Photographic Techniques for Accident Reconstruction

The accuracy of an accident reconstruction depends on the quality and quantity of the data available from which to make an evaluation. With the majority of ground transportation accidents, by the time a reconstruction is sought the only available data consists of the police report and photographs of the scene and involved vehicles. This paper addresses techniques developed for extracting the maximum information from the accident scene photographs. Principles of perspective drawing are explained and their relationship to photography is illustrated. Methodologies for perspective analysis of photographs to determine skid positions and lengths, vehicle positions of rest, etc. are explained with numerous actual photographic examples. A mathematical method of relating points on a photograph to a plan view drawing of the same scene is presented.