Mauritius: An official ceremony was held in Plaine Lauzun to award certificates to engineers of the Mechanical Engineering Section of the Ministry of National Infrastructure and Community Development (MNI and CD) who completed a three-week training course on Accident Crash Reconstruction in Mauritius on May 26, 2023.
The Minister of National Infrastructure and Community Development, Mahendranuth Sharma Hurreeram, the Deputy Director, Mechanical Engineering Section of the MNI and CD, Vivekanand Bissoon Ramsurrun, and other personalities were present on this occasion.
In his address, Minister Ramsurrun recalled that, in order to upskill and empower the technical cadres in this field of expertise, the MNI and CD availed the services of the Traffic Accident Reconstruction Services of South Africa for providing a customised course on Crash Accident Reconstruction.
He highlighted that the course had exceeded expectations in terms of:
- The highly valued course materials;
- A comprehensive collection of evidence at the scene of the accident;
- Application of engineering principles in accident reconstruction;
- Identification of how materials fail and the reasons behind same;
- practical demonstrations;
- and, the drafting of comprehensive reports in view to eventually depone in Court.
This course, he emphasised, has set up the foundation stone upon which mechanical engineers will be more confident whenever such an assignment is entrusted to them.
The course has also enlightened us about the latest technology which is available regarding data retrieval and interpretation, as well as making use of the same in report drafting, pointed out Ramsurrun.
On this note, he thanked the experts who have gone above and beyond the contents of the course to voluntarily cover some pertinent aspects, such as the road regulations in South Africa and the safety aspects pertaining to local vehicle modifications, among others.
Accident Crash Reconstruction Programme
The Mechanical Engineering Section of the Ministry of National Infrastructure and Community Development provides assistance and consultancy services to the Police Department of Mauritius, including the examination of vehicles involved in fatal and serious road accidents.
This training course comprised inter-alia, assessment and analysis of vehicle component failures; damage analysis; speed calculations based on road skid and yaw marks; reaction time; electronic data systems; seatbelt analysis and; drafting of reports to depone in Court.
The two resource persons from the Traffic Accident Reconstruction Services of South Africa were the Managing Director of Traffic Accident Reconstruction of South Africa, an expert in Accident Reconstruction, Accident Analysis, Cause Analysis, and Interpretation of the Law relating to traffic accidents, Johan Joubert; and the Mechanical Vehicle Analyst of Traffic Accident Reconstruction of South Africa, Martin Graham.
