People are imperfect, and when they’re called to be witnesses in a court of law, there’s no guarantee they’ll tell the whole truth or remember an event exactly as it happened.
Witnesses are often called to give testimony about what they remember seeing and hearing with regards to auto accidents. However, it should be noted that people in general are forgetful. In order to save face, they may say what they think people want to hear, whether or not it’s what actually happened. They’re trying to “save face.”
According to the Innocence Project, eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide. In other words, a person thought they saw so-and-so doing something, but, in reality, they got the facts wrong.
A person’s ability to perceive, store and then retrieve information is, as you’d imagine, a complex process, and it’s prone to inaccuracies. If you were to stage a mock car crash and have 15 different people see and hear it, and then ask each one to recount the event in words after the fact, you’d get 15 very different perspectives.
When there are court trials with witnesses, if the witnesses talk with one another and/or see news reports or postings online about the case, this can contaminate or skew their information in inaccurate ways.
Furthermore, there are too many variables when it comes to eyewitness accounts, including time, stress, environment, and bias.
4N6XPRT Systems offers accident reconstruction programs to help reliably evaluate and analyze auto accident information. Experts in law enforcement, insurance, and risk analysis can utilize crucial information regarding a vehicle accident investigation to help determine what happened.
Instead of relying on witnesses, get the data– the facts. Call 1-619-464-3478 or email 4n6@4n6xprt.com to learn more about 4N6XPRT Systems today.