When a vehicle collides with another vehicle at a Kentucky intersection, there may be a number of opinions about who was at fault. The drivers and witnesses may all have different accounts. However, each of these people has only one perspective. Before it can be determined what factors actually caused the accident, experts may need to be called in to investigate.
Investigations can be important for determining fault for insurance or litigation purposes; they can also reveal safety issues that should be addressed by engineers, vehicle manufacturers or even legislators.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a Special Crash Investigations Program that collects data from crashes all across the country. When there are issues present that correspond with the agency’s need for information in helping to improve safety, experts from this program may take on the case. These often include accidents where emerging technology may have played a role, or when a certain type of vehicle is involved, such as a school bus.
But what about the crashes the SCI doesn’t take on?
ForensisGroup explains that professional investigators who take on automobile cases may be safety experts, engineers or technicians. Their investigations includecollecting and analyzing physical evidence, which may be collected from police reports as well as examinations of the accident site and the vehicles involved. Automotive recalls, vehicle maintenance records, road conditions and other environmental elements are also evaluated.
After assessing the results of the collision, experts generally work backward to identify all the contributing elements. This is done using advanced concepts of engineering and physics, such as the application of data calculations and simulations, to create models of the collision that reproduce the outcome.