Tire mark striations are discussed often in the literature pertaining to accident reconstruction. The discussions in the literature contain many consistencies, but also contain disagreements. In this article, the literature is first summarized, and then the differences in the mechanism in which striations are deposited and interpretation of this evidence are explored.
In previous work, it was demonstrated that the specific characteristics of tire mark striations offer a glimpse into the steering and driving actions of the driver. An equation was developed that relates longitudinal tire slip (braking) to the angle of tire mark striations [1]. The longitudinal slip equation was derived from the classic equation for tire slip and also geometrically. In this study, the equation for longitudinal slip is re-derived from equations that model tire forces. Human Vehicle Environment (HVE), a common accident reconstruction and vehicle dynamics simulation software package, was then used to compare striation direction as predicted by the striation slip equation to tire force direction in the simulation.
This paper focuses on discussions about striations in the literature and the relationship between tire mark striations and tire forces. A companion paper, “Tire Mark Striations: Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analysis”, focuses on the practical use of striation evidence for accident reconstruction purposes [2].
