Accident Reconstruction Network > News >June 2008

Accident Reconstruction News Article

Police Crash Cars for Conference

Edward Lawrence, Reporter

North Las Vegas Police intentionally crashed cars at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Monday. It's all part of a crash investigation conference designed to reduce fatal accidents and save lives.

Each accident offers its own unique puzzle. The pieces are there and it's up to people like Sgt. Sam Hewson to put together. He's a Senior Collision Reconstructionists for Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

"In a car pedestrian collision, there are a lot of marks that you will find on the vehicle itself. So you are looking for the contact marks between the pedestrian and vehicle," he said.

The car certainly showed those marks. Hewson has refined his crash investigation work over the past 17 years in Alberta, Canada, "There is a crack in the windshield there from possibly a head strike. You can see light marks on the hood.

A slower look at the impact shows the head cracked the windshield and arms marked the hood. The impact was at just 35 miles per hour.

Rusty Haight, Director of the Collision Safety Institute, put the demonstration together with the North Las Vegas Police, "We are hoping to make better accident investigators and reconstructionists."

The Collision Safety Institute constructed five different types of accidents, from a motorcycle into a car to police demonstrating pursuit intervention techniques. Eyewitness News cameras also got an inside look at the accident.

By seeing the before, during and after an accident, the investigators can test themselves, then compare their findings with computer data from inside the cars.

"We can tell you the speed of the vehicle. We can tell you the force that was being exerted on both drivers," said North Las Vegas Police Crash Investigator Jim Byrne.

The data will give an accurate picture so the investigators at the conference can compare to see if their pieces of the crash puzzle fit together in the same way.

The people attending came to the conference from all over the world. The director of it says that better accident investigators can save lives. If there are many similar accidents at the same intersection, an investigator can suggest changes that could prevent the next one.

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