Bruce Gazdick's "Practical Applications of CDR Technology" Class Taught at MSC

Bruce Gazdick's Power Distribution Center (PDC) tool

William Messerschmidt
Principal Technical Analyst
MSC

On June 18th, Messerschmidt Safety Consultants (MSC) hosted "Practical Applications of CDR Technology," at our Pelham, Alabama office. The course was taught by Mr. Bruce Gazdick of L & L Investigations and was attended by the staff of MSC, as well as local law enforcement officers from Hoover and Pelham, AL Police Departments.

It was a great privilege for us at MSC to have Bruce Gazdick teach this fantastic class at our Pelham, AL office. Bruce is a former Jacksonville, Florida Deputy Sheriff who handles products liability investigations nationwide with ESIS and EAA. Bruce also works as an instructor for the Institute of Police Technology and Management, where he teaches "Event Data Recorder Use in Traffic Accident Reconstruction," along with Mr. Richard Ruth and Mr. Bill Wright.

Bruce designed and developed the Power Distribution Center (PDC), which is a tool that facilitates accessing Event Recorder data in heavily damaged passenger vehicles. The eight-hour course, which included lecture, Q&A, and hands-on training focused on using the PDC and preserving diagnostic fault data in airbag modules.

We'd like to thank all of those who attended--and especially our instructor Bruce Gazdick--for an excellent day of training!

Messerschmidt and Austin to Present at the 2012 ARC-CSI Crash Conference

Kelly Messerschmidt
Technical Communications Manager
MSC

Bill Messerschmidt of MSC, and Tim Austin of the Wisconsin State Patrol Academy will give a presentation on “Using ECM Diagnostic Data in Crash Reconstruction” at the 2012 ARC-CSI Crash Conference, which will take place June 4-7, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Messerschmidt and Austin’s presentation explores the presence of important, volatile fault data in heavy vehicle Engine Control Modules (ECMs) that are oftentimes ignored, inadvertently erased, or overwritten during the ECM data imaging process.

They will discuss how and when diagnostic records are written, how they can be useful in collision investigations, as well as how the data can be preserved correctly. Messerschmidt and Austin will describe data imaging methods, such as the use of surrogate vehicles and devices like the “Truck in a Box.”

The ARC-CSI Crash Conference takes place annually and—as they have done for the past 10 years—the ARC-CSI Crash Team will conduct multiple, fully instrumented live crash tests of vehicles in real world crash scenarios. Learn more about the crash tests.

The two days that follow crash test day are comprised of technical presentations given by experts from around the world on topics relevant to investigating and reconstructing vehicle collisions. Learn more about the topics and speakers for the 2012 ARC-CSI Crash Conference.

Register to attend this year’s conference.

Benjamin Smith Lectures at Southern Miss

Benjamin Smith, Principal Technical Analyst for MSC Mississippi, was invited as a guest lecturer for The University of Southern Mississippi’s forensic science seminar course on February 28, 2011. Ben covered topics including crash reconstruction, Event Data Recorders (EDRs), forensic mapping, and forensic photography during this seminar. Email Ben Smith.

In March 2011, Benjamin will teach a section of Assistant Professor Dean Bertram, Ph.D.'s crime scene documentation course at Southern Miss. The course serves both undergraduate and graduate students.

Benjamin is an alumnus of The University of Southern Mississippi’s Forensic Science Department. He returns annually as a guest lecturer on various crash reconstruction topics.

Kevin Jones Attends the CDR Data Analyst Certification Course

Kevin Jones of MSC is taking the Crash Data Retrieval (CDR) Data Analyst Certification course in Las Vegas, Nevada, during February 14-18, 2011. His training this week adds to the extensive training and experience he has in using and applying CDR data, which he gained during his work as a Crash Investigator for a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) contractor. Contact Kevin Jones to learn more about his experience and skills.

The main focus of the 2011 CDR Data Analyst Certification course is reading and understanding a Bosch CDR System report and then applying it to a situationally complete accident reconstruction. The course is extensive, and it even includes participants being exposed to data that are not currently available using the Bosch CDR System. For more information on CDR courses, as well as other courses the Collision Safety Institute offers, such as CRUSH, view CSI's course listings online.

Ben Smith Earns ACTAR Accreditation

Ben Smith, who manages MSC of Mississippi and serves as the Principal Technical Analyst, earned his ACTAR (Accreditation Commission for Traffic Accident Reconstruction) in November.

Since his office in downtown Hattiesburg opened in August 2010, Ben has performed work across the US, in areas such as Nevada, Wisconsin, New Mexico, and Kentucky.

Bill Messerschmidt Presents at IAARS Annual Conference

On July 19, 2010, MSC’s Principal Technical Analyst, Bill Messerschmidt, had the opportunity to address the annual conference of the International Association of Accident Reconstruction Specialists (IAARS).

At this year’s conference, Bill provided a presentation on human factors in vehicle collision reconstruction, as well as a session on heavy vehicle Event Data Recorder (EDR) technology. Learn more about heavy vehicle EDRs.

The conference was held at the Mall of America Radisson Hotel in Bloomington, Minnesota, and was attended by civilian and law enforcement crash investigators and engineers from across the US and Canada.

Conference organizer and IAARS president Dan Lofgren said, “It was a very good seminar experience for all in attendance, in large part due to your presentations. We had very good feedback.” Positive feedback can be attributed in large part to the subject matter experts invited by IAARS and the excellent planning and facilities chosen by the organizers.

Other speakers included Dr. Frank Navin, Mr. Peter Murphy, Dr. Don Schmalzbauer, IAARS president Dan Lofgren, and textbook author Myron Lofgren. It was an honor for Bill and MSC to be included “on the ticket” with these people.

The cost of the conference was $75 for members of IAARS, and it provided ACTAR continuing education credits for accredited reconstruction experts. MSC is looking forward to the 2011 IAARS Conference.

MSC in Wisconsin Trooper Magazine

In February, Messerschmidt Safety Consulting was honored by inclusion in the cover story of the Spring 2010 issue of Wisconsin Trooper magazine. Wisconsin Trooper is the official quarterly publication of the Wisconsin State Trooper Association.

During 2009, Troopers from the Wisconsin State Patrol (WSP) made important contributions to two Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) technical papers. Sergeant Duane Meyers coauthored a technical paper with Dr. L. Daniel Metz, which looks at tire/road friction at high speeds (“Controlled Braking Experiments with and without ABS,” forthcoming SAE 2010-01-1000), and Trooper Tim Austin coauthored a technical paper with representatives of several other organizations (including MSC) on the effect that power failure has on event data recorders (EDRs) in heavy trucks (“Simulating the Effect of Collision-Related Power Loss on the Event Data Recorders of Heavy Trucks,” forthcoming SAE 2010-01-1004).

Wisconsin’s Technical Reconstruction Unit, of which Meyers and Austin are members, continues to make meaningful and valuable contributions to forensic science, accident investigation and reconstruction, and criminal justice. We at MSC are privileged to have had the opportunity to work with the WSP and to have been included in the Trooper Association’s quarterly magazine.

Rec-Tec Stays on the Cutting Edge

Less than one week after NHTSA announced a new Final Rule that will likely increase the number of air disc brake systems on US highways, Rec-Tec Professional Accident Reconstruction software released an upgrade that allows for fairly simple analysis of truck stopping distance with air disc brakes.

But don't be fooled by the promptness with which Mr. Bonnett has released his latest improvement: the new "Disc/S-Cam III Air Brake" module was being researched and designed for over a year. Both government and private sector engineers & investigators (including MSC) had their opportunity to evaluate it or contribute to it, and on 01 August 09, Rec-Tec released the product.

Even more impressive is the fact that this new module has the capability to analyze heavy truck ABS systems. It allows the user to input the locations of ABS sensors and tell it which axles are linked by which sensors. By selecting the "Automatic ABS Computations" button, the program will vary air pressure as it determines a wheel (or series of connected wheels) is reaching lock-up.

At this point, Rec-Tec is no longer simply a "plug and chug" calculator with some built-in formulas. It's an increasingly robust simulation program, especially in the Heavy Truck Module series.