the Laboratory has implemented a bumper-cart model (see photo to the left) that exhibits similar characteristics to an automobile. By equipping our test subject with an electro-mechanical accelerometer, the real-time acceleration data during an impact simulation can be translated into simple wave graphs of g-forces (see photo to the right). This approach can also be implemented in measuring the g-forces in typical daily activities so that the forces can be compared to those experienced during an automobile collision. Our staff has successfully conducted numerous real-time demonstrations of these studies for individual firms and courtroom trials.

State-of-the-Art Reconstruction & 3-D Animation

The Laboratory has been involved in thousands of traffic collision investigations. With extensive knowledge of vehicular kinematics, skid-mark examination, vehicle code research, signal phase patterns, and perception-reaction analyses, we provide state-of-the-art reconstruction to uncover the facts in an accident. For site inspections, the Laboratory has professional quality, multi-camera and video capabilities that allow scene re-creations to be simultaneously documented from multiple viewpoints. These views can be synced together to produce useful visual demonstrations with professional results. Our in-house video production facilities allow greater flexibility and accuracy when reconstructing an accident than a separate outside video production firm. Our experience is widely applied to red light disputes, high-speed collisions, vehicle rollovers, multi-vehicular accidents, and more. We also offer the option of 3-D animation to recreate and illustrate the event scenarios in detail using state-of-the-art 3-D animation software.

Product Evaluation, Testing, Premises Inspection & Other Areas

In addition to auto-collision investigations, the Laboratory is also involved in many other areas. We investigate failure cause and evaluate warning adequacy for both consumer products (chairs, ladders, toys, appliances, etc.) and industrial equipment (presses, conveyors, elevators, scaffolding, forklifts, etc.). Our facility offers a variety of destructive and non-destructive testing techniques including optical and electron microscopy. For premises liability (slip-and-fall, trip-and-fall, swimming pool, etc.), the Laboratory provides in-house friction tests, on-site inspection and code research. We have also developed industry standards regarding warnings on swimming pools. Moreover, our assessments propose alternative solutions for improving safety levels overall and reducing the risk of unnecessary and preventable accidents.