Services
Document a loss
Support a claim
For carriers and employers
Service areas
Middle Tennessee
- Nashville
- Clarksville
- Murfreesboro
- Franklin
- Hendersonville
- Smyrna
- Spring Hill
- Gallatin
- Lebanon
- Columbia
- Brentwood
- Mount Juliet
- La Vergne
- Cookeville
East Tennessee
West Tennessee
Multi-Vehicle Collision Sequence Documentation
Field documentation for chain-reaction and multiple-impact crashes, prepared for carriers, attorneys and fleet operators. Personnel with accident reconstruction experience record each vehicle's damage and rest position so that an analyst can work out the order of impacts.
- Coverage
- 95 of 95 counties
- Dispatch
- 24 / 7 / 365
- Metro response
- Under 60 min avg.
- Statewide
- 4-hour guarantee
What this service covers
In a crash involving three or more vehicles, the central question is usually the order of events. Whether the middle car was pushed into the one ahead or had already struck it changes how responsibility is shared, and the drivers often cannot say because the impacts came within a second or two. The physical evidence can: each contact leaves a matching pair of damage areas, and each vehicle stops somewhere consistent with what hit it.
Delator Claims Division documents every vehicle that can be reached and the roadway where the crash occurred. Field personnel are licensed Tennessee private investigators with accident reconstruction experience. They record and cross-reference the damage; they do not decide which driver started the sequence or apportion fault among them. Because vehicles from one crash are usually towed to several yards by different operators, the assignment often involves multiple locations and is coordinated through a single dispatch.
When the order of impacts is in question
- A driver in the middle of a chain collision reports being stopped before being pushed forward by the vehicle behind.
- Several carriers are involved and each has photographs of only its own insured's vehicle.
- A first collision blocked a lane and later vehicles struck the wreckage, creating two events at one location.
- One vehicle shows front and rear damage and the parties disagree about how many times it was struck.
- The involved vehicles are stored at different tow yards in different counties and will be released on different dates.
What is recorded for each vehicle and impact
- Damage areas numbered by vehicle
- Every separate damage area on every vehicle is given an identifier, photographed and measured, so each can be paired with its counterpart on another vehicle.
- Matching contact features
- Bumper heights, license plate and tow hook imprints, lamp shapes and paint colors that link a specific damage area to a specific striking vehicle.
- Overlapping damage
- Places where one impact lies on top of another, such as fresh creases crossing earlier scrapes, which indicate which contact came first.
- Rest positions for all units
- Where each vehicle stopped, its heading and lane, from scene marks, responder photographs supplied by the requesting party, or tow operator accounts.
- Separate debris and fluid areas
- Distinct concentrations of glass, plastic and fluid along the roadway, located by measurement, that point to more than one area of impact.
- Gaps and spacing on the roadway
- Distances between rest positions and between areas of impact, recorded along the lane so the spacing of the sequence can be plotted to scale.
From request to delivered record
- RequestCall dispatch or submit the request form with the location, loss type and urgency.
- DeployDispatch assigns the nearest available licensed field investigator through the statewide network.
- DocumentPhotographs, video, measurements and factual notes are captured once the scene is safe to work.
- PreserveFiles are timestamped, organized and kept in their original form with a record of who captured them.
- ReportThe package is delivered securely to the requesting party, typically the same day.
How damage matching puts impacts in order
Each collision between two vehicles produces two damage areas that correspond in height, width and shape. A rear bumper may carry the imprint of the license plate frame from the vehicle behind; a front bumper may carry paint from the vehicle ahead. Pairing these across all the vehicles shows who touched whom. When a vehicle has more damage areas than a single contact would explain, an analyst knows to look for a second impact and a second striking vehicle.
Order comes from severity and overlap. If the rear damage to a middle vehicle is severe and the front damage light, that pattern is consistent with being pushed; the reverse suggests it struck the vehicle ahead under its own speed. Overlapping marks show which contact came first. An analyst weighs these against rest positions and any recorded data. Delator supplies the paired, measured record and does not state which driver began the sequence or how fault is divided.
Getting to every vehicle before the set is broken up
The difficulty with a multiple-vehicle crash is that the evidence is spread across owners and insurers. One vehicle is repaired within the week, another is sold as salvage, a third sits in an impound lot. Each party tends to document its own vehicle for valuation, not for comparison. If a single vehicle is lost before it is measured, the pairs that include it cannot be completed, and the sequence may have to rest on driver accounts alone.
Delator works from the list of involved vehicles the requesting party provides, contacts each storage location, and documents each vehicle with the same views and measurement method so the records can be laid side by side. Access depends on the permission of whoever controls each vehicle, and the report identifies any vehicle that could not be examined. At the scene, separate debris and fluid areas are located by measurement because they show where along the road each impact happened.
Delator personnel have accident reconstruction experience. The work product is physical evidence and technical findings; it does not determine legal fault, which remains with the parties, the court or a jury.
Delator Claims Division is not an engineering firm. Whether any analysis is accepted in a proceeding is decided by the court.
Common questions about this service
What if you can only get access to some of the vehicles?
Each accessible vehicle is documented in full and the report lists those that were not examined and why. Partial sets are still useful, because damage on an examined vehicle records the height and shape of whatever struck it. Additional vehicles can be added to the same file if access is granted later.
Can you tell us which driver caused the pileup?
No. Delator documents the damage, positions and roadway evidence and cross-references them. Working out the order of impacts from that record is the analyst's task, and deciding legal fault belongs to the insurers, the parties or a court. Tennessee's comparative fault system makes that allocation significant, which is why the record needs to be complete.
Do all the carriers have to agree before you document the vehicles?
Delator needs permission from whoever controls each vehicle or storage location, not agreement among the carriers. One requesting party can commission the work. Where several parties want the same record, they may arrange between themselves to share it; Delator delivers to the party that requested it.
How are vehicles in different counties handled?
Dispatch covers all 95 Tennessee counties, so vehicles towed to yards in different counties can be assigned to field personnel near each location under one file. The same photo series and measurement method are used at every yard, and the results are delivered together.
Available statewide, including
Every Tennessee county is covered. See the deployment map for typical response tiers by county.
Request documentation anywhere in Tennessee
Dispatch is staffed around the clock. For time-sensitive scenes, calling is fastest; the request form works for routine and scheduled assignments.