Public warnings about mobile phones as driving distractions are well-founded. Yet the same modern smartphones—when used after a collision—can become powerful evidentiary tools. Through Arrive Alive, the focus has long been not only on reporting crashes, but on improving the quality of information that ultimately determines accountability, liability, and justice.

To that end, forensic collision reconstruction specialist Stan Bezuidenhout was asked a deceptively simple question: If you could only take a limited number of photographs at a crash scene, which ones actually matter?

The answer matters in South African courts under the National Road Traffic Act and Criminal Procedure Act, just as it does in U.S. litigation governed by rules of evidence, discovery obligations, and spoliation doctrines. In both jurisdictions, photographs often become the primary factual record once the scene is gone.

 

Photographing Evidence, Not Drama

A critical distinction must be made at the outset: photographing a crash is not the same as photographing evidence.

Untrained bystanders—and sometimes even trained responders—tend to focus on shock value: crushed metal, blood, injured bodies. These images may be emotionally powerful, but they are frequently forensically useless. Investigators, attorneys, and courts are concerned with relevance, relationships, geometry, visibility, and mechanics.

The objective of collision photography is simple but demanding: to bring the scene into the courtroom. Judges, magistrates, juries, arbitrators, and experts were not present. They rely entirely on what was preserved. In many cases—civil and criminal alike—liability can turn on a single photograph.

A guiding principle applies universally:
It is better to have photographs you do not ultimately need than to need photographs you do not have.

What follows is a structured guide based on the concept of 36 critical photographs—originally reflecting the capacity of a 35mm film roll, but still a useful discipline even in the digital age.

 

Up to 4 Photographs: Set the Scene

Before focusing on vehicles, establish context.

  • Take wide-angle photographs from at least four positions.
  • Include all vehicles, roadway features, and fixed reference points such as poles, barriers, signs, buildings, or trees.
  • Show relationships: vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-road, vehicle-to-environment.

 

These images allow the scene to be reconstructed spatially. In U.S. litigation, they often become foundational exhibits for experts under evidentiary rules requiring demonstrative reliability.

 

Up to 4 Photographs: Cover the Approaches and Angles

If the crash occurred at or near an intersection—or any area of potential conflict—document:

  • The directions from which vehicles approached
  • What each driver could or should have seen
  • The visibility, placement, and condition of traffic control devices (stop signs, yield signs, signals, road markings)

 

Visibility and signage frequently underpin negligence findings, both in South African prosecutions and U.S. civil claims alleging failure to yield, failure to obey traffic control devices, or inadequate road design.

 

Up to 15 Photographs: Vehicle Damage (Systematically)

Damage photographs must be methodical, not selective.

  • Photograph each vehicle from all four corners so that two sides are visible per image.
  • Where possible, also photograph each side square-on.
  • Include undamaged areas as deliberately as damaged ones.
  • Ensure number plates are clearly visible.

 

The location, direction, and nature of damage matter more than how “bad” it looks. Cosmetic destruction can be misleading; structural deformation tells the real story. These photographs are routinely used by reconstruction experts to assess impact angles, energy transfer, and collision sequencing.

Up to 4 Photographs: Road Marks and Debris

Document all physical traces on the roadway:

  • Skid marks
  • Yaw marks (side-slip)
  • Scuff marks
  • Gouges in the road surface
  • Debris fields

 

Photograph marks from their origin toward the vehicle, ideally with the vehicle visible in the same frame. This connects driver input to vehicle response—critical in determining avoidability, reaction, and speed.

Again: evidence, not sensation.

 

Up to 4 Photographs: Positions of Injured Persons or Bodies

This is sensitive, but important.

  • Photograph final resting positions only if lawful and appropriate
  • Do not show faces or identifiable features
  • Include reference points (vehicles, poles, road edges)

 

Even after removal, photograph blood pools or medical debris that indicate where a victim was found or treated. In both South African and U.S. cases, pedestrian impact analysis and occupant ejection analysis often depend on these relationships.

 

Up to 4 Photographs: Safety Systems and Interiors

These images often become decisive in court:

  • Airbags (deployed or not, presence of blood)
  • Seatbelts (cut, locked, extended, retracted)
  • Seating positions
  • Steering wheel deformation
  • Windscreens (head impact indicators)

 

In both jurisdictions, seatbelt usage and airbag deployment can affect criminal culpability, civil liability, damages, and even insurance outcomes.

 

Remaining Capacity: Critical Details

If you have additional capacity, document:

  • Licence discs / registration stickers
  • Tyres and wheels (flat, damaged, smooth, mismatched)
  • Broken lights
  • Damage to road furniture (barriers, poles, walls)
  • Vehicle interiors showing driver absence (possible hit-and-run)

 

Each of these can later anchor timelines, ownership, mechanical condition, or driver behavior.

 

Legal and Ethical Cautions

Photographs of crash scenes carry legal risk.

  • Do not distribute images publicly or on social media.
  • Privacy, dignity, and the rights of victims—especially minors—must be respected.
  • In both South Africa and the U.S., improper dissemination can result in civil liability.
  • Only photograph if your intent is to assist, preserve evidence, and if you are willing to account for your actions under oath if required.

 

Consider the real consequences: a family receiving graphic images of a loved one before formal notification is not only unethical—it may be actionable.

 

Final Observation

This guide is not a statutory protocol or official investigative standard. It is a practical evidentiary framework informed by decades of forensic casework.

Used correctly, these photographs can:

  • Exonerate the innocent
  • Prevent wrongful convictions
  • Support defensible expert opinions
  • Preserve truth long after the scene is gone

Used carelessly—or not taken at all—they can allow critical facts to vanish forever.

Road safety is not only about prevention. It is also about preserving truth when prevention fails.