Citation

Xiao N, Li SD, Zhang X, Yu YG, Zhang F, Zhao WD, Li DR. Med. Sci. Law 2019; 59(1): 4-8.

Affiliation

Traffic Accident Appraisal Technology Research Center of Guangdong Province, P.R. China.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, British Academy of Forensic Sciences, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0025802418810102

PMID

30419772

Abstract

Tyre imprints on the skin are usually considered to be the result of being run over by a motor vehicle. This article reports a traffic accident in which tyre marks on the victim's skin were caused by a collision rather than by being run over. The mechanism of the injury in this case is analysed and discussed. A 23-year-old male drove a motorcycle while under the influence of alcohol and collided with a sign pillar on the side of the road. Both the victim and the motorcycle careened into the bottom of a tractor-trailer. No witnesses or surveillance videos could confirm the process of the accident. Because tyre imprints were found on the victim's skin, traffic police believed that he had been run over during the accident. However, forensic autopsy and analysis of the accident process revealed that the true cause of the imprints was a collision between the victim's body and a tyre.

Language: en

Keywords

Forensic science; blunt force; collision; run over; three-dimensional laser scan; tyre imprints