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Over 25 police officers gathered in Roanoke County last Tuesday and watched a donated Kia Sorrento crash into a pedestrian dummy. The dummy was thrown 64 feet; the Kia left 66 feet of skid marks on the pavement.
The staged accident was part of a unique training partnership between law enforcement departments in Central and Southwest Virginia called the Blue Ridge Regional Crash Team. The program allows officers to receive state-of-the-art accident reconstruction training in exchange for the various participating departments' expertise and specialized equipment.
This gives any participating department the ability to draw expert advice from other departments to uncover the causes and circumstances of complicated accidents.
"You don't need a person in each department who knows it all," said Roanoke County police patrol division Chief Sgt. Tim Wyatt. "When you have a team like this, you can have 10 people who know a lot."
Officers, who are generally willing to help colleagues in nearby departments, welcome the Blue Ridge Regional Crash Team as a formal organization and network. The team makes their collaboration more efficient, gives all participants more expertise and better equipment, and produces studies that are valuable to all.
Read More About Teamwork Leads to More Efficient Crash Investigation in Virginia...
