The resolved cases of the CSI on Spanish roads

Jaime Lazaro

Updated Wednesday, February 14, 2024-14:48

It was the night of May 8th. Kilometer 3,800 of the BA-051 provincial highway, the road that connects the Badajoz towns of Castuera and Puerto Hurraco. DIRAT agents arrive shortly before midnight. They had been notified of the tragedy a couple of hours ago. The minibus of the Monterrubio soccer team was preparing to overtake a backhoe. When they were practically at the same height, the machine made a change of direction to the left to take an exit. The huge shovel caught the front of the bus, causing it to spin and overturn on the shoulder. Five minors died and another thirteen people were injured.

The members of the Department of Investigation and Reconstruction of Traffic Accidents (DIRAT), some know them as the CSI of the roads, began to carry out their work as soon as they arrived

. No matter how hard it was.

The first thing was to visually inspect everything that appeared on the road, both the vehicles and the scene. They marked with numbered witnesses, of an intense yellow color, the traces of the beginnings and ends of the trajectories or the marks that allowed them to know the impact points.

Then would come hard work to tie up all the loose ends of the catastrophe.

The most complex cases

Juan Francisco Cocaña (Mérida, 1966), captain of this elite team of the Civil Guard, remembers that when they arrived at the scene of the accident "the judge was lifting the bodies. They performed alcohol and drug tests on the driver of the heavy machine "And there were a lot of people. A lot of curious people, who didn't have to be there. It was a pretty traumatic accident because of the result. It leaves a mark on you, to this day." The procedure they carried out in Castuera – it is now ten years since the catastrophe – was the same one that they apply with precision and meticulousness in all the cases they face. Although the DIRAT normally studies accidents after the fact, at the request of the judges or their colleagues from the armed institute, the National or Regional Police, on specific occasions, due to proximity or severity, they arrive as soon as the accident occurs. "

We recreated the bus, the movement and how it turned and how it overturned in the ditch. We created the sketch and the simulation

. Since then the working devices and computer programs we have have advanced a lot. Although there are things that continue to be done such as In many cases we cannot forget the tape measure, which we use together with lasers or the latest design software," says Cocaña. The driver of the excavator was sentenced to four years in prison for the crime of driving under the influence of drugs.

Each year, the Department, formally created as a unit in 2013 and based at the Traffic School of the Civil Guard of Mérida (Badajoz), prepares 12 to 15 annual reports on some of the most tragic and media accidents that occur in the Spanish roads. Accidents such as those that cost the lives of soccer player Jose Antonio Reyes and pilot Ángel Nieto, the fatal accident committed by Farruquito or the collision in which five workers died in Utrera (Seville) in 2019. The work of this body, made up of ten members – three officers, two non-commissioned officers, a corporal and four guards – has also served to clarify cases of mistreatment or cases of people who appear run over in ditches, in an apparently random manner, and turn out to be covert murder attempts.

"In Plasencia, Cáceres, a man was run over while he was taking a breather sitting at the door of his house. It didn't make sense to the police and they asked us to investigate it to see if the trajectory was possible. The driver, brother of the victim , claimed that the car had left involuntarily. We reconstructed the route on a school circuit with the same model of vehicle. It did not fit, we had to turn the wheel two and a half deliberately to hit the victim. It was shown that "It was an intentional attack due to family problems.

An attempted murder for which he was convicted

," says Captain Cocaña, with more than forty years of service in the force and since 2009 at the Emeritus academy.

Maths and physics

The preparation of each file usually takes an average of two months, the studies are very laborious, many factors intervene. Once they are assigned the case, they go to the scene, anywhere in Spain, even if the incident occurred years ago. The first thing they do is collect and analyze all the expert reports prepared by the Civil Guard itself or by the National or local Police. "The team that moves is usually composed, depending on the needs and disposition of the members, of an officer, a brigadier and a corporal or a guard," indicates agent David Vicho, a member of DIRAT for four years

. They last about three days, in which they request all the available information, do the visual inspection, analyze the cars, if they are available.

They then proceed to in situ reconstruction, which allows new complementary evidence to be collected. They cut off traffic at the same point on the road where the accident occurred to transfer the visual inspection that the agents carried out at the time and, as Cocaña explains, "they proceed to locate and mark the final positions, the footprints... Everything comes back to be placed in the exact same position, marking it with numbered witnesses. We compare the report and the photos that have been provided to us and everything is positioned. And then we move on to the braking tests with the vehicles involved. If it cannot circulate, we use a model that "

"

_ All Traffic agents who are dedicated to accidents take a university course on road reconstruction and accidents in collaboration with the Carlos III University, the Civil Guard University Center (Aranjuez) and the Mérida School.

Any member of the team, including computer engineers or physicists, can prepare each and every part of the report, although "there is always someone who has more experience than another in some aspect," says agent Francisco Fernández, who leads more than 20 years in DIRAT. There is always a colleague who goes deeper or has more experience in formulation issues or in vehicle control units, "we are intertwining our knowledge, within the established protocols.

One of our brigades is developing mathematical calculators to speed up the work. Once Once the data is processed, we can enter a parameter and the calculations are obtained

," adds Fernández.

Latest technology

Speed, time and space are the main variables with which this elite body works; and at the same time cross them with all the variables that, when doing the virtual reconstruction, influence the dynamics of the vehicle. In recent years, the emergence of numerous technical advances has facilitated the recovery of accidents. From the data obtained from the GPS system (Global Positioning System) or from the Event Data Recorder (EDR) system control units, which records the five seconds before and five seconds after an impact occurs: if the driver has acceleration, sudden braking or turning. For Cocaña it is "good news that will help a lot" that starting this year, all cars that go on sale must have this system.

For about four years they have implemented digital photogrammetry as one of their main working methods. Through the images, they generate a cloud of millions of points that "make it possible to reconstruct the scenario to the millimeter, from the deformation of the vehicles to the imperfections of the road. We analyze it with the latest updates of the VirtualCraf 5 simulation software dedicated to the collisions of passenger cars and HVE for accidents," points out agent Fernández. The reproduction of the incident is absolutely real and allows the event to be seen from various points of view, which is crucial to clarify what happened with millimeter precision.

For the DIRAT captain, used to investigating some of the most complicated events on Spanish roads, the section's work is not only to clarify these cases, they also want to raise awareness among drivers: "These tragic events are the consequence of having breached the duty of care, we are talking about recklessness. When someone kills another person in an accident, they are injuries or homicides due to recklessness. For this reason, the victims' associations, the prosecutor's office and the Civil Guard have been trying for years to have them called road accidents. , but never traffic accidents".