Charlie Chipman provided the program last Wednesday on Commercial Vehicle accident investigations. He is a Tivy graduate and now lives back here in Kerrville.
 
 
Charlie was formerly a police officer in the Austin Police Department, including time as a motorcycle patrolman. He has been investigating commercial vehicle collisions for many years, and has his own consulting firm. Current semi trucks have much more electronics, power equipment and safety controls that trucks used to have, but accidents still happen.
 
Several examples were presented to show how eye witness accounts of a crash are often not accurate at portraying the whole scenario of an accident. Witnesses may see only a portion of the incident, or their line of sight may be blocked by vehicles, so Charlie's job is to decipher all the clues at the scene and recreate what happened.
 
Many vehicles have a Crash Data Recorder that provides a record of a vehicle's speed and maneuvering during the crash. Police officers body cams can also be helpful in providing video of the scene immediately after the collision.
 
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