Accident Surveys
If an automotive or other vehicle or roadway-related accident has recently happened, you may need to have an accident survey conducted. In many cases, the highway patrol officers themselves may use surveying equipment at the scene of an accident for their own records. For example, the California Highway Patrol has purchased several ScanStations and Total Stations for surveying use. In these situations, the equipment is most often used directly following the accident, before the roadway has been re-opened to traffic. For highway patrol purposes, the focus is on quickly, accurately, and completely documenting the scene so that the roadway may be reopened.
When it comes to accident surveys, clients including insurance or law enforcement agencies may require such a survey as part of their investigative process. In other cases, the person involved in the accident will hire a surveyor to conduct the accident survey.
The results produced can be used in court to show the scene of the accident. An accident survey may become necessary for your insurance company or to fight any court case ensuing from the accident. In the best case scenario, the surveyor arrives before you have left the scene and before anything has been towed away. An accident survey completed after the accident has been cleared may or may not be helpful, depending on the situation. For official purposes, these surveys be done by licensed surveyors.
During an accident survey, a surveying team accurately measures the site of the accident, with a margin of error of just a few millimeters. The results of the accident survey include an AutoCAD drawing or a 3D, 360 degree simulation view of the accident site. This allows viewers to understand the accident site quite accurately. Accident surveys utilize specialized equipment that allows the taking of measurements without requiring the closing of the road. In many cases, the surveying equipment can be placed at the side of the road and does not obstruct traffic or require surveyors to set foot in the road.
Every item within the accident area is covered by the surveyors, from utility poles and even the wires hanging between the poles to sidewalks, driveways, and potholes. Important roadway features such as width and slopes are also shown, with the degree of accuracy necessary to solve nearly any dispute. If the vehicles involved in the accident are still in position, the accident survey also measures their precise location. In essence, the finished product is the accident scene in its entirety, exactly as it appears in real life.
The evidence obtained through accident surveying can be crucial to an insurance or legal case, or in supporting or disproving a causation theory. The resulting images are surprisingly realistic, and show every detail necessary to reconstruct the accident. In fact, the digital information collected by the accident survey can be used to create a simulation of the accident itself through computer or video reenactments. This reenactment relies not only on the on-scene observations and accident survey measurements but also on the crash report and crash tests showing the results at various angles, allowing accurate reconstruction of the accident given the resulting scene.
Charles Iner, RLS
October 2009