I'm a Terrible Eyewitness

I was driving east on I-84 yesterday through western New York, on a snow covered road, when right in front of my car two other cars collided at 60 mph sending each other spinning with one colliding into a guard rail on the right side of the road in front of me; the other colliding with a cable guardrail in the median behind me.  I managed to narrowly avoid being involved in the accident myself and pulled over.  I got out of my car to check on the driver of the car behind me (she appeared to be okay), while my girlfriend called 911. When I turned around to check on the other car, it was gone.

We waited for the police to arrive to make our statements and the one thing I realized when he started asking us about the accident is how terrible an eyewitness I am.  Neither my girlfriend or I we certain of much other then we just saw an accident between two sedans and the car that drove away was black.  What lane were we driving in?  The center lane I think, entirely based on deduction not an actual memory.  What lane were the other cars driving in?  Not sure, we think center and far right. How did the accident happen?  We think the car that fled was passing the other and slid into them knocking it into a spin and off the road.  What was the make?  Don't know.  The license plate?  Don't know.

All this is to say eyewitnesses are unreliable and memory is flawed.  In a situation where your fight or flight response is activated it is extremely difficult to accurately remember things and this doesn't even take into account how memories can be manipulated intentionally or unintentionally by other witnesses, media reports, or police, or distorted by environmental factors like lighting. If I was on a jury I would never be able to convict someone based primarily on eyewitness testimony.

For more check out this TED Talk: