WHO WAS THE DRİVER?

Yavuz MS, Birgen N, Cetin G.

3rd European Academy of Forensic Science Meeting, 2003, Istanbul-Turkey, Book of Congress; pp: 23.

ABSTRACT

One of the most frequent questions that are asked to the Third Specialization Board of the Council of Forensic Medicine by the attorneys is "Who was the driver?”.  After a traffic accident occurs, in order to get payment from the insurance agencies, occupants who were involved in the accident try to change the name of the driver if the driver was drunk. According to our laws, a person who has consumed alcohol before the accident can not be paid by the agencies; the driver’s blood alcohol concentration must be 0 promil. Also, if one of the occupants inside the car has died during the accident, the other occupants say that the dead victim was the driver in order to get rid off the responsibility of the crime. While determining the driver, common injuries that are detected on the driver are researched. The direction of impact in motor vehicle crashes is strongly associated with the pattern and severity of organ injuries. Blood specimens obtained from the car are also important to determine the driver.

In this study, three examples of traffic accident cases, which were sent to the Third Specialization Board of the Council of Forensic Medicine by the attorneys in order the driver to be determined by examining the medical reports written by the hospitals just after the accident, are given. In two of the cases, the vehicles crashed head on. The pictures of the cars and the lesions of the occupants were used to determine the drivers in these cases. The accused people were drunk so they refused to be the driver. In one case, one of the occupants died during the accident. In the other case, the driver of the hit car was dead. Occupants blamed each other as being the driver. Blood examples were collected from the windshield, sun visor region, the dashboard and it was determined that these examples belong to the same person. We asked the attorney to get sample of blood from the living occupant for cross examination. All these evidences were used to determine the drivers.

Keywords: Traffic accident, Forensic, Driver.