ST. GEORGE, Utah — A member of the St. George Police Department recently became one of just under 250 police officers in the nation to get the highest certification for traffic collision reconstruction.
Officer Dave McDaniel is to car crashes what the CSI guys are to crime scenes.
"We're looking for the evidence on the roadway. We're looking for tire marks, skin marks, clothing marks. We're looking for the damage to the vehicles," says Officer Dave McDaniel, a police accident reconstructionist for the St. George Police Department.
McDaniel recently became one of just under 250 police officers in the nation to get the highest certification for traffic collision reconstruction, after a daylong exam he compares to a lawyer's bar exam.
"It was actually incredibly stressful. So I would put it up there with probably the most stressful mental thing I've ever had to do was going through that," McDaniel said.
While he has a badge, McDaniel also says he is a man of science, dating back to his physics-loving days in high school.
"Physics was my favorite class in high school, but I got kind of lucky because my physics teacher was a former Saturn V rocket engineer," he said.
McDaniel's skills are something the entire St. George Police force brags about.
"The amount of work that he puts in and does, our officers love him. He saved them so much time because of his knowledge and stuff that he makes a positive impact on everybody," said Sgt. Jeremy Needles.
Officers say a forensics expert like McDaniel can make crashes more preventable with the knowledge that comes with each investigation. But it's also a race against the clock.
"Tire marks degrade very rapidly... It's not the first 48, it's the first 25 minutes," McDaniel said.
The quicker a crash can be cleared, the sooner traffic can return to normal. And crash cops are getting good at that.
"On scene, it's actually probably pretty boring. You just watch us walking around. We take our laser scanner, we take our GPS, we're taking photos. It doesn't look like we're doing that much ... but it is a good thing to have for helping in court," McDaniel said.
