When I was in high school I was always under the impression that physics would be responsible for my death. I was wrong of course.
When I was in high school I was always under the impression that physics would be responsible for my death. I was wrong of course.
I knew I was wrong, not only because I remained quite alive after the science exam, but because many years later I would meet a man who would explain exactly how physics was actually responsible for saving lives.
Prof Eddie Baart, a parttime lecturer at the Rhodes University Physics Department, uses physics to reconstruct traffic accidents.
“Physics allows you to calculate when you should brake to avoid an accident and how fast you should travel at night when your vision is limited; how fast do you notice an object on the road, and how quickly do you react? Physics can answer all these questions,” says Baart.
It all started in 1975 during a game of tennis between a lawyer and a physicist. During time-out, the lawyer asked Eddie to look at a report on an accident case, but nothing added up for Eddie.
“It was all a load of rubbish; that’s when I gained an interest in reconstructing car accidents,” he said. Baart has reconstructed over 500 motor accidents in the last 40 years, has given evidence in court over 100 times and has been called from as far as Namibia for his skills.
But not all of it is that exciting. “Getting cross- examined is the worst aspect. It really is an unpleasant experience,” he adds solemnly. “But what I do love is the investigation and reconstruction. I feel like Sherlock Holmes on a case,” he said laughing.
Baart usually has to conduct a site inspection first, where he visits the accident scene, takes note of the exact positioning of the cars and makes the necessary measurements; which usually takes about two hours.
He then makes a scale plan where he puts the positioning of the cars onto the computer and plays with their positions until he reaches a conclusion, which overall usually takes about eight hours.
But work can get quite frustrating. “Sometimes accident cases come in many years after the accident actually occurred so I have to rely heavily on the evidence that has been gathered by the police.”
Baart would have to depend on photographs of the accident scene in conjunction with witnesses’ statements and the markings on the roadwhich provide a history of the accident.
“It’s difficult, but I can still come to some conclusion using this information.” He claims that you can never be 100% sure of what happened in an accident scene.
“There are instances where people are able to fabricate evidence and frame others who are innocent,” he said, “But luckily I have never had to deal with that.” And what does he do in his spare time, when he is not playing Sherlock Holmes? “What spare time?” he asks, smiling.
Many years ago he did a Bachelor of Science Honours degree at Rhodes University and went on to complete a doctorate in Nuclear Physics at the University of Liverpool.
He then taught physics at Rhodes University for 50 years. Baart now juggles his reconstruction of accidents with lectures on Physics and Cosmology to foundation year Science students.
He also lectures for a group of retired individuals, the University of the 3rd Age, on the universe and does a course on armchair travelling with them as well.
“On top of that I am a part-time secretary for the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa.” Baart also wanted to hold workshops for the police force, whom he feels are not given enough training to deal with investigation scenes.
“Many of them are hardly literate, so I offered to hold workshops for them, but they never responded,” he said.
“They need that training because this sort of job takes a lot of time and hard work; the difference between South Africa and many other countries is we still don’t have reconstructionists attached to the police force, so the police are left to do the reconstructionist’s job without that specialised training.
We still have a long way to go.” It looks like South African drivers oo have a long way to go too. “South African drivers are bad,” he says laughing.
“People still use cellphones when they drive and they have other distracting gadgets like GPS screens and little TV screens, which needs to stop,” he said.
“And speed really does kill,” he added. Trust me, take his advice. Baart has been in one accident his whole life where a motorcyclist hit his car door. He laughs and adds, “Reconstructing car accidents usually makes one a very careful driver.”
