The worse a car crash is, the more financial implications it has. Insurance companies and those possibly going to court over a car crash sometimes choose to hire professionals to conduct an accident reconstruction.
Whether the insurance company has informed you that they intend to perform an accident reconstruction to determine fault or you believe that recreating the crash might help to strengthen your claim, understanding how crash reconstruction works can help you make more a informed decision about whether it is necessary for your situation.
How do engineers and other professionals recreate a crash?
Trying to show how a crash occurred, why it happened and who was truly at fault requires a lot of information. The model of each vehicle involved, the size and weight of their occupants and any cargo, the speeds of the vehicles, weather factors and even the angle at which they entered the intersection can all impact how vehicles move immediately before and during a wreck.
Professionals attempting to recreate a collision will need as much detail as possible. They will need to see pictures of the damage that the vehicles incurred and may even inspect the vehicles. Many times, computer modeling can help professionals run through various scenarios. The goal is to create a situation that produces the same end result as the crash under investigation.
Like any interpretive science, there is room for errors in reconstruction
Whether reconstruction professionals use cutting-edge software or scale models of the vehicles to try to recreate the exact situation of the collision, they could make mistakes. Gaps in their knowledge, biases because of previous reconstruction work and flaws in the system used for reconstruction could all lead to inaccurate results.
Even if a recreation shows you have partial responsibility, you could potentially fight such a claim with your own analysis or experts. Details that you can provide about what happened before and during the crash could help undermine a misleading version of events that the other driver or their insurance company has created.
You can use collision reconstruction to help support your claim after a crash or to counter a false claim about your role in the collision. Understanding both the uses and limitations of collision reconstructions can help those pursuing a compensation claim.