Many of our Fast Lane features have focued on things that cause traffic accidents, but this month the focus is on what happens after a crash.
Law enforcement officials are not only tasked with clearing an accident scene, but also with determining how an accident occurred. That aspect of the field is known as accident reconstruction, and Hall County Sheriff's Office Sgt. John Morgan said it requires its own separate training from standard police work.
"There are seven basic core classes in accident reconstruction, the first one is the basics of how to examine roadway evidence, then it gets into a little bit of the math and then the actual reconstruction portion of it," Morgan said. "Then it gets down into the specifics of it, classes geared for motorcycles, classes geared for pedestrian investigations and then commercial vehicle investigations."
Morgan said authorities will examine every aspect of a crash scene when trying to reconstruct it and he said most of the work is done after the crash has been cleared.
"We look at the scene, we examine the vehicles and sometimes just work the crash backwards," Morgan said. "We do a forensic inspection of the vehicles that were involved, see if there were any mechanical failures, check seatbelts. There's many things and it really just depends on the wreck itself as to what we check for."
Morgan said Hall County alone can see as many as 100 accidents in a given week and it takes law enforcement agencies working together to make sure they all get reconstructed.
"We work very closely with the Georgia State Patrol. They're responsible for 24 or 25 counties," Morgan said. "Manpower issues and time of day will determine who takes the lead on a crash reconstruction."
With technology and methods constantly evolving in law enforcement, Morgan said the accident reconstruction field has been no different.
"Drones have become a very helpful tool for accident reconstruction because it keeps us from having to shut down the roadway for any extended amount of time when we want to forensically map the scene to actually begin the process of putting the crash back together," Morgan said.
To hear more from Hall County Sheriff's Office Sgt. John Morgan, click play on the audio above.
