in this day of globole warming why does it take the police 4/5hr to inspect a crash scene?

Question

when the police close a motorway hundreds of cars stand with engines running while they wait of have to find another way out, im this day of digital cameras and the like. i feel the police are making a meal out of old pratice

Answer 1

What in the world do the two have to do with each other?

It is not the fault of law enforcement that people sit on the freeway with their motors running. If I get stopped in a traffic jam, I turn my engine off to save gas.

Answer 2

I reconstruct accidents for a city in Connecticut (USA) and when you’re investigating a fatal motor vehicle accident you only get one chance to obtain all the correct information. Once the vehicles have been moved and the debris has been cleaned up if your measurements are not correct or you miss something you can’t go back to try to retrieve that information later. Digital cameras or video recorders are great for recording the overall accident scene but they don’t take measurements. This is still something that the officer has to do whether manually (measuring tapes) or with digital surveying equipment (very expensive and not provided by most police departments)
Being in a rush to get somewhere you’re forgetting the most important aspect of a serious or fatal motor vehicle accident and that is that you’re dealing with people’s lives. Whenever a collision occurs (there’s no such thing as an accident because when a collision occurs someone screwed up) and lives are lost or people are seriously injured they want answers and the answers need to be correct. It’s up to the investigator to prove who was at fault so immediately you are dealing with the criminal aspect of the accident and you can’t forget about the civil liability. You have to be able to interpret the evidence correctly or you’ll screw up at the entire case and then you not only have people suffering physically and mentally but also financially.
The couple of hours spent at the accident scene are just the beginning of a long tedious process. You have to inspect the vehicles, (and sometimes weigh them to complete the proper calculations) research to see if there were any problems or recalls with the vehicles. Do driver histories, interview witnesses and family, find out where the vehicles were coming from and where they were going. You have to attend the autopsy, deal with the press, draw the accident scene, interpreting the evidence before you can finally put it all together to create an accident investigation. If an arrest is eventually going to be made it will be necessary to work with the prosecutor’s office before you can type up a warrant. I have investigated accidents where I have easily put in another forty to eighty hours after the leaving the accident scene.
To get where I am I had over seven hundred hours of classroom and spent thousands of hours at accident scenes and I’m sure as hell not there to make a meal of it. I take every accident very seriously but if I never had to investigate another fatality it would be too soon. The thing is if it takes me an hour or three hours at the scene I know I have everything and the ultimate determination is that all of my work will be correct.
Let me give you one example of what I’m talking about. We had a pedestrian struck and killed by a motor vehicle in my city and unfortunately I wasn’t immediately available to go out on the call. A regular patrol officer who had limited knowledge and experience of accident reconstruction responded to the scene and saw what he believed to be a skid mark leading up to the point of impact. This mark was one hundred and eighty feet long so he arrested the elderly driver for vehicular manslaughter. The problem is the officer was wrong. What he was looking at was an acceleration mark on the pavement that was created by another vehicle within a day or so of the accident. He misinterpreted the evidence and wrongly charged the old man. What really happened was the pedestrian bolted out from behind some bushes into the roadway and was struck at 35 miles per hour (ten miles under the posted speed limit). Luckily I was able to prove it so that the charges were dropped against the old man.
Now let me ask you a question. If you or a friend or relative were involved in a serious accident would you want the accident investigated quickly or would you want the accident investigated right.
Your question kind of amazes me. People will *****, moan and complain when they think the police aren’t doing their job and then they will *****, moan and complain that when they are doing their job it takes too long.

Answer 3

Only a SERIOUS crash scene will have the road closed for that long. By serious I mean a fatality or a person suspected having a life threatening injury.

There are many factors involved in dealing with the scene, such as calling SOCO and AIB (Accident Investigation Department) out. The AIB officer(s) will scrutinise the scene and look for every piece of evidence to give a clear picture of what happened. Clearly if someone has died then a most thorough investigation is warranted to identify whether the death was due to dangerous driving.

The police are damned if they do (people complain because the road is closed) and damned if they don't (people complain that it wasn't investigated thoroughly enough).

What has global warming to do with investigating a crash scene?

Answer 4

I'm sure the family of the victim of the crash, who may well be killed by the collision, would disagree that the Police are wasting time too when they close the Motorway to investigate the incident thoroughly.

I really do despair sometimes when I read some of the 'questions' on this site.

Answer 5

The police take that long as they have to be thorough. The public would soon start shouting about lack of concern for the victims in the accident if the police skimped the job just to get traffic moving. I can see the headlines now 'police more interested in drivers in a hurry than cause of serious accident.' As for global warming, drivers just switch off their engines and thank god they are not the ones involved in the accident.

Answer 6

Because it's not always that easy.
You first have to determine injury, if there is any wait for the ambulance. Then you have to interview witnesses and get statements, but most of the time nobody wants to give a statement, so it's like pulling teeth. Then you have to try and determine what happened objectively regarding what the drivers said, passengers said, and witnesses said, because they all have a different story. Then you have to wait on the tow trucks to come get the road clear. By this time some jackass on his cell phone didn't notice all the blinky lights and the stopped traffic, so he rear-ends another car and the police have to start all over. One time I worked 4 wrecks in a row because of people not paying attention, and I have been almost hit by drivers dozens of time.

Answer 7

Crash report take a long time to fill out. Measurements have to be taken, witness have to give statements, sometimes victims need to be cut out of cars. I have worked at accident scenes both as a police officer and currently as a paramedic. Trust me the police do not like having to shut down roads any more than you like having to wait. But the 1st priority has to be the safety of those on scene and believe me alot of motorists are so busy trying to see what happened they don't pay attention to the rescuers/police which puts those working at the scene at risk. If the police shut down the road it is one less thing rescuers have to worry about and allows them to concentrate on the task at hand.

Answer 8

If the RTC involved injury or death we are obliged to obtain all evidence. Forensic examinations take time and its not just a case of taking a few digi pics of the scene. If the public sit with their engines running while the investigation is ongoing and that's their decision. Its not as if we tell them to keep their engines running.

Answer 9

It is a crime scene, everything needs to be recorded, sketched, logged, measured and described. That takes time.

Answer 10

Its the suv's fault they cause the wrecks on purpose they want global warming