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Many fatal vehicle crashes are intentional acts to cover an act of suicide or murder. Some experts estimate that this total can be as large as 10% to 25% of all motor vehicle fatals. The stigma attached to suicide causes families to conceal the details, notes, threats, etc. to authorities. Today's society takes vehicle accidents as a matter of fact and injuries resulting from them. Consequently, a staged crash is not always examined in detail to determine the causal factors which include murder. This is particularly true of single vehicle crashes in which the driver, the only occupant, is dead. Police may assume that since the deceased brought about their own demise that no additional investigation is necessary. The unfortunate result of reporting these incidents as “accidents” results in inappropriate insurance payouts which affect rates and inflate the fatal statistics that are used to enact vehicle regulations. The latter can increase the manufacturering costs of vehicles.

This paper describes a method for vehicle collision reconstruction that was developed in West Germany. The method or algorithm has been simplified in it's use and application for persons without a sophisticated mathematical or physics background by adapting or programming the algorithm to run on a personal computer. The input data required, the variations and influence on results and the various stages of the computer output are explained and discussed. Applications of the program are given to demonstrate the practicality, using real world examples/crashes. In addition to this a car to car test (one of many used to validate the program) where all the crash parameters and results were known, is given to further demonstrate the proof of the reconstruction method. The primary difference between MacCAR© and CRASH3 is the abilty of MacCAR© to reconstruct impact speeds in glancing impacts. The program was first introduced at SAE in 19851 as EES-ARM (EES = Energy Equivalent Speed.

The Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) introduced in January 1968 has been widely used by the Medical Engineering Accident Investigation Teams of the NHTSA, by the General Motors ADAP, by the NATO Country Teams in Europe, and by the AMA Physician-Police Teams. The experience and problems involved in use of the AIS are reviewed. An extended and revised AIS has been developed. Validation studies revealed better than 80% accuracy by multiple users. The Comprehensive Research Injury Scale (CRIS) has been completed for all major medical specialties. The CRIS separates the various criteria (energy dissipation-ED, threat to life-TL, permanent impairment-PI, treatment period-TP, incidence-IN) used with variable quantities and frequencies in the AIS. The CRIS identifies and quantitates each scaling criteria permitting more meaningful and detailed application of the AIS.