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By CHARLES RUNNELLS Staff Writer CHESTER - During high school, Joe Atherton hated math, hated geometry and certainly hated physics. "I thought math was the most boring thing in the world," he said recently. "I can remember my algebra teacher saying 'You'll never succeed in math.' ... And, boy, I'd like to meet him now." In the years after high school, Atherton turned about-face and decided math wasn't the root of all evil, in fact, it was his friend. Today, he uses the stuff to make his living. The founder of Chester's Accident Technology travels to 200-400 traffic accident scenes each year with partner Stan Hawkins, applying the basic laws of physics to what they find. They call themselves accident reconstructionists. "Math can unlock questions like you wouldn't believe," Atherton said. "There really are no mystery accidents, if you know what to look for." The duo handles cases in 20 states along the East Coast. Insurance companies, corporations and attorneys hire them to get to the bottom of fender benders that are either insurance scams or complex accidents with no clear cause. There's big money to be won (or lost) in these court cases, from $1,000 to $10 million. Accident Technology charges $1,000 to $2,500 per case, but some companies take low-cost cases to court anyway. "Sometimes it's only $1,000 or so, but the insurance company wants to make a statement," Atherton said. The company rarely gets to an accident while the vehicles are there. Instead, it's called in months to years after, when the cases have finally made their way into court. Examining the evidence can be an ugly affair. "It's pictures of three or four dead people on the road," Atherton said. "That's what we do. It can be pretty gruesome, but you get used to it." So what brought Atherton and Hawkins into such a business? Atherton was a Chesterfield police officer for four years before finding his calling in 1984. He had grown to love the math involved with recording traffic accident scenes. Hawkins, a former accountant, often handled bad checks that came through his parent's convenience store. In 1992, he became a private investigator to help catch check bouncers, and soon joined Atherton's side business, a PI firm. From there, Hawkins became an accident reconstructionist. Both men have taken college course work in their field. In addition, Atherton received certification from the international Accreditation Commission for Traffic Accident Reconstruction (ACTAR) about two years ago, and Hawkins is currently working toward his own certification. Reconstructionists aren't regulated by the government but ACTAR helps establish their credentials when they testify in court. The typical case is hard to identify, because each accident has its own personality. Some of the cases are easy, such as finding which car crossed into the wrong lane and caused an accident. "But we don't get the simple accidents," Atherton said. "We get the accidents where no- body knows why they happened or how they happened." For example, four cars are involved in a chain reaction in which a pedestrian was killed. Who caused the pedestrian's death? Or: Two pedestrians are coming down a mountain - reportedly on the wrong side of the road - and a motorist kills one of them. Could the driver have avoided the accident? "It's challenging," Hawkins said. "Every case is different, with it's own set of challenges." Working an accident scene begins by surveying for evidence, such as gouge marks in the pavement or skid marks. "Skid marks just sing," Atherton said. "If you know how to read skid marks, you can get some great music out of them." Atherton and Hawkins usually look first for evidence of speeding, a factor that often makes or breaks a lawsuit. "In most states, includ- ing Virginia, you give up your right of way if you're speeding," Atherton said. The accident scene is recorded on a Total Station, a high-tech ma- chine that uses a laser and computer to measure the road, the loca- tion of trees and fences, skid marks, gouges and other data. It works like this: One man holds a 5- foot measuring pole at one end of the skid mark (or other item to be measured), and the other man sights the computer's laser on the crystal atop the pole. The laser bounces off the crystal and returns to the computer, logging the spatial point in its memory. A computerized picture of the skid mark is created. Later, all the Total Station information is transferred to a portable computer, which uses the data to construct a two-dimensional pic- ture of the scene. "There's the road, right there in the computer," Atherton said. "It does all the work for you. ... It's so exact. There's no argument (in court) about whether you used the right tape measure." In addition, Hawkins and Atherton photograph the scene, take paint scrapings from the pavement, and go to salvage yards to physically measure the dents and scratches. Those marks can be plugged into the computer and matched to gouges and yaw marks in the pavement. Other data is plugged into the computer and analyzed, as well. The slipperiness of the road is determined using a machine. The amount of force required to crush the vehicles involved is found in a database kept by insurance companies and vehicle manufacturers. Also, one can tell if a vehicle's turn signal or brake lights were on by the condition of the light bulb filaments after impact. "You want to know everything there is to know about the vehicle," Atherton said. Atherton doesn't care who wins or loses these court cases, as long as the truth is told. "A lot of times, the people who hired me get angry because I didn't say what they wanted me to say," he said. "The data actually incriminates their man." But regardless of how the courts use the information, the initial moment of truth - when one realizes what really happened in an acci- dent - makes the accident reconstruction business worthwhile. "It really feels good when it all comes together," Atherton said. "It shows what math can really do ... I think if kids could see how math applies to the real world, they'd be more interested in it."

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