Driver of a Honda died after a head-on collision with a truck and, with no camera around that remote area, automobile data recorder of the Honda is the key for identifying the cause and liability of the accident. When police retrieved data from the recorder, however, the last-minute record is missing. What’s the truth then?
This picture is from the network and not related to the case
Car driver died of an accident, who’s the culprit?
A fatal car accident occurred in Sichuan Province in 2016, when a black Honda collided into a fully-loaded truck head-on and caused instant death of the car driver. Traffic police rushed to the scene after receiving the alarm and found no trace of drunk driving. According to the truck driver, he was driving normally and the car suddenly crashed into his vehicle, which was highly doubted by the families of the car driver. So who should bear major liability of the accident?
The accident happened in a remote area where no surveillance camera was installed and nobody witnessed the accident, which made car data recorder the key for finding out the cause and identifying liability of the accident. Only the car was installed with a recorder but when police retrieved data, information on the last-minute right before the crash was lost, leaving nothing to uncover the truth.
Data recovery professionals help reveal the truth
Police turned to SalvationDATA technicians for recovering critical data from the recorder. SalvationDATA, certificated by the National Ministry of Public Security, National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets and PLA Information Security Assessment Center, is a leading company in data recovery and digital forensics industry. SalvationDATA develops and manufactures a wide range of digital forensics products including computer, cellphone and video forensics system.
Observation and detection conducted by SalvationDATA technicians led to the following conclusion: the car data recorder is a brand-less product with its body badly damaged, its master board completely destroyed, and memory card intact and accessible. (Data storage for car data recorders is like that of cellphones: all data recorded by the camera is stored in SD card and its file format is computer compatible and accessible.) Analysis showed that sudden disruption of video recording caused by the collision led to incompletion of video file and the loss of data. Technicians scanned the memory card using SalvationDATA DRS(Data Recovery System) and recovered the incomplete video file stored in the data recorder.
Interface of DRS
Workstation installed with DRS
With the help of SalvationDATA technicians, lost information stored in the car data recorder was successfully recovered and revealed the cause of the accident. Truth of the tragedy is that the car driver dozed off when he was driving, caused the car swerve and its collision with the truck.
Advice given by processionals:
Car data recorders keep track of all video images and sounds during the whole process of driving and can provide evidence when traffic accidents happen. If the loss of data is involved, data recovery should be done by professionals to avoid secondary data loss. Meanwhile, when the recovered files need to be used as court evidence, a judicial evaluation report from an institution with judicial verification permit is necessary to verify the file as evidence.
Note:(Sensitive information has been altered to protect privacy.)
XLY Salvationdata Technology INC. is China’s leading integrated solutions provider of digital forensics, data recovery, data security and E-discovery. As a pioneer of the industry, SalvationDATA is always committed to providing innovation platform with proprietary technologies for Law Enforcement Agencies, Government, Military Intelligence Agencies, Digital Forensics Laboratories and Corporations, etc. SalvationDATA’s professional engineers and forensic experts are dedicated to providing outstanding service to more than 9,000 customers from over 130 countries around the world.
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