A Quick Guide: What Is Accident Assessment?

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Guess what movies and accidents have in common? That’s right – they both have plot twists.

Often, accidents that seem straightforward at first glance hide many a twist. This can be caused by many reasons. For example: Collisions that happen at a very high speed may leave the affected in such horrible trauma that it may be hard for them to recall important details. This is where traffic accident assessment expert comes in help.

Every traffic accident is usually caused by these common three factors: Human, Environment, and Vehicle, and accidents can be caused by just one or a combination of these factors – For instance, a crash happens because an elderly driver with deteriorating eyesight doesn’t notice a gaping manhole on the road. The two factors here are:

• Human – poor eyesight and slower reaction time due to age, and
• Environmental – open manhole

If you add a rickety car to this scenario, and the elderly driver gets hurt because the vehicle has no airbag, then the “vehicle” factor needs to be taken into account too. An accident assessment expert uses multiple scientific approaches to arrive at conclusions about an accident. These findings will then be used in the claims or legal process and in the improvement of road users’ safety. Some of the disciplines involved in accident assessment include: Forensic scene analysis, vehicle dynamics, Physics, damage analysis, computer applications, and more.

An accident assessor typically visits an accident site as soon as possible to take photographs and video footage, and examine and measure physical evidence such as skid marks, forensic details, final resting position of vehicles, and roadway factors. They will then proceed to review reports, sketch plans, data collected at the accident site, and witness statements. The assessment expert may also conduct simulations to study the various potential factors of the accident. At the end of the process, the assessment expert will produce a formal report which might contain the following information:

• Blind spots and impact points
• Vehicle dynamics
• Timeline of the accident

These experts are also qualified to testify in both civil and criminal courts, and help ensure that a complicated case is represented honestly and holistically before the court.

The duration of the assessment process depends on many factors, like:

• the availability and depth of information
• the urgency of the case
• the complexity of the accident

Due to the time-consuming nature of the field, the length of a case widely varies. This is why it’s advisable to hire an accident assessment expert as soon as the need arises. We really hope you’ll never find yourself in need of an accident assessment expert, but if you do, you know who to call. Ghost- Kidding. Call us. You can read more about our accident assessment experience here.