by JIM RENNIE
ANYONE WHO has ever passed an accident scene may have wondered: “How did this happen?” or “How did the vehicles get where they are?”
Accurate analysis of the crash scene and all available evidence is essential to enable the full picture to be appreciated. Ideally, it will involve a visit to the accident scene to obtain the data necessary to prepare accurate scale plans, take photographs of sight lines and visibility and, where possible, record any physical evidence which may still exist.
Thereafter a full review is conducted of all available documents:
witness statements, contemporaneous scene photographs and police investigation reports. By using scientific principals the evidence is analysed to produce a full report to establish the initial cause of the accident, the subsequent sequence of events and any culpability which may exist on the part of the drivers involved. The investigators also consider any statutory instruments which may be relevant to those instructing them pending any civil or criminal proceedings.
Strange Strange & Gardner offers a consultancy service to solicitors, insurance companies, loss adjusters and local authorities.
Members of the specialist team of forensic investigators are based at the Birmingham office, but travel extensively throughout the UK and Europe. The main area of investigation is road traffic accidents.
The main factors that cause road traffic accidents are human, environmental and vehicular. Human factors involve, for example, inexperience, inattention, speeding or impairment through drink or drugs.
The principal environmental factors include the weather and the road condition, ie state of repair. In terms of tyre adhesion the degree of grip from the road surface can be measured using the Stanley Pendulum machine – in the case of pedestrian or bicycle applications – or the Skidman for vehicular applications.
Vehicle factors, normally apparent during an examination, relate to steering, braking and suspension systems, the condition of the tyres and the state or lack of maintenance.
Vehicle speed is often a causative factor and that can often be determined, within limits, by consideration of the relative damage/crumple of the vehicles, which gives an assessment of speeds at impact.
However, skid marks deposited on the road surface can enable a speed reduction to be calculated, which then determines initial speed prior to driver reaction.
The other work undertaken is the determination of consistency of damage to vehicles with respect to the alleged circumstances of the accident. Here it is again beneficial to inspect the vehicles, although sometimes they are not available due to having been sold or scrapped. Reliance is then made upon any reasonable photographs to determine the nature of the collision, ie relative speeds and angles of approach etc.
In many cases we have found that the physical evidence shows that one vehicle was stationary when driven into by another, contrary to the drivers’ accounts that they were both in motion, with one failing to stop at a T junction or on the approach to a roundabout, for example. Such information has succeeded in determining that the incident was staged for the purposes of an insurance claim.
• Jim Rennie is an accident investigator with Strange, Strange & Gardner in Birmingham. For more information visit www.ssandg.co.uk.