ABSTRACT
A tragic single car accident claims the life of the driver and leads to an investigation into its cause. The accident report completed by the officer on the scene notes that the vehicle skidded off the road on a curve and turned over on a rainy night. Tread marks indicate the automobile was travelling in excess of the speed limit. The driver was not wearing a seatbelt and was thrown from the car, thereby sustaining fatal head injuries. An autopsy reveals alcohol in the bloodstream just below the amount state law has established as denoting legal intoxication. Several days after the accident the towing company which removed the car informed the police that the brakes were defective. Still later the state department of highways notes that the same location has been the scene of several other accidents and the department’s engineers suspect that repair and resurfacing work done several years earlier may have altered the banking of the curve.
