Scientific investigations of road accidents

SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF ROAD ACCIDENTS 

• The scientific investigation of accidents is a branch of forensic science. Forensic scientists will carefully examine the scene of a crime for physical evidence which can be subjected to analysis. 
• The outcome of such analyses may assist the Court to determine guilt, innocence, fault or liability. Accident Investigators carry out their work in exactly the same way.
• In road traffic accidents the primary physical evidence lies in the site details, the conditions which prevailed at the time of the accident, the state of the road, marks and debris on the road, the physical characteristics of the vehicles involved, the damage sustained by the vehicles, the injuries sustained by persons involved in the accident, the police plan, the police measurements, the police photographs, the police video and in the laws of physics which determine the movement of vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians before, during and after an accident. 
• Secondary physical evidence comes from the statements of witnesses when they refer to times, distances, speeds and locations. However, the validity and interpretation of such statements are matters for the Court to determine. 
• Statements which refer to physical parameters will sometimes have additional physical implications.
• India, as one of the signatories of the Brasilia Declaration, is committed to halving road accident deaths by 2020.
• The first step in scientific investigation of road investigation involves isolating the true causes of death on roads and rectifying the same.
• Accident investigations inform future safety improvements, and prevent and prepare for future accidents.
• Road accident investigation should be a robust iterative system, which follows a constant feedback loop
• The Motor Vehicle Amendment Bill 2017 through an amendment allows the central government to formulate schemes that facilitate in-depth analysis of road accidents.
• The Accident Investigation Report (AIR) is too brief to be of any real use. The Detailed Accident Investigation Report (DAR) carries more information such as, a site plan drawn to scale describing skid marks, nature of traffic on the road and several other details, photographs of the accident site and vehicles from ‘all’ angles, driving conditions at the time, road surface conditions, details of road encroachments at the site, driver’s condition, victim’s injury and a mechanical inspection of the vehicle which includes, mechanical inspection of the vehicle, condition of tyre treads, air bags, and point of impact and level of damage. 
• RASSI (Road Accident Sampling System - India), a relatively new initiative, aims to create a road traffic accident database through on-site crash investigations helping governments, citizens and the industry make informed data-led decisions about improving road safety in India.
• RASSI database is based on international databases such as the US National Automotive Sampling System – Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDS), the German In-Depth Accident Study (GIDAS), and the UK’s Co-operative Crash Injury Study (CCIS), but it has been designed and developed to reflect Indian conditions.
• Scientific investigation of road accidents is therefore a key component of any policy directed at reducing road accidents.
• Road Accident Sampling System-India (RASSI), is a repository of accident data of over 3,750 accidents investigated across India over a period of 7 years.
• It is a pioneering Indian initiative aimed at collecting in-depth scientific road accident data, through on-site crash investigations, that will enable the government, industry and other road safety stakeholders to plan and execute data-driven road safety strategies for safer Indian roads.
• Forensic Crash Investigation is a quick consultation to understand an accident or full-fledged investigations to reconstruct and understand injury causation.
• It is used to deliver easily understandable and evidence based explanations of the sequence of events leading up to any road traffic accidents.
• Special crash investigations examine unique real-world crashes anywhere in India and perform a detailed examination in a timely manner that can be used by the safety community to understand, evaluate and improve the performance of existing safety systems.