Who’s Involved – Public Sector: Strathclyde Police (Crash Investigation Unit)

Police Sergeant: I’m Sergeant David Gillespie from Strathclyde Police Crash Investigation Unit. Our main remit is to attend serious (likely to prove fatal and fatal) road accidents, along with other crime scenes and anything that’s high media interest.

Claire Baird from Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce contacted myself, along with one of the staff members at Marr College in Troon, suggesting that we could become involved in partnership working with children who are currently involved with maths and physics at Marr College, to show them how maths and physics can work in the real world.

The Police Sergeant asks a class to assist him in a reconstruction of a crash investigation to apply a physics formula.

We skid-test the vehicle to a halt, we then get the pupils involved in measuring the displaced skid. They're able to calculate the minimum speed of the vehicle when it started to skid to a halt.

The Police Sergeant explains to a class how the SkidMan assists his accident investigations by measuring the frictional properties of the road surface

Student: I never really knew that the police used the physics formulae that we used. So that was quite interesting. And now I can apply the formula to real-life situations.

Police Sergeant: What it really allows the kids to see is that maths and physics can be used in the real world. This could, potentially, have an impact when they leave school and go to a working environment. And this is to show them that maths and physics can, actually, have some real purpose and some real use.

Many of the children involved will soon be looking towards getting a driving licence [and] getting behind the wheel of a car. This, [will] hopefully (and having spoken to kids, I think it does) reinforce the issues involved in someone losing control of a vehicle or driving too fast. So, hopefully, seeing (physically) the effects of a vehicle skidding to a halt and me, perhaps, highlighting what they don’t hear in television and newspapers will maybe have a bearing on when they do get behind the wheel for the first time.