Opinion ID: 1870908
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Did the court err by allowing testimony of two witnesses alleged to have reconstructed the accident?

Text: The testimony of two witnesses, Highway Patrol Officer Carlton Hays and Civil Engineer Marcus Dean Williams, is here challenged. Officer Hays, who arrived on the scene some thirty-four minutes after the collision, testified as to skid marks present after the accident and to the probable routes of travel of the vehicles. The skid marks indicated that Edwards's vehicle was on the wrong side of the road at the time of the accident. The court sustained Edwards's objection to testimony as to the point of impact although that phrase was used subsequently as a general point of reference in Hays's testimony: The physical evidence we noted; there is a set of tire tracks leading from the approximate point of impact or a general location of the accident... . [T]he tracks led into the edge of the roadway, and the ditch; came back out into the road, oh, about 375 or 380 feet from where the accident occurred ... and came back into the road angling across the road at about 250 or 60 feet from the point of impact. Williams, a physical and civil engineer, testified to the general condition of the roadway where the accident occurred and to the dimensions of the vehicles involved in the accident. At Edwards's objection, Williams was precluded from pinpointing the position of the vehicles involved in the accident. There is no question but that a witness may testify to the physical facts found at the scene. Lynch v. Suthoff, 220 So.2d 593, 596 (Miss. 1969). In the instant case, there was no actual reconstruction of the accident. The witnesses were limited to their observations of physical circumstances attendant to the collision; hence, this assignment of error is without merit.