The Crawford County Sheriff’s Office is currently hosting a two week (80 hour) Level 1 Traffic Collision Investigation Course put on by The Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy (OPOTA). The course is instructed by certified OPOTA instructor Ron Thayer, who has nearly forty years of law enforcement experience and countless hours of training in Traffic Collision Reconstruction. Ron has been an instructor with OPOTA for the last eight years. The course includes instruction on human factors, evidence from vehicles and the roadway, field sketches, measuring, diagramming and photography. In addition, deputies and officers will learn mathematical formulas to determine speed, time, and distance. Four Deputies from the Sheriff’s Office are attending the training along with fourteen other Officers/Deputies from several different agencies throughout North Central Ohio. In addition to classroom exercises, students will participate in practical exercises including skid and YAW mark analysis, crush depth analysis, vehicle braking, scene documentation and evidence collection.
Last week students went to Bloomfield’s Towing of Bucyrus to examine damage received by vehicles involved in traffic collisions. On Tuesday, students witnessed a live staged two-vehicle collision at the intersection of North Stetzer Road and Auto Avenue extension (behind the East Pointe Shopping Plaza). Knecht’s Auto Recycling of Bucyrus provided two scrapped vehicles and a driver for the exercise. The live demonstration simulated a rear-end collision at a stop sign. Life Support Ambulance Service and the Bucyrus Fire Department were on hand, if needed. Students made field sketches of the scene and examined the vehicles involved documenting what they observed. On Wednesday, students are to learn about semi tractor-trailers and examine skid marks left by tractor-trailers when braking. YRC Freight will be providing a tractor-trailer for the demonstration.
The training course comes at no cost to the Sheriff’s Office or county residents as it’s funded by grant monies from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Ohio Traffic Safety Office through OPOTA. The course is free to any certified law enforcement officer in the State of Ohio. After the course is completed, more than half of the Sheriff’s Office enforcement deputies will have attended the course.
The Sheriff’s Office would like to thank OPOTA, Bucyrus Fire Department, Life Support Ambulance Service and the City of Bucyrus. A special thanks to Bloomfield Towing, Knecht’s Auto Recycling and YRC Freight.
