The CSI Syndrome.

As we all know (unless you've been living in a cave), all the CSI shows have been wildly successful for CBS. Unfortunately, the public tends to believe that the shows actually bear some resemblance to reality (when was the last time you saw Marg Helgenberger or Emily Procter in a Tyvek suit and booties, crawling around on hands and knees for hours looking for trace evidence? Ain't gonna happen).

So what does this have to do with crashes? Well, if there's serious injuries or fatalities, the SCPD's going to seal off the scene, and the collision investigation team's going to spend the next several hours doing their thing. But if you got a scraped fender coming out of Costco, you do not need to preserve the scene. Trust me, I can probably figure it out (and there's a good chance I've taken some version of this crash before).  If you and the other party give me wildly conflicting versions of what happened, and there's no independent witnesses*, well, it may just go in the books as "unable to determine party at fault". That's life.

*And no, your cousin who was in the passenger seat texting her friend is not an independent witness.

By way of example: 

It's a bitterly cold, wet evening in December, and I just came from a crash that took out a traffic signal and heavily damaged two vehicles. The Electric Dept.'s managed to patch things together until they can get a full crew out to get things working again, the vehicles have been towed, and I'm outta there.  

One of our Animal Control Officers just got flagged down for a crash a few blocks from the PD, so I get dispatched. When I arrive, there's a total of three vehicles with varying degrees of damage, around a major intersection, and traffic is backing up in all directions. Other SCPD officers are on scene, though, and we're getting everyone off the road and into parking lots, at least the cars that can move. Which leaves the car sitting at the light, blocking traffic into Small City's Old Town. 

The damage to this car, I found out, consisted of the following: they got clipped when two other cars collided...and lost a hubcap.  A. Hubcap. 

"Is your car drivable?"

"As far as I know."

"And you've been sitting here all this time why?"

"Well, we had to preserve the scene until you got here." 

"No you don't. Move the car into that parking lot."

"Are you sure?"

AAAARRGGGGGHHH. "Yes. I'm sure." 

So please, watch CSI, in all its forms (I don't have TV right now, so I have no idea what the latest iteration might be. CSI: Boise maybe?). It's entertaining, I admit. Just don't get to thinking it's how things work in the real world.