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Drones Are Helping Maine State Police Analyze Crash Scenes

Maine State Police
A crash reconstruction, captured by drone.

Accidents on Maine roadways this summer have caused closures that have tied up traffic for hours on end in some cases, as responders must not only help injured victims and clear debris, but also conduct detailed investigations of the accident scene. The Maine State Police has a new piece of high-flying technology that it says will speed that process up.

Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, are being used to photograph crash scenes in 3-D, allowing investigators to do their work more quickly with more detailed information. State police Sgt. Darren Foster, one of three certified drone operators on the force, said drones are proving to be a major time saver.

“Typical major crash on the Turnpike, we could be there for two or three hours mapping, photographing, collecting evidence, and that’s probably a quick time. The last one I did on the Maine Turnpike it took me 7 minutes to fly it, and that collected all the information I needed,” he said.

Foster said it takes longer to process all that data back at headquarters, but the process produces detailed renderings of the accident scene in which measurements and perspectives can be manipulated with just a few keystrokes.

“It’s capturing data that we never could have even thought of before,” he said. “Everything that is in the photograph now becomes a measurable. So we don’t have to physically collect that point, it’s in the photograph.”

And Foster said at about $5,500 a drone, it doesn’t take long for the time saved to pay for the cost.

There are other public safety benefits as well, said Col. Robert Williams, chief of the Maine State Police. The faster processing of accident investigations shortens the duration of road closures, and that also reduces the likelihood of other accidents.

“When you shut the road down on the Turnpike on a Friday afternoon, you’re talking about miles of back-up and along with that back-up come secondary crashes. You can’t avoid them. So we are avoiding secondary crashes, we’re keeping traffic moving,” he said.

At the briefing on the use of drones Thursday, questions were raised about whether the use of drones might be expanded to other situations, such as hostage standoffs or active shooter events. Williams said that will probably come at some time in the future, but that drones are now governed by a 2015 state law aimed at protecting the privacy of Mainers from indiscriminate use of drones by law enforcement.

“We will have to get a search warrant, there are a lot of privacy issues surrounding drones, we have written those into the policy,” he said.

Democratic state Sen. Shenna Bellows of Manchester, who once worked for the ACLU in Maine, was involved in drafting that legislation. She says, “so far, so good.”

“I am encouraged that law enforcement is saving time and money by doing accident reviews, because I think, again, that it is not the technology that’s the problem. It’s making sure the technology is being used properly,” she said.

Bellows said the law clearly requires a search warrant in many situations, and is pleased the state police policy underscores that need. But she says that she and other privacy advocates will be watching closely as law enforcement agencies across the state consider the expanded used of drones.

Journalist Mal Leary spearheads Maine Public's news coverage of politics and government and is based at the State House.