Reconstructing an Accident
Early in the morning in Southern California, a stake bed truck collided with a motorcycle, causing the biker to suffer fatal injuries. Now, even with a $50,000 reward set by the police, questions remain as to whether or not the driver involved may face justice of any kind.
Video Footage Appeared to Show Truck Flee Scene After Failure to Stop
A police spokesperson told NBC Los Angeles that the rider was only in his late teens or early 20s. The truck, according to reviews of the footage, appeared to flee the scene after failing to stop or yield at an intersection.
Police Investigation Continues
Police will continue to investigate but the incident raises serious questions about how these sorts of investigations work without the use of surveillance cameras. After all, the footage is rarely available in most cases where there are truck accidents in Stockton and throughout California. Instead, physics and some key assumptions help personal injury lawyers and investigators better understand what may have happened.
Problems with CHP Accident Reconstruction Efforts
The California Highway Patrol uses a coding system, along with occasional drawings, in order to provide a broad overview of what happened in truck accidents in Stockton and throughout the state. There are up to 20 different options, including whether or not the tractor-trailer left the road, collided with property or another vehicle.
The Necessity of Accident Reconstruction by Experienced Attorney
To prove liability and negligence in a legal context, however, requires a more detailed analysis. Since trucks are so many times larger than cars, a car is less likely to influence the direction of a truck. Imagine a toddler being picked up by a parent. Even if he or she pounds the chest of the parent, there’s going to be little impact.
An experienced auto accident attorney has the resources and experts available to reconstruct the accident in order to pinpoint liability.
Video Footage Can Prove the Facts of an Accident
Once the accident attorney has video footage of decent quality, his legal team will use it to prove multiple facts about the crash. The video footage can prove what color a traffic light was at the point that a vehicle passed through an intersection. It can further authenticate eyewitness accounts of what transpired. For example, a witness may say the light was green but the video can prove it was red. Most importantly, the surveillance footage may help reconstruct and determine the accurate speed of a car or truck. If the expert determined the frame rate of the video camera, an attorney can instruct the members of the jury about the amount of time elapsed between each frame of video captured. If the expert also determined a distance between different points of reference in the footage, then the team can calculate the rate of speed at which a vehicle was traveling leading up to the collision.
Other Variables – Fully Loaded Trucks
Truck accident reconstruction must take a similar concept into account. Depending on whether or not the truck is fully loaded, it may have an impact force of varying degrees in an auto accident in Stockton. It also affects things like braking distance which are critical to cases like that of a hit-and-run incident.
Call An Experienced Attorney Who Employs Experts in Accident Reconstruction
With all that being true, people who have been injured in a truck accident should consider their legal options. When they do, they should look for a legal team that employs experts who can understand how to properly reconstruct what caused the collision in the first place.
Stockton Truck Accident Reconstruction and Personal Injury Attorney
I’m Ed Smith, a Stockton Truck Accident Attorney. If a loved one has suffered serious injuries or has passed away in a collision with a commercial truck, please give me a call at (209) 227-1931 for free and friendly advice. Or, call me free of toll at (800) 404-5400 for free and friendly advice.
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Member of the California section of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum. Trial attorneys in this association have garnered multiple million-dollar case settlements and verdicts.
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Since 1982 I have practiced in personal injury law exclusively.
Photo Attribution: Courtesy of PRA (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons