Fatal Accident Reconstruction Team

In certain local police departments in the United States, the Fatal Accident Reconstruction Team is a group of police officers dedicated to investigating motor vehicle accidents that result in death. These type of investigations can involve vehicle on vehicle, vehicle on fixed object or vehicle on pedestrian. The investigation of accidents with no survivors is of particular interest, because the detectives often have no eyewitnesses to give an account of the event. Thus they must rely on forensic evidence, such as tire skid marks, tire scuffmarks (yaw marks) or other tire marks to assist in determining what happened in the collision sequence. An accident with both survivors and fatalities is also of concern, because one cannot depend on the survivor(s) to accurately recount the accident. Their memory may not be perfect, and they may be lying to avoid charges such as vehicular homicide or Manslaughter by Auto. In general, the teams try to determine the exact sequence of events that led to the accident, much like criminal detectives attempt to reconstruct crimes.

These departments rarely refer to their team with an acronym, because the word fart is often considered vulgar or offensive.

See also

* Vehicular accident reconstruction
* Car accident

External links

Some police departments that officially use the term "Fatal Accident Reconstruction Team" are:
* [http://www.eastbrunswick.org/publicsafety/divisions_operations.asp East Brunswick, New Jersey]
* [http://www.gallatinpd.org/traffic.aspx Gallatin, Tennessee]
* [http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2007/04/24/news/local_news/1022936.txt Decatur, Illinois]