Citation

Day TD. Collision 2011; 6(2): 46-53.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Collision Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Accident reconstruction has two major goals: determining the cause of a crash and determining how and if the crash could have been avoided. This article uses a hypothetical example to provide a primer on how to achieve these two goals. In the example, two cars collided at an intersection, with the preliminary cause being attributed to one drivers' failure to obey the stop sign. The initial objectives of the reconstruction were to determine if the driver stopped at the stop sign, if vehicle speed was a factor, and if inattention by either driver was a factor. The author recommends that information gathering should start with the police report. Vehicle, scene and event data needs to be collected. The recommended reconstruction analysis procedure involves damage-based analysis, momentum-based reconstruction and simulation to study time vs. distance, and perception/reaction time and accident avoidability. This example illustrates that a thorough reconstruction procedure can generate a rich source of data for investigators.