Slashdot Mirror
Washington Finds Computer Simulation Unreliable
Toadpipe writes "Washington State Court of Appeals reverses a conviction in which a computer simulation had been the main evidence. Quoting 'At issue was PC-Crash, a computer program distributed by Vancouver, B.C.-based MacInnis Engineering Associates. The program recreates traffic collisions using simulations and reconstructions.
"PC-Crash had not been validated for the purpose for which the evidence was offered, simulation and prediction of multiple-occupant movement within a vehicle during a multiple-collision accident," the Court of Appeals said in ordering a new trial. "There is no general acceptance in the relevant scientific community of the use of the PC-Crash program for the purposes to which it was put."' Here is
the Court's opinion."
Are they going to stop accepting my Grand Theft Auto murder re-enactments?
So I can't get a pilot license just for playing with Flight Simulator?
Was this a MicroSoft product by any chance?
uncertified.
Anyone can say that they're an expert. The court system requires that if you're going to present evidence, you better have some credentials. This program, apparently, did not have the proper credentials.
My PC crashes quite reliably actually.
99 bottles of beer in 175 characte
Remember children, global warming all made up by evil pinko-commie liberals! Even though the ocean is rising, temperature is increasing, ice thickness is decreasing and computer simulations point to it, thats just plain no good enough! Unless of course it is the bible, so we should just trust that because someone wrote it 2,000 years ago.
Hello... how do you think cars, airplanes, etc. are engineered? They simulate this kind of data all the time...
evil adrian
I know, I may have to turn in my /. account.
/sarcasm off
I would like to see more of this kind of common sense in life today.
The story states both occupants were ejected from the car in the accident. The prosecution is quoted as saying their key element of the case was that part of the passenger door was melted on the dead guy.
So which was it? Did the dead guy stay there and take the burn, or get ejected? Did the car sit for awhile burning, and take off again?
I will make the specific conclusion from the vast amount of data in the article that there was enough doubt to go around in this case.
To often attorneys for both sides put up a George Lucas light show in order to sell their version to a jury. Matters are not helped by the fact that jury selection all to often resembles a Jerry Springer casting call.
I've seen the software in question used in a trial (once). What I saw seemed to be a believable representation of an elastic collision between vehicles. At no time were there any renderings, or mention of what happened INSIDE the vehicles. But then again, you know what they say about prepared demos...
"As you can see from this computer simulation, the driver was in fact distracted by the 20 foot high Blue Screen of Death standing on the opposite corner of the intersection..."
Task Mangler
In related news, the Slashdot community have dismissed the post's title - "Washington Finds Computer Simulation Unreliable" - as being inconsistent with the article, or indeed even the summary of the article directly beneath the title.
At issue was the word "Unreliable", which implies some comment on the accuracy of the software in question. The article, however, consistently states that the software "had not been validated for the purpose for which the evidence was offered", a far more sensible claim.
"Titles of Slashdot posts have not been validated for the purpose for which this one was offered, simulation and prediction of the content of the article itself," a Slashdot representative stated. "There is no general acceptance in the relevant online community of the use of article titles as a substitute for R-ing TFA."
CowboyNeal was not available for comment.
This may be shocking, but I am actually familiar with both this software and the process of giving expert testimony. PC-Crash is one of several *Crash* programs provided by different vendors that share a common lineage. It and its sister programs are used extensively in accident reconstruction and the results are presented to juries every day. The core of these *Crash* programs are a series of well-established (although certainly not perfect) algorithms and physical properties related to vehicle dynamics. The problem here was the extension to occupant dynamics, not the use of simulation programs in general.
You may now return to your regular uniformed ranting.