News and Updates

Membership Renewal Time

As of December 31, 2007, all memberships expired and are in need of renewal for the 2008 calendar year. Membership dues are unchanged from last year at $50.00 and include a subscription to the Accident Investigation Quarterly and reduced rates to MdATAI events and subscription to the Accident Reconstruction Journal. All members current during 2007 should have received a renewal notice and information update form. Dues payment may be made by check, money order, purchase order or online via PayPal from the website. We highly recommend submitting the information update page or letting us know of any changes in contact information. Late renewal or incorrect contact information will affect delivery of the Accident Investigation Quarterly and other correspondences from MdATAI.

2007 Conference

This year's annual combined conference was held in October and hosted by NYSTARS. The conference topic was eccentric collisions, but also included presentations on collisions at signalized intersections, occupant kinematics in rotational crashes, injury analysis and an update on the CDR (Crash Data Retrieval) System. Crash tests were conducted by Rusty Haight and the CSI staff using fully instrumented vehicles. New for this year was the introduction of the "robocar", a fully remotely controlled vehicle, and try high-speed video. Robocar made a spectacular high-speed impact into a fixed, jersey-type barrier.

Other crash tests included repeated, low-speed barrier impacts at increasing speeds until airbag deployment occurred. Vehicle to vehicle impacts, using robocar versus the human crash test dummy, demonstrated post-impact rotation. The vehicle to vehicle tests confirmed the successful application of momentum to calculated vehicle speeds and also demonstrated how secondary contact can add post-impact speed to the "bullet" without compromising a momentum solution.

Next year's combined conference will be hosted by NJAARS with the most likely venue being Atlantic City, NJ. MdATAI's turn at hosting the conference is 2010, so it's not too early to formulate some thoughts.

Training

MdATAI is currently seeking suggestions for possible training classes to be hosted/sponsored by the organization. Members can voice their input through the members-only forum section of the website. The input of non-members who would like to see something presented in the region is welcome to send their ideas to MdATAI via email.