Accident Sketch website
I’ve already ‘tweeted’ this but I thought I’d just go over it in a little more detail.
The accident sketch website is something I came across this week, and a site that would have been a deal of help after my partner was witness to an accident and ‘drive off’ involving a parked car.
It’s not that difficult to draw a sketch but the drag and drop format of this tool makes it much easier to accurately position vehicles in a wide variety of situations.
If you’re familiar with any drawing or sketching package, you should have no trouble finding your way around this tool.
Firstly, you just drag onto the central part of the screen the nearest fit to where the accident happened. There are a comprehensive selection of types of road including roundabouts, bends, cross roads, junctions on bends, pedestrian crossings, dual carriageways, slip roads, single track roads and even parking lots. Tip – first maximise your browser to get the best use of the screen.
You can then add your own vehicle (motorcycles are included – a CB500 by the look of it!) and the other party’s. You can change colours of the vehicles and add registration numbers at this stage. The tool is also drag and drop, and once placed, you can move them around and also change the angle of the vehicle with respect to the road.
It’s possible to add other vehicles and pedestrians, as well as a selection of road signs, although it’s worth pointing out that they’re not UK-specific; the one-way street sign is labelled in German. The final tab gives you some simple drawing tools, including skid marks, although for some reason there’s no curved line available, which is slightly odd. Here you could mark up buildings or where someone was headed towards. Anything misplaced can be dragged to the bin or adjusted as necessary.
When you’ve got the sketch laid out to your satisfaction, you can label it, to highlight the various features.
Finally, hitting the print option produces a PDF file, which has the sketch map appended to a page with details of the two vehicles involved, and space for a written description, which can be filled in directly via the keyboard, rather than handwritten. Further options embedded in the PDF allow for printing or emailing.
Elsewhere on the site, you can find downloadable European Accident Statements, which can be printed off in two languages; for instance in English (for us to fill in) and in Polish or Swedish, for the other driver. These would be very useful when planning a trip abroad.
The site is still in beta at the moment with several of the links “under construction”, but hopefully it’ll stay free to use. Even as it stands part finished, it’s still a very useful resource.