NORTH CAROLINA:Motorcycle Test Crash Helps Officers Prepare For Real Situations

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http://www2.wspa.com/news/2010/oct/06/motorcycle-test-crash-helps-students-prepare-real--ar-927037/ Motorcycle Test Crash Helps Officers Prepare For Real Situations

SC Criminal Justice Academy conducts a motorcycle crash test to train officers on how to handle a real accident. By Christine Scarpelli Published: October 06, 2010

The South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy simulated a real accident on Wednesday by crashing a motorcycle with a test dummy on it, into a car and allowing students to study the result.

Students in the Accident Reconstruction class at the academy used the accident to practice what they might be looking at in a real life situation. The course expands on the knowledge and skills learned in the Technical Collision Course through the use of projects, case studies and live testing.

“Were doing the live crash testing so the officers can understand the dynamics of a motorcycle collision and how the occupant can react when he’s involved in a collision,” said Dale Smith, Traffic Safety Program Manager at the SC Criminal Justice Academy.

Police officers from across the state take this course including city, county and highway patrol officers.

Students learned how to calculate collision speeds, write a reconstruction report and prepare a court testimony. Law enforcement officers will also learn in depth methods to calculate speeds of vehicles involved in collisions using airborne, linear momentum, kinetic energy, and time and distance equations.

“This helps the officers because what they earn in class is all practice problems and word problems; this is a real life scenario where you have an actual motorcycle hitting a vehicle,” said Smith.

The class is being taught by members of the SC Criminal Justice Academy Traffic Safety Unit. The first Collision Reconstruction Course was held in February 2008

The Honda CBR 600 motorcycle was held up with a support which let the bike and a 150 pound test dummy attached move freely upon impact.

Students observed the motorcycle on impact and calculated the distance the vehicle moved when the motorcycle hit it. The dummy went directly through the rear passenger side window instead of over the vehicle as Smith had hoped.

“We can verify that what we teach the students, the math and the physics, really does work and were helping them for when they go to court to say yes this works I’ve done this in a real life environment.

Students were also asked to find out how fast the motorcycle was going on impact.

The motorcycle collision was chosen because of statistics found in 2007 where the number of motorcycles registered in South Carolina grew from 88,021 to 92,642. That year the SC Department of Public Safety reported 2,128 motorcycle collisions with 122 resulting in fatalities and 1,772 injuries.

“ We feel the benefits to utilizing this component of training allows the students to see the physics at work in a collision, and to also have a practical, real world application of the previous training courses in a controlled environment.” said SC Criminal Justice Academy Director Hubert Harrell.

With the number of motorcycles on the road increasing yearly, the academy felt that this training is necessary to prepare their students for what they will see everyday.

“Sixty-five percent of all motorcycle collisions involve another vehicle just like this fail to yield right of way pulling out in front of a motorcycle, so this is a typical situation that the average officer will run across in the field.” said Smith.

The SC Criminal Justice Academy is the only training agency that utilizes live crash testing in Collision Reconstruction Training in the state.