Expert Witness Journal Issue 66 April 2026 - Flipbook - Page 34
Case study 1: Vehicle fraud
A claim was received involving two vehicles, a van
and a car. The reported circumstances were that the
driver of the van approached and stopped at a give
way controlled junction and was struck in the rear
by the car that was directly behind. Personal injury
claimspeople.
were received from
di昀昀erent people. It was
di昀昀erent
It8 was
reported that the van had two passengers, and the
car had four passengers. The collision had occurred
on a quiet
rural
road and there were no witnesses,
here were
no
witnesses,
physical evidence, or video.
The insurers were suspicious of the reported
circumstance
and requested further investigation.
further
investigation.
Given the age and make/model of the vehicles
involved, the 昀椀rstwhether
step was to consider whether
s to consider
either vehicle had captured crash data. The airbags
on the car had deployed, so there was a good chance
that data had been captured. Hawkins recovered
and downloaded the module. There were two crash
events recorded. When analysed, we determined
that the two events occurred only a few minutes
apart. The data from the EDR showed both events
were frontal
impacts,
the 昀椀rst was a nonthe 昀椀rst
was
a but
nondeployment event, and the second was a deployment
event. Often, multiple activations during a collision
are not
uncommon, but in the speci昀椀c circumstances
e speci昀椀c
circumstances
this the
case, it was.
The pro昀椀le of the collision
ro昀椀le ofof
collision
established through analysis of the data showed that
both collisions were very similar. The second event
occurred at a slightly higher speed, but otherwise
the events were mostly identical.
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
What stood out particularly was that the witnesses
from the van recalled only a single impact. The
question that arose
was, how
likely it was
that thehow lik
question
that
arose
was,
vehicle had been involved in two separate extremely
similar collisions only minutes apart. The answer
came from the EDR data. At the point the events
were recorded, the EDR logged the vehicle’s mileage.
Figure 3 is an excerpt from the recovered data which
shows that the vehicle mileage at the time of both
events was identical. The ignition had also been
cycled three times between the two events.
Further analysis of the data revealed additional
inconsistencies. When an event is captured, the EDR
captures the seatbelt status of the occupants. This
data revealed that the three rear occupant’s seatbelts
were not in use at the time of the activation. This
could suggest that the occupants had failed to wear
a seatbelt, and the insurer or lawyer may consider
whether to allege contributory negligence. In this
case, however, that was unnecessary as the seat
occupant sensor also recorded by the EDR, showed
that neither the left rear passenger seat, nor the
right rear passenger seat detected any occupant at
the time of the activation. The centre seat did not
have such a sensor, but at most, there could only
have been three people in the vehicle and not the
昀椀ve that
that had been
claimed.
昀椀ve
had
been claimed.
Further investigation found that the vehicle likely
had one
impact,
insu昀케cient to deploy
the airbags,
had
one
impact,
insu昀케cient
to
before reversing and completing a second attempt
deploying the airbags. The EDR data was essential in
determining how the collision/fraud had occurred.
32
FEBRUARY
APRIL 2026
