If you’ve been injured in a car accident involving one or more vehicles, an accident reconstruction expert could end up providing invaluable information to help with litigation, particularly when serious injuries or a wrongful death is involved.
Accident reconstruction experts have extensive training that allows them to evaluate all the available data surrounding an accident, including road conditions, weather, traffic flow and more. Using crash simulations, 3D animation and forensic mapping, they can help show a number of important things that may be critical to your case:
- They can show the true position of each person involved, if there is a dispute about who was actually driving a particular vehicle (and, therefore, who might be liable for any injuries).
- They can clearly demonstrate the position of each vehicle both prior to the accident and during the accident.
- They can help determine the speed of impact, which can show both fault and speak to the veracity of an individual’s injuries.
- They can use their abilities to testify to the force of impact and the cause of specific injuries.
- They can show whether or not someone was actually wearing a seat belt, as alleged.
Modern accident reconstruction is particularly invaluable in cases where there are multiple vehicles involved. Since some cars are undoubtedly forced into the path of other vehicles by earlier impacts, it almost always takes an accident reconstruction expert’s careful use of computer technology to illustrate the order of events, plus changes in acceleration and overall velocity as each car joins the chain of impact.
What can you do to help the accident reconstruction expert do his or her job? If you’re in an accident or a witness to one, take plenty of pictures. Get close shots, including pictures of the inside of the different vehicles involved (when you can do so safely). Also, take plenty of distance shots that capture the weather, the road, signs and any debris that’s laying around. While you may not necessarily know the value of what you are photographing to a car accident lawsuit, you can sure be the reconstruction expert does!
