John B. Kwasnoski is Professor Emeritus of Forensic Physics at Western New England University, Springfield, MA after thirty-one years on the faculty. He is a certified police trainer in more than twenty states, and has instructed prosecutors, police, and civil attorneys on more than 330 occasions across the U.S. He is the crash reconstructionist on the “Lethal Weapon – DWI Homicide” team formed by the National Traffic Law Center to teach prosecutors how to utilize expert witness testimony and cross examine adverse expert witnesses.
Prof. Kwasnoski has reconstructed more than 1,300 crashes since 1985, including multiple and single vehicle, pedestrian, motorcycle, and train crashes, and has given sworn testimony on more than 200 occasions; he has trained with the NYPD collision reconstruction unit since 2001, and continues to serve as a consultant to prosecutors nationwide on MV homicide cases. He has worked for more than twenty major insurers as a consultant/expert witness, and has conducted training for the claims adjusters and special investigators of a number of insurance companies.
He has served as an expert in several cases of national significance including S. Carolina v. Susan Smith (a mother’s drowning murder of her two children) in which he participated in the re-enactment of the drowning in a submerged automobile and the creation of a video used in the sentencing phase of the trial. He was the reconstructionist for the plaintiff in the case of Ulm v. Ford Motor Co. in which a Vermont jury awarded the plaintiff more than one million dollars.
Prof. Kwasnoski has authored The Handbook of Collision Reconstruction, Kwasnoski’s Little Red Book, and Crash Reconstruction Basics for Prosecutors, and has co-authored three best-selling books for Lexis Law Publishing : Investigation and Prosecution of DWI and Vehicular Homicide, Courtroom Survival, and The Officer’s DUI Manual. Prof. Kwasnoski has published more than 80 journal and newsletter articles on collision reconstruction, and maintains an active national speaking schedule; find out more at www.legalsciences.com.
Pedestrian crashes are perhaps the most difficult to investigate and reconstruct, because of the scarcity and nature of the evidence. Identifying the area of impact, investigating the pedestrian’s movement prior to impact, and the analysis and estimation of vehicle speed are discussed. The use of human factors analysis in the reconstruction of the crash is discussed, with emphasis on the statistical nature of human factors evidence. Also, the misuse of reconstruction methodologies such as pedestrian throw and head strike location are discussed to clarify their limitations. Finally, the nature of digital evidence from the vehicle EDR (“black box”) is presented along with general comments about the technology.