Canadian and American engineers are “…known for going on site and getting their hands dirty and mud on their boots”. And this is a good thing in forensic engineering, and engineers should go there as soon as possible and as often as need be.
I know this to be true. I don’t feel comfortable until I get out on site.
I heard this expressed by one of my professors at a university in the U.K. when I was overseas doing graduate work years ago. (Ref. 1)
It felt good hearing this at the time, and I’ve tried to live up to that view of us. It’s fairly easy for me because the field is a place I like to go.
I’ve thought for a while to share this with you. But I didn’t quite know how to explain what it meant. Still not quite sure. For certain, it means much more than the initial site visit and visual assessment in a forensic engineering investigation (Ref 2). It’s a cultural thing. It’s a feeling, a good feeling; we just want to get out on site and collect data, build things – with our hands, fix things, solve problems, do stuff. If we get dirty, it’s okay, it washes off, and besides, we’re doing things.
It’s important that counsel establish that their expert got out on site.
Our interest in being on site fits in with guidelines in the forensic engineering literature. These recommend, for example, that the investigator be present and witness field and laboratory tests. This carries a lot of weight in the justice system, the investigator, the expert, doing and seeing things done.
You can’t go to a site after a building or civil engineering structure has been erected and examine reinforcing steel buried in concrete, structural steel hidden behind gyproc walls, and foundations buried in the ground. There are regulations in some municipalities today that require the engineer to be there when it was being done and sign off on this.
Our interest also resonates with the fact that about 80% to 85% of what we learn is acquired visually. Collecting data visually is the way we get most of our information. You can’t beat picking up a concrete impression on site, walking and poking around, ‘kicking a few tires’. It’s difficult to talk about something without seeing it.
We like working with people to get a job done, but when we examine a site, investigating and collecting data, we like to do this privately and in a relaxed manner without the distractions of the presence of another person.
Counsel would do well to establish if their expert did this: Got out on site a lot. He should also cross-examine and establish if opposing counsel’s expert did this as well.
Credibility goes way up if an expert has gone into the field and got “his hands dirty and mud on his boots”.
References
- Professor John Billam, Department of Engineering, University of Birmingham, U.K.
- “Technical” visual site assessments: Valueable, low cost forensic engineering method. Posted September 4, 2012. http://www.ericjorden.com/blog/2012/09/04/technical-visual-site-assessments-valuable-low-cost-forensic-engineering-method/