In a motor vehicle accident reconstruction trial, is an expert allowed to testify that a motorcycle was not turning at the time of impact?

In Box v. California Date Growers Assn. (1976) 57 Cal.App.3d 266, the court approved the admission of testimony by an accident reconstruction expert on the question whether a motorcycle was traveling straight ahead or turning at the time of impact. The expert was allowed to testify over objection regarding "the course the motorcycle traversed after impact" to prove the direction and speed at which it was traveling at the time of the accident, in order to challenge the defendant's evidence as to how the accident occurred. (Id. at p. 275.) The court found no error in admitting the testimony as relevant to the issue of what caused the accident and "'sufficiently beyond common experience that the opinion . . . would assist the trier of fact. [Citations.]' [Citation.]" (Id. at p. 274.) The court rejected arguments challenging the foundation of the expert's testimony, finding such objections went to the weight and not the admissibility of the evidence. The court explained, "[t]he object of accident reconstruction is to reach satisfactorynot infallibleconclusions as to the operational factors and dynamic situation contributing to the collision. It is as impossible to reconstruct an accident with absolute accuracy as for a witness to relate precisely what occurred. Nevertheless, expert reconstruction often is more accurate than statements of witnesses." (Ibid.)

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