NAPARS 25th Anniversary Conference

This week, the National Association of Professional Accident Reconstruction Specialists (NAPARS) held its annual Joint Conference in Ocean City, Maryland. 2009 marks the 25th anniversary of NAPARS, and this year's conference topics focused on heavy trucks and commercial vehicles. Speakers included Ron Baade, Dr. Bruno Schmidt, Wade Bartlett, Chuck Veppert, David Brown, and Bill Messerschmidt. The conference was attended by over 175 crash investigators and engineers, representing 26 US States and 3 Canadian Provinces.

Bill gave the closing presentation of the conference, discussing the current state and future direction of Heavy Vehicle EDR research.

The NAPARS Conference also provided MSC with an excellent venue to make two big announcements: On Friday, 9 October 2009, Messerschmidt Safety Consulting and the Crash Data Group released EDR Analytics, a software program developed by MSC to assist crash investigators with HVEDR data analysis. Other products marketed by the Crash Data Group include the Bosch CDR Tool System and Greg Russell's CSV Pro software, used for passenger car EDR analysis.

The conference also provided Bill Messerschmidt and Ron Baade an opportunity to announce the first ever general classroom training in Heavy Vehicle EDR data retrieval and analysis. Bill and Ron will teach the 40 hour class though the University of Tulsa's Continuing Engineering and Science Education program. The first class will be taught on 22 February 2010 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We'll post more information about the details, including links to register online, in the very near future.

PA State Police Collision Reconstruction Seminar

The 9^th annual PA State Police Collision Reconstruction Seminar was held at the Ramada Inn , State College, PA, Sept 29 - Oct 1, 2009 with over 200 Police Accident Reconstructionists from the US and Canada in attendance. This is a yearly, grant-funded conference for law enforcement officers to network with others and to explore new ideas and technology in collision reconstruction. Bill attended this conference as a police officer in 2003 and this year he was honored to be a speaker, giving a 2.5 hr presentation on Heavy Vehicle Event Data Recorders, “Using HVEDR Data in Accident Reconstruction.”