Chapter 11 Traffic Crash Investigation Flashcards
The phase of brake application beginning with pedal depression and ending with any resulting change in wheel rotational velocity.
Mechanical Delay
When two objects begin to enter the same space at the same time.
Encroachment
Damage to a vehicle other than contact damage, often occurring as bending, breaking, crumpling, and distortion of the vehicle.
Induced damage
The pattern left by a vehicle with anti-lock brakes that results from hard braking.
ABS scuff marks
The loose material that is strewn about the area as the result of a traffic collision.
Debris
The first damage-producing event in a traffic crash. It determines the exact time, location, and type of crash.
First Harmful Event
A series of skid marks with long gaps (30 feet or more) between heavy skid marks.
Intermittent skid marks
A hand-drawn picture of the crash scene as an officer perceives it upon arrival.
Sketch
Any action the driver takes that alters the seed or direction of the vehicle, such as applying the brakes or turning the steering wheel.
Start of evasive action
The point at which the vehicle or other objects in a traffic crash are crushed together to the greatest extent.
Maximum engagement
The point in time when the crash is inevitable, no matter what evasive actions the drivers may attempt.
Point of no escape
The one element or action which describes the primary cause of a crash.
Primary collision factor
Law enforcement’s responsibility to control and normalize a traffic crash scene.
Crash Management
A portion of the skid mark that represents the most efficient braking of the wheel.
Incipient skid mark
A series of skid marks usually short in length with irregular intervals between them.
Skip skid marks
A measure of the friction generated between a vehicle tire and the road surface.
Drag factor
The length of time from when a person perceives a given situation as a hazard to when he or she reacts to his or her perception.
Reaction Time
Any damage to a vehicle that was present before the crash.
Pew existing damage
The earliest possible time the driver could have become aware of a potential danger or hazard.
Point of possible perception
Occurs when a metal vehicle pert cuts into and removes the road surface.
Gouge
A violation that has nothing to do with traffic or the traffic crash.
Non traffic violation
A collision involving one or more vehicles, which cause personal injury, property damage, or death, and which is the result of an unintentional act.
Traffic crash
The mark left by a tire that rolls over a soft material, such as sand, dirt, or a liquid, such as oil that is distributed over a hard surface, leaving, an identifiable pattern matching the tread of the tire.
Tire print
A Latin term meaning the “body of the offense” describing the legal principle that claims it must be proven that a crime has occurred before a person can be convicted of committing that crime.
Corpus depiction
The location of the first harmful event, or the first damage-producing event in a traffic crash.
Area of collision
Anything directed through one of the five senses that makes the driver aware of a potential danger or hazard.
Point of perception
A set of forms provided by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles that combined previous separate Long, Short, and Update traffic crash report forms into one comprehensive form and used to record pertinent information, narrative, and diagram regarding traffic crash incident.
Florida Traffic Crash Report
A fluid trail or pool of fluids escaping from a vehicle as a result of impact.
Runoff
A broad area of a hard surface covered with many scratches, striations, or streak marks made without great pressure by a sliding metal part.
Scrape
A mark caused by the tires of a vehicle that negotiates a curve too fast and slides off the curve.
Scuff yaw mark
A portion of the skid mark that represents the most efficient braking of the wheel.
Impending skid mark
The strip of dry pavement left after a vehicle skids on a wet roadway.
Squeegee mark
The legal right of a driver to answer questions about a traffic crash and to give full information required to complete a crash investigation without fear of self-incrimination.
Crash privilege
A black mark left by a tire that slides and cannot rotate.
Skid mark
Dark marks, resulting from rapid acceleration, that gradually fade.
Acceleration scuff marks
A skid mark indicating an abrupt change of direction of a tire due to collision forces.
Offset mark
The direct cause or contribution to a crash.
Contributing traffic crash
A traffic violation that has no bearing on the cause of the crash.
Non contributing traffic violation
The point at which the vehicles in a traffic crash separates, either naturally or artificially.
Disengagement
Any damage to a vehicle resulting from the direct pressure of any object in a collision or rollover.
Contact damage
The marks a vehicle can leave on roadways.
Surface marks
The movement of the vehicle during and after collision.
Vehicle dynamics
The point when all activity from the traffic crash comes to a halt.
Final rest
Begins at the end of mechanical delay and ends when the total four-wheel lockup or skid begins.
Spin down
A trench dug by locked tires when a car is driven on a soft surface such as gravel, sand, and dirt.
Furrow mark
