How to Draw a Diagram of An Accident

How to Prep to Create an Accident Reconstruction Diagram

Before you draw anything you will want to:

1. Pick your target audience. Decide if this is for internal analysis, an insurance report, or a courtroom presentation, so you can decide on the level of detail to include in your diagram.
2. Collect source material. Get the police reports, 911 logs, crash reports, witness statements, photos, and CCTV footage if available.
3. Measure the scene. Make sure you know the width of lanes and location of medians, signs, and other relevant details.
4. Make note of the environment. Write down relevant information like weather, time of day, visibility, occlusions, speed limits, and more.

Start with an Accident Reconstruction Template

Once you have all the relevant information, you're ready to draw.

To draw an accident reconstruction diagram in SmartDraw, start with the Accident Reconstruction Diagram Template located in the Police & Fire category under New Document on the dashboard.

This template has all the relevant settings, tools, and symbols to help you sketch out an accident.

Import a Google Satellite Image

To best communicate the details of an area to investigators and the court, you may want to import a satellite image of the area from Google Maps. Let's walk through importing existing files into SmartDraw as a background image and setting the right scale to match your drawing.

You can import an image (JPG, PNG, GIF) into SmartDraw to serve as a standalone image or a background layer. To import your image, click the Insert command on the Home tab and choose Picture. You can also select PDF if that's the file format you have. The rest of the steps will work the same fr both options.

Simply, check the Import as a Background Image box.

This means that instead of being added to the existing layer, your image will live on its own specialized layer type. You can click and resize the image you imported, but you won't be able to add other objects or shapes to this background layer. This allows you to keep your image separate from the rest of your document.

Match the Scale of Your Imported Image

To help you scale the imported image, we'll want to match a guide line drawn in SmartDraw with an object with known dimensions from the imported file. So before we can resize the image, pick an object that you know the dimensions of to use as a reference. This might be a map scale line or the known width of the road or sidewalk.

Once you picked your reference object on the imported visual, draw a line in SmartDraw that matches the length of that specific segment.

Next, resize the imported image using its handles so that the feature in that image lines up exactly with your guide line. In other words, stretch or shrink the image until the known-length object in the image matches your drawn reference line. Once they align, the image is properly scaled to your drawing.

Adding Roads and Scene Components

The first step will be establishing the environment and details of the accident you're trying to document. Try to reconstruct your scene using roads. You can drag and drop roads from the Roadway Templates and the Roads & Intersections libraries to the left of your drawing area.

SmartDraw has symbols for standard straight and curved roads, as well as highway intersections, overpasses, turning lanes, four-way intersections, and more.

Resize Roads

To recreate the correct length of a road, you can resize it by simply stretching the symbol you just added to the drawing area. Grab the square growth handle located at the top and bottom of the symbol and drag your mouse to stretch your road. You can also stamp multiple roadway symbols together to create a longer stretch of road.

Think of these road symbols like building blocks you can string together to create your scene.

Add the Correct Road Markings

Make sure your roads have the correct road markings on them that match the accident. You can drag and drop them from the Road Markings library. Choose from solid yellow, double yellow, solid white, double white, dashed, curved or straight.

Once added to the page, you can stretch the line using the control handle at either end.

For curved lines, there's an additional handle in the middle which will help you adjust the depth of the curve.

Add Traffic Lights, Signs, and Medians

Add stop signs, traffic lights, traffic signs, and medians from the libraries docked to the left of your drawing area. Just drag and drop.

Create Custom Road Signs

You can create any custom highway sign you need using a library of numbers created in the standard Gothic Highway font. Quickly create labels for roads, routes, junctions, speed limits, mile markers, and more.

First, click on More in the SmartPanel to the left of your drawing area. This will open a Symbol Libraries modal. Navigate to the Roads & Freeways category and click on the Signs subcategory.

Add the libraries you want using the Add Library button.

Your selected libraries will be docked to the left of your drawing area.

Now you can drag and drop the numbers and signs you need to create a custom sign.

Add Vehicles

SmartDraw has symbols for common cars as well as symbols for emergency and service vehicles, taxis, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and more. You can easily add them to your diagram by selecting a vehicle and dragging and dropping it to the page.

Colorize Vehicles

Vehicles are easy to color. Just select the vehicle you want to colorize and choose a new color from the Fill menu on the Home tab.

Using consistent colors and labels for each vehicle involved in an accident will help courtroom readability.

Add a Label to a Vehicle

You can easily add a label to any vehicle in your accident reconstruction diagram. Simply, select the vehicle you want to label and type. It's that easy. The text will be attached to your symbol and move when you move the symbol in your diagram.

Add Debris and Tire Marks

You can find symbols for damaged cars, tires, hubcaps, bumpers and more in the Damaged Cars library. Just drag and drop the relevant symbols to your drawing.

You can find tire marks in the Tire Marks library. Simply search for "tire mark" in the Symbol section of the SmartPanel and drag and drop the appropriate tire style.

Find Symbols

To search for additional symbols, just type any words in the Search for symbols box. The search results will be grouped by the libraries they were found in.

You can drag and drop symbols directly from the search results into your workspace.

Click on the plus sign next to any group of results and you can either choose Add result or Add library for future use. Add result only adds the symbols that matched your query. Add library will add the entire library the symbols were found in.

Add Photos of Evidence

You might want to place small photo thumbnails of the accident scene in your diagram to help illustrate key details. on the Home tab, click Insert and select Picture to import relevant photos.

Once imported, you can resize and move the photos like any other symbol.

Resize Symbols

Once a symbol is added to your page, you can resize it and rotate it as necessary.

To resize a symbol, first select it. You'll see squares appear around the selected symbol. Grab any of these squares, known as grow handles, and drag them to resize your symbol.

For more precise resizing, type in the exact dimensions of the car where you see the width and height dimensions around the selected object.

If you don't see the dimensions, go to the Design tab and click Dimensions.

Select either Only When Selected or Always to display dimensions.

Once dimensions are visible, you can type the desired dimension using your keyboard. Press Enter or click elsewhere in your workspace to save the typed dimension.

You can also do the same at the Height and Width numbers displayed at the bottom of the page. Just double-click to edit the values.

Rotating Symbols

To rotate a symbol using your mouse, you can grab the circular rotation handle located to the upper left of your symbol and drag your cursor to rotate your symbol to the desired degree. You'll see a preview of the precise angle of rotation appear below your object.

You can also rotate an object using the Rotate command on the Home tab. Select your symbol, click Rotate, and choose your desired degree of rotation. There are some common angles you can choose from or you can select Custom to manually enter a degree of rotation.

Annotate Your Accident Diagram

You can use an annotation layer to include details for the accident like the exact date, location, and other key information.

Simply click the Add Annotation Layer button in the SmartPanel to the left of your drawing area and fill it with the relevant information.

Review & Share

You can collaborate on your accident reconstruction diagram with your team, legal representatives, insurance agents, and more. SmartDraw makes it easy to share your document using the Share command in the upper right corner of your work area.

You can edit your diagram in real-time or have others leave feedback and notes.

When you're finished with your accident reconstruction drawing, you can use Export under the Home tab to help you add it to Microsoft Office or create a PDF or an image for printing.