The exact cause of an accident is often unknown and, therefore, conclusions relating to the safety afforded by the vehicle to the occupant cannot be made. In addition, safety hazards in the highway environment are often not discovered due to the lack of information. Because many assumptions are made in this process, the reconstruction is not exact, making it difficult to accurately predict occupant kinematics and to identify potential safety hazards within the vehicles. Vehicle recorders would eliminate much of the guesswork involved in reconstructing accidents, enabling a more accurate assessment of occupant injuries, driver performance, and safety hazards within and around a vehicle.
Much information concerning the accident vehicles is needed to reconstruct an accident accurately.
This information includes both driver inputs and vehicle outputs. Information is also necessary on driver restraint use and occupant seating location. Typically in highway accidents, the driver inputs and the vehicle outputs are derived from witness statements, or physical evidence such as the impact location, tire marks, and the final resting position of the vehicles. Unfortunately, witness statements are often in conflict, biased, and perhaps based on past experience, adding confusion to variables such as initial speed or speed at impact. Further, the accident typically occurs within 0.10 seconds, a speed at which witnesses cannot always accurately comprehend vehicle interactions.