Episode 31: Conversation with Scott Greene (Accident Data Forensics)

Scott Greene:

Technology is constantly changing, constantly moving. So, the work that I do is a moving target and we get presented with new and different things all the time. I love exploring new data and I love figuring out what exactly what it is, and then, we publish records about it if we can, but it’s fascinating to me what humans think they can do. It’s a little scary and fascinating at the same time.

David Craig – Host:

I’m Attorney Dave Craig, managing partner and one of the founders of the law firm of Craig, Kelley, and Faultless. I’ve represented people who have been seriously injured, who have had a family member killed in a semi or other big truck wreck for over 30 years. Following the wreck, their lives are chaos. Often, they don’t even know enough about the process to ask the right questions. It is my goal to empower you by providing you with the information you need to protect yourself and your family. Each and every episode, I will interview top experts and professionals that are involved in truck wreck cases. This is After the Crash.

Well, welcome to another episode of After the Crash. Today, we have Scott Greene, the CEO of Evidence Solutions, Inc. as our guest. Scott, one thing that he and I have in common is we’ve both been doing this for over 35 years. So, I don’t know if that makes us wiser, more experienced, or just old, but anyway, it’s my pleasure to have Scott. Welcome.

Scott Greene:

Thank you very much. I hope it’s more experienced and wiser. I like wisdom a lot.

David Craig – Host:

I keep telling my wife that, but I don’t know. So, Scott is the CEO of a company called Evidence Solutions, Inc. that does full service, computer, technology, digital forensics, collects data, helps collect data. It examines and analyzes that data. Then, my favorite thing about these guys is that they explain that in a way that we understand. So, it can be very complex, but yet if you want a forensic, somebody to testify at trial, you want somebody who can take all that data and analyze it and then explain it, Scott does an excellent job. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your company?

Scott Greene:

Evidence Solutions was founded back in actually 2008. It was a derivative of another company called Great Scott Enterprises. Great Scott Enterprises was sold in 2011 because I fell in love with doing digital forensics. It’s been a wild ride as you know, David, and I’m sure the audience understands that technology is constantly changing, constantly moving. So, the work that I do is a moving target, and we get presented with new and different things all the time. We have to figure that out. We have to understand what it means and then interpret it and of course explain it. It’s grown since then.

We also have some truck driver standard of care experts and some other areas of expertise, which I’m proud to add. We have some accident reconstructionists. We have some truck driver standard of care experts. We have a couple of aviation experts just because we wanted to diversify a little bit, and we found people who were very interesting and interested in doing the work.

David Craig – Host:

So I think that’s great because you tend to expand in areas to offer services that are compatible with the digital stuff. So, a lot of what you’re talking about goes hand in hand.

Scott Greene:

So, the truck driver standard of care experts, I fell into back in 2012. There was a guy named Don Asa who was an expert in that industry and he died suddenly. I had a relationship with him and his company because they did the digital side and they did the trucking standard of care side. So, his widow called me after he died and said, “I don’t know what to do, come help me.”

That was back in 2012 and we, subsequent to that, integrated that into the company, but the ties together are real nice and it also helps that the truck drivers standard of care experts get exposed to the digital evidence that we can find and harvest data vehicles because it’s something that they need to know how to deal with and at least understand what’s available so that they can find the right person to deal with if the digital evidence department isn’t on the case.

David Craig – Host:

I think another thing for the audience, because I mean this is designed just for everyday average folks who happen to unfortunately be experiencing a traumatic event, a traumatic crash, we do a lot of semi-tractor trailer stuff, but I think that it’s important for people who are listening to understand that at least the experts that I like to work with do both sides. They work for the victims of a semi-wreck, but they also will work on the defense side, because I think that in order to be credible in this day and age, jurors are a little suspicious of somebody that does 100% one side or the other. So, talk a little bit about that and what role that plays. Is it helpful to you to do both sides?

Scott Greene:

It’s incredibly helpful for me to do both sides, both from a jury trust standpoint as well as an exposure to what happens on both sides. I do about 50% civil plaintiff. I do about 30% civil defense. Some of the most fun work I do now is actually 20% criminal defense because it’s interesting to get into that realm as well. Being exposed to both sides makes me a more credible expert. Understanding both sides makes it such that I can present it better and understand what the evidence really means and explain what it really means. So, I enjoy working both sides and I think it is valuable.

David Craig – Host:

I mean, the good experts are not somebody that are just hired guns that give an opinion that the lawyer wants. I think too often, people that aren’t in this business or lawyers maybe that aren’t working on the type of case or the magnitude of the cases that we work on, they think that you should just hire somebody and they give you the opinion that you want, but nothing is further from the truth on good lawyers that are working on significant cases. You would never risk a multimillion dollar case by hiring the wrong expert. You want somebody who’s objective and you want somebody who tells you if you’re wrong or if you’ve got evidence that’s damaging. I’d just as soon know that on the front end.

Scott Greene:

That was an important lesson early on that I learned is that attorneys want to know if there’s something bad. They want to be able to get in front of it instead of be behind it. So, yeah, it’s important I think for that to be true and for you to have balance in it, for sure.

David Craig – Host:

You alluded to in the very beginning, this field, the data collection and interpretation has changed dramatically just within the last few years, let alone since you and I both started 35 some years ago. Talk a little bit about how it’s evolved. What type of data is out there? Where do we find this stuff and where should we be looking after a wreck?

Scott Greene:

Okay, so I’m going to start and work with the term, a truck accident. The reason why a truck accident is in there is because there’s different sets of data in the truck, but then some of it translates directly to what you’ll find in cars as well. In the trucking world, in the last five years, there was a law that mandated that drivers move from a paper record to an electronic logging device. An electronic logging device is basically a GPS system that collects where the truck is and allows the driver to enter his driver’s status, whether he’s on duty, whether he is driving or he’s in a sleeper or off duty, and record that and have that data transmitted to the company as well as being stored locally. These devices have gotten a lot more sophisticated.

There’s messaging now between the company and the driver. The company can send out dispatch information. So, this is where you’re going to go to collect the load. This is where you’re going to go to deliver the load, here’s who you talk to, here’s phone numbers, things like that. So, in addition to just the logging device itself, they’ve become actually a communications device. So, in the world where we thought we were going to end up with something that was more reliable than paper records, unfortunately, something else happened, which is interesting.

That is that the data also has to be editable by the company and could be editable by the driver. So, just because the federal government decided this is a really good idea and it’s going to be the panacea that eliminates all the cheating in the world, it actually didn’t happen that way. We still see cheating all the time with it, which is unfortunate. The evidence should be the evidence in an electronic logging device.

David Craig – Host:

Yeah. When I first started practicing, I do almost exclusively semi-tractor trailer cases nowadays, but when I first started, I did a little bit of everything. So, these truck drivers had to carry these logs, paper logs in their truck. I can remember the first time that I did an inspection and found two logs. Well, the truck driver never got back to his truck. He got hurt. So, he was taken from the scene. We put a restraining order to keep the truck from being altered or touched or even opened. We got there at the same time the defense did. Lo and behold, there’s two sets of logs and one of them was already filled out ahead of time.

They had that affirmation part where they confirmed it’s true and they were already signed for days going forward in the future. So, it was always tricky, because again, before electronic data, we would have to get the fuel receipts. We would have to collect paper documents, toll or way stations. We would use different ways to try to track that truck and sometimes it was easier than other times, but that’s what we had to do before they did to these electronics. So, talk to a little bit about so what’s happening now.

Scott Greene:

So what’s happening now is very similar things are happening. One of the ways that they’re cheating is actually to unplug these devices and then drive for a while. We call it the hyper truck. Truck will be in South Bend, Indiana and then it’ll drive 200 miles further south and then all of a sudden come back on the radar. The GPS coordinates start back up again. The thing that the electronic logging devices bring to the marketplace is increased safety if they’re monitored. The trucking companies can monitor these trucks pretty much in real time and run reports about what the driver is doing. When the driver disappears, when they go off the air, so to speak, there are reports that can report that information back to the trucking companies.

Some actually use it and some are improving their safety dramatically by doing so. Others of course are ignorant of it or not playing the game right or just simply don’t care. Those are unfortunate events for certain.

David Craig – Host:

So have you had cases where you’ve seen truck drivers actually play with the system or try to cheat the system, the electronic logs?

Scott Greene:

Yeah, so they’ve cheated the system. One of the ways is to unplug them. One of the ways is to cover the antenna of the GPS so that the GPS is not recording where it is. So, there’s also legitimate reasons for the data to be edited. Say a truck driver forgets to clock in, for instance, then the company has the ability to make an adjustment to his log. Same thing if he walks away from the truck and forgets to log out, they have the ability to make those adjustments as well. Most of the systems actually will tell you when that data has been edited. That’s a good thing because then you can look at it and you can ask questions and find out what the truth is. Yeah, there’s some editing that goes on. Certainly, the unplugging of these ELD devices is one of those things in the marketplace.

David Craig – Host:

We started off talking about semis, so we have the electronic logs with the GPS, which, again, gives the companies feedback instantaneously in a lot of cases, but there’s also other things in a semi that folks may not be aware of. There’s other computer data. Talk about some of the other stuff that you can find in a semi.

Scott Greene:

Sure. So, some of the other stuff that we can find are as simple as DVRs, digital video recorders, where there’s a camera that is facing backwards into the cab to photograph or videotape the driver to watch the driver’s actions and reactions as well as a forward facing camera that monitors what happens out in front of the truck. These are key because they can show when drivers are paying attention. They can show when the other vehicle is not paying attention and they’re dramatic in what they record, but they run the whole gamut. We, of course, see both sides of the case in that. We see when the driver of the semi makes a mistake and turns left in front of somebody.

We also see when somebody just runs into the semi off of a side street because they missed a stop sign. Video is very important. I think that it’s one of the up and coming things in the marketplace. There’s more companies putting them in. Some of the bigger companies have decided that it’s a beautiful thing to have video facing forward on the truck when something happens, as well as to see what the driver did. Was the driver paying attention or were they looking down at their cell phone? We’ll get to cell phones in a minute, but all of that data is pretty important, so, they’ve become a lot more sophisticated by using at least two cameras. Others have gone to multiple cameras. It’s a pretty interesting thing to see the video that’s being recorded in our world.

David Craig – Host:

The other thing, I mean, I know some drivers are resistant to have themselves being videotaped. Almost all of them are for the camera facing outwards, but a lot of them don’t like the camera watching them. Some of them just look at it from a privacy standpoint. Some of them don’t want to be captured if they do something wrong and some just feel like they should be trusted. But like you, I’ve seen a lot of helpful videos that go both ways. I mean, I’ve seen some show that a driver is paying attention and doing what they’re supposed to be doing as a semi driver. So, it really has helped. I mean, it definitely clarifies the picture when you have that footage.

Scott Greene:

Yeah, it does. It works for both sides, absolutely.

David Craig – Host:

Now, the interesting thing is as I’m seeing more and more and I’m sure you are, more and more semis that actually have the cameras facing outward. The other thing that I think people should recognize is that there’s a lot of semis on the highways. So, a lot of these wrecks happen on the highway. So, not only do you have to look at the truck that’s involved in the wreck, but you want to pull the 911 records to see if any other truckers called in 911 that happened to be around the accident or saw the accident, and then find out whether they have video footage.

I have a wreck that was a fatality, and it was captured by at least five different cameras on moving vehicles. It was fascinating to me that they all showed different points up, but they all showed parts of the wreck or the aftermath of the wreck. So, not only should you focus on the cameras that are involved in the wreck, but also the ones that might be on passing vehicles.

Scott Greene:

Well, on passing vehicles, David, and also on businesses around the area. I did a defense case a couple years ago where a semi was accused of crossing the line. There was a lady in a Honda. They were going in opposite directions. It was a head on collision and the camera system that was in the store, it was an auto parts store, actually showed a better view than anything. It actually showed that the Honda had crossed the line and it wasn’t the truck that crossed the line. So, that data is everywhere. We’ve gone down little rabbit holes where we have the first person who we found, who called 911, they have video and then their video has the license plate of somebody else who had video. You can get a lot of video. It’s not just on semis. It’s on passenger cars as well.

David Craig – Host:

Yeah. Well, I had a wrongful death case involving a box truck, and they had deactivated the EDR and the electronic control module. So, there was nothing to download from the truck. However, a business had videotaped, a security camera. We were able to take that data and then we were able to have a reconstructionist time it on how fast the truck was passing light posts and determine the speed of that truck and prove that that truck was in fact speeding, even though it had deactivated. The same way with the school bus. They had deactivated their electronic control modules, so there was nothing to download, but it had a camera inside the bus and it faced backwards towards the students.

We were actually able to go out and make them bring the bus to the scene, run the route at the speed that she said she was going, then we could show shadows as they passed trees, you could actually see shadows and we could reconstruct the path of that bus by the shadows that were shown in the video facing the students. We were able to prove that the pedestrian who walked in front of the bus was killed, but the bus was traveling at a speed.

So, they originally threatened us with frivolous saying that they did nothing, but this guy walks right in front of the bus. But because you had the video focusing back, we were able to reenact this. I tell my investigators to assume that there’s video in every wreck and just make that assumption because there’s cameras everywhere.

Scott Greene:

Agreed. There’s cameras and information everywhere. True. Yeah.

David Craig – Host:

Again, like you said before, sometimes it’s helpful to our case and sometimes it’s not, but I would rather find that out in the very beginning and make a decision on what I do with the case. What other type of data is available?

Scott Greene:

So, one of the next things that we deal with is infotainment systems. Infotainment systems are those computer systems that are in the dash of cars. Interestingly enough, they’re now being installed in semis. It’s the way you change the radio, it’s the touchscreen in the dash. They’re starting to control more systems than they ever have. The number of inputs, as you’ll see on the next slide, is actually astonishing. You’ll see that on some vehicles, there can be hundreds of inputs that come from the car. The way that that happened is that hard disk drives and storage became so cheap that when the engineers of these products put them together, they say, “Wow, we have all this space. What are we going to do with it?” So what they did is they started logging everything that happens in the car.

So, in some instances, I can tell you if the lights were on and I can tell you the last time the right-hand door was open, if the sunroof was open. I can tell you the tire pressure on the tires if that’s part of the system. They vary a lot, but all the major manufacturers are now putting these in cars because the general public expects them. So, we’re seeing them mostly in passenger cars at this point and they’re critical for those types of cases. I’ll explain how they connect with cell phones here in a little bit, but they absolutely are making it also into the higher end tractors. The newer tractors have the similar thing. They have tremendous amounts of GPS data, tremendous amounts of other data that’s being input and stored in them and collected.

Extracting that data can be key in, of course, a lot of cases to determine what happened with the vehicle. Did the vehicle fail? Did the driver do the wrong thing? What happened in this case? So entertainment systems are one of the most up and coming things that we’re working on. They’re difficult. It takes unique software and hardware to go and collect this data. It’s not something you want to do in every case because it gets expensive, but there are cases when certainly commercial vehicles that have them are in a wreck or that the damages are such that it makes sense to pull the data and see what actually happened.

David Craig – Host:

I mean again, that was something that was completely not available 10, 15 years ago. I can remember we had a wrongful death case out in Iowa, and it’s the first time I hired you guys to go out and look at the informatic system that was with a car. It is amazing. Again, when I started, we didn’t have computers, personal computers. Only universities had computers.

Now, the informatic system, that’s a computer. I mean it’s a computer that’s, like you said, storing all this data. I know my car, if I go over the line, it vibrates. I mean, if it senses when I’m not staying within the lanes of the roadway, it gives warnings and it actually will tell me, “You may want to pull off and rest because you must be getting sleepy.” Think about that. If all that information is stored somehow and you’re able to extract it, that can be key to a case.

Scott Greene:

It can be. It’s amazing how much data is being stored. It’s growing all the time because the rule in the electronics world is we get to store twice as much data this year as we did last year for half the price essentially or every 18 months. Moore’s Law that’s called, dedicated to a guy from Intel. We have so much information that we can collect now from these vehicles and they’re computers with four wheels and a steering wheel. Yeah, they have an engine or they have motors if they’re an electric vehicle, but by and large, these vehicles are really just a whole bunch of computers that are all talking to each other and they do wild things.

I mean, we’ve seen cars reboot. You’re going down the highway and the car itself reboots because it gets confused. So, the more we play with that, the more we integrate circuits into these cars, it’s going to be even more difficult to pull the data because there’s so much of it, but it’s important to really find out what actually happened with the vehicle.

David Craig – Host:

What other type of digital data are you looking at and can be found in one of these type wrecks?

Scott Greene:

So, the biggest piece nowadays is cell phones. Cell phones are in every car. Sometimes there’s three or four in a car. They’re in every semi. Sometimes there’s two or three in a semi or more. The beauty about them, and the hard part about them, is that they’re all completely different. You and I may both own an iPhone 14, but the apps that I have on my phone and the apps that you have on your phone, David, are completely different. So, the interpretation and the collection and analysis of all that data is different. It’s one of the most difficult things that we do because the data is so complicated. We ran across one on Friday last week where the data was something we’d never seen before. It was an app that nobody had heard of. It tracked people’s location.

It was actually an emergency call app, designed mostly for females to carry around with them and to be able to signal people when something is wrong. It had GPS data in it that was unique to her situation. It was a dram shop case. So, we needed that GPS data. But in the case of a semi, we also see where as we talked about electronic logging devices, some of the electronic logging devices now are sharing space on a cell phone. So, we’re installing an app on a cell phone. It communicates in two directions to the company and to the driver. It dispatches information or sends dispatch information to the driver so they can go pick up their load and deliver it. It tracks GPS information.

It has a connection to the engine, so it’ll track faults and track when the engine’s running and that kind of thing, how fast it’s going outside of the GPS calculation that it can do, but they’re incredibly powerful devices that we carry around every day and they can be used for good, and they can be dangerous if it distracts people. I did a defense case probably a year ago or something like that where a doctor was driving down the highway and a semi has become disabled in the center lane. Not because of the driver’s fault. There was a mechanical issue. He’d come to a stop from another crash. He’d come to a stop and he couldn’t get his tractor moving. This driver comes up behind him and basically parks his BMW 7 Series underneath the back of the trailer.

What we’re able to do with his cell phone is look at the data. We knew that he was late for lunch and he had sent a text message to the guy he was late for lunch with. We knew he had sent a text message to Bob asking if Bob would call him. Now, Bob, it turns out, was not really Bob. Bob was the mistress that the wife didn’t know about. Then just eight seconds before he crashed his car and died, he opened Facebook on his cell phone. I interact of course with human factors experts, and they’re telling me that really, you just don’t want to use your phone while you’re driving, even if you’re using Bluetooth. It’s just a bad idea. I personally have cut most of it out.

It’s not zero, but it’s approaching zero. I used to think talking on the phone was just fine, but good human factors experts and distracted driving experts will tell you that it’s not. So, cell phones provide a tremendous way to communicate, but they’re also a temptation. There’s some evidence that iPhones were meant to be addictive, and I believe they are. I really do. There are times I can get on my phone and just go, go, go. It’s like, “Oh, I got to stop.”

David Craig – Host:

Well, I mean we see that. I mean even when I do a jury trial, last jury trial I did, oh my gosh, taking the phones away from the jurors was, they were not happy about it. Because you think about it, you go a whole day without looking at your cell phone, it’s extraordinarily difficult. I’m with you. I mean, I’ve been doing this long enough and I’ve unfortunately seen the results of what happens when people use their phone. I’m now to the point where I just won’t use mine. Now with the new vehicles, it’s hands free pretty much, so still you have to reach and touch the screen or you do different things, push a button.

There’s certainly even been studies that show that hands free Bluetooth cell phone usage is still distracting. Some trucking companies don’t allow their drivers to even use Bluetooth, even though the federal regs allow it. So, no, it can be extraordinarily dangerous. So, let’s talk a little bit about that. So, there’s a bad wreck and a wreck happens, like this gentleman who ran into the back of the semi and died. So, first of all, how do you gather the data and then how do you interpret it? Tell me a little bit about your role in all that.

Scott Greene:

Okay. So, the gathering of the data comes usually from two or three sources. The cell phone itself, which we use specialized software and hardware to connect to the cell phone and download the data out of a cell phone. That data can be all of the apps, all of the information that comes with the operating system on the phone. Depending upon the phone, we get more data or less data. It just depends upon the make and model of the phone and what it’s stored. Of course, the apps, as I referred to earlier, that the different apps store different data. So, you’ll see these apps, Life360 is one, that store GPS data and it gets transmitted to the cloud, or Strava, the bicycling app.

So, each of these devices has different apps on it and makes it unique. Each device is going to have a unique set of data. We collect that data with these hardware and software devices that extract all the data from the phone, and then we look at different pieces of the phone and different apps on the phone for different information. Of course, one of the first things we want to look at is, “Were they sending or receiving a text message? Were they on the phone? Were they on WhatsApp?”, which is another way to make calls and send and receive text messages and things like that. Of course, we look for Facebook. As indicated before, this gentleman ran his car into the back of his semi eight seconds after opening Facebook. That’s what he was looking at.

So, we look at that data from the cell phone. In addition, we get the call detail records, which are the records that are available from the carrier, AT&T or T-Mobile or Verizon. Those records will show what the phone did and interacted with their hardware, with their towers. That data is recorded very accurately because they used to send bills about it. Now they just tell you how much data and how many calls you make. I think for the most part, they’re not billing you by the minute anymore, but they still record that data and it’s very accurate. That data from the carrier may include the cell tower that the cell phone was connected to. If it’s on a call for a long time, it may show multiple cell towers, so movement through time and space.

Then as I indicated before, the cellular tower actually collects data that is outside of that. There’s NELOS data, which is a distance from the tower that can be collected from cell phones, and AT&T uses that to track things. With the advent of 5G, this higher, faster, more accurate internet speed, we’re actually going to be able to track people very finely on the planet because the 5G signal is only a quarter of a mile long or so. It just depends upon the urban area. So, we’re going to get more accurate information. Then that same cell phone data, believe it or not, cell phones disappear in litigation, David. I know that’s going to shock you, but we’ve had people throw them out into the desert. We’ve had people throw them back down a highway.

But back to the infotainment system, now we have a different record because people are making phone calls using their infotainment system. They’re hands free, right, and they’re making phone calls. The newer, more sophisticated infotainment systems will actually read you a text message and allow you to respond. That information is in there as well. So, the data’s being collected sometimes in multiple places, whether it’s the cell phone, the carrier, or the infotainment system in the car. In addition, you can have Bluetooth devices that are talking to the phone outside just the car itself. So, that’s where that data is being collected and used, for the most part, with cell phones.

It’s not uncommon for some truck drivers to have multiple cell phones. They’ll have a corporate cell phone and a personal cell phone. So, we want to look across that information too. What other phones were there? It’s a pretty sophisticated way for us to look at data to collect the cell phone, but it’s also very successful in showing that the driver was not on his cell phone or he had just opened Facebook.

David Craig – Host:

Well, I mean that it’s truly amazing and it’s got to be challenging. It’s almost like you’re putting a puzzle together. I mean, you’re taking and collecting all this data, trying to figure it out, and comparing it to one piece of data to another piece of data to try to figure out, “Where is somebody? What are they doing before a traumatic event?”

Scott Greene:

It is. It’s one of those things that I love the puzzle part of what I do, for sure. I love exploring new data and I love figuring out exactly what it is and then we publish records about it if we can, but it’s fascinating to me what humans think they can do. It’s a little scary and fascinating at the same time. I’m working on a case where the guy was on a three-person conference call, added more people, read and responded to a text message all while operating his commercial motor vehicle. I can’t even do that sitting down on my couch. So, it’s fascinating to me what people do. It just is. Dangerous or not, it’s fascinating.

David Craig – Host:

I mean, we’ve had cases where people have been watching pornography while they’re operating their semi or actually had one with a car as well. Because your phone’s connected to the internet, so they’re looking at it and sending photographs of people back and forth. It’s like, “What were they thinking?” But clearly, most of them don’t think they’re going to run into somebody. We had a case where a volunteer firefighter was killed by a truck, and it was a distracted driver that killed my client. We actually bought, at the end of the case, simulation machines, actual machines that you can drive and text and it shows you the dangers of texting and driving. I gave one away to the fire department where he worked at.

I gave one to another fire department, and then we kept one that we used for kids in driver’s training to show. The thing is that everybody thinks they can do it. Everybody thinks they can text and drive. It’s usually because they have. They’ve managed to avoid wrecks. The more they use their phone, then the more confidence they have. So, the more they think, “Well, I can do this without a problem.” The problem is that nobody has ever stopped in front of them or walked in front of them while they’ve been doing it. The simulation machine, the thing I love about giving it away and using it is that you put them behind there and they know that they’re going to be tested.

Yet they still fail because you can’t really do it. Very few people can actually very rarely do it and text and drive and then have somebody stop in front of them or a dog run in front of them or a person run in front of them, but I think people are overconfident like you said.

Scott Greene:

They are. Like I said, it’s fascinating to see what people will do. Are these expensive devices?

David Craig – Host:

They’re about 10 grand. When I bought them, they’re around 10 grand. I’m looking at, because everything else technology has advanced, so I want to look and see what the new ones have. We take them around the different drivers ed classes, and they’re always excited about them. So, my theory always has been if you save one person, it’s well worth it.

Scott Greene:

Yeah, good for you.

David Craig – Host:

The fire departments use them and for safety events. So, usually, we’ll give one to the fire department, they call us, and then they have theirs and we have ours. We’ll have three of them set up. We run kids through them and adults through them. Most of the time the kids are telling me that their mom or dad does text and drive and they use their cell phone, but you’re in this business like I am. When you see one of these scenes, they never leave your mind. You think, “I want to get home and I want everybody else to get home.” I could do other types of law, but the reality is people are overconfident and they tend to use this stuff. The data is there and they’re not going to get away with it.

Even if they cause a wreck, I’m going to hire people like yourself and you’re going to be able to figure it out. I have had cases where I’ve worked with the prosecutor’s office, so where the defendant in my civil case that was using their cell phone and killed my client. The police department doesn’t have the technology that you have. Most of the police departments do not have the money and the resources, but on a civil case, I can hire you and people like you. They can extract that information and then my families always want me to turn it over to the prosecutor’s office, to the police.

Scott Greene:

Sure.

David Craig – Host:

Because they want somebody punished for killing their family member while using their phone. So, not only can it hurt you in fact, I mean, number one, you should care about hurting someone else. Secondly, there could be civil consequences in a civil case, but thirdly, there could be criminal charges.

Scott Greene:

Sure.

David Craig – Host:

I think that you’re seeing the easier it is to obtain this information, then the more available it is. Although, like you said, it’s getting more complex with these informatic systems.

Scott Greene:

Yeah, I work with police departments. I offer them all of my technology, all the technology that the company has. If we need to help you solve a problem that we’re not involved in, let’s do it, because my company can write checks for things that they need. By the time the police department or the city approves the expenditure, we could be too far on down the road. So, I want to do that. I spend time every year educating police officers. I’ve done that now for probably seven or eight years.

I just spend some time every year educating them on what we see in the marketplace, what works, what doesn’t work, why it’s important, why they should pay attention to it, that kind of thing. Because sharing that knowledge, to me, is critical for the safety of the rest of the world. We need to know what that looks like and they need to know what they’re up against. Not just in the criminal world, but also in the civil world because there’s some crossover there between the two that they should know about.

David Craig – Host:

Well, I think that as we advance, there’s going to be more data for you to try to obtain. I mean, because now, you see people wearing watches and wristbands that track them. I have a pair shoes. Under Armour has tracking in their shoes. I always joke about it. My wife bought them for my birthday. I’m like, “Hey, wait a minute. Are you tracking me,” but they actually have tracking.

So, that helps you if you work out, if you run, if you walk, whatever, it will track and have a GPS system in it. It will map it out. If you’re driving, it still will work. You’re seeing, like I said, the wristbands, the different types of devices. I have a Google phone, and every month, it sends me where I’ve been for the whole month. It shows photographs that I may have taken at those locations. So, you think about that, it’s like, “Holy cow.” I don’t do divorces, but my God, it’s got to be a goldmine for divorce cases.

Scott Greene:

It is a goldmine for divorce cases and I’ve used it quite a bit. We didn’t talk about the Google Takeouts, but yeah, Google phones or even if you just have a Google account on an iPhone, it will track you and tell you where you’ve been and what photographs, but I have worked cases where there’s a child custody issue where the parent was not supposed to take the child out of the state and they went all the way from, I think it was from Colorado all the way up to Seattle and back in a car. I could just trace them as they went up and trace them as they came back. “No, no, we didn’t take her out of the state,” but there’s a lot of data out there and it’s increasing all the time.

David Craig – Host:

Yeah. Well, anything else that you think that folks ought know about this whole area that we haven’t talked about or that you want to share?

Scott Greene:

I want to share something. It’s just that what we talked about, if you can minimize your use of your cell phone while you’re driving, please do. It is a distraction. My distracted driving experts that I interact with will tell you they just don’t even do it anymore. There’s studies out there that show that you shouldn’t. It’s not my area of expertise. I don’t testify about that, not my deal, but I do know that those studies exist. I’ve not done a study, so I’m not a distracted driving expert, but I know they’re out there. I personally have made that choice. I think that’s all right.

David Craig – Host:

I have as well. I’m not an expert in that area either, but when you see time after time, people sending a text message or looking at Facebook or looking at a website seconds before they die, then that’s all I need to know, or the seconds before they kill somebody, that’s enough for me. So, again, I can remember when cell phones first came out with the antenna. I mean, as lawyers, you’re always trying to maximize your time, your usage. I used to be on a cell phone constantly. I just looked at it as it was a good business. I mean, if I was traveling somewhere, then I would use my phone to talk on meetings or whatever. I’ve completely discontinued doing that. Well, Scott, I really appreciate your insight. I’ve enjoyed working with your company over the years. You’ve helped me with my clients.

I would encourage anybody out there that’s listening to this. If you need a forensic expert in this area, Scott and his company are one of the best, if not the best in this area. I would encourage you not only are they good at what they do, but they’re easy to work with and they’re good people. The one part of it that we talked about is that you can be the smartest person in the world, you can be the best at what you do, but if you can’t communicate it, then you’re really not any help to a lawyer because we have to be able to communicate to a jury. I think by listening to you on this podcast, people will get an understanding that you are easy to understand. You do put it in ways that we can all understand. That’s the ultimate endgame.

Scott Greene:

Yes, it is. Thank you, David, for the kind words. I pride myself and my company on the fact that we do and can communicate it in plain English. You have to be able to understand it. It is complicated and other experts make it complicated. That’s unfortunate because the jury really has to understand it.

David Craig – Host:

Well, thank you very much.

Scott Greene:

My pleasure, David. Pleasure working with you. Thank you.

David Craig – Host:

This is David Craig, and you’ve been listening to After the Crash. If you’d like more information about me or my law firm, please go to our website, C-K-F-L-A-W.com. Or if you’d like to talk to me, you can call 1-800-ASK-DAVID. If you would like a guide on what to do after a truck wreck, then pick up my book, Semi-Truck Wreck: A Guide for Victims and Their Families, which is available on Amazon, or you can download it for free on our website, ckflaw.com.