Abstract: The object of the study is crimes against road safety and the operation of transport, as well as the activities of the subject of the investigation aimed at fully establishing all the circumstances of a traffic crime. The subject of the study is the regularities of the situation and mechanism of this group of crimes and the regularities of the investigator's activities to establish them during the investigation. When forming conclusions, the author was guided by the analysis of the norms of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, other laws regulating the investigation of this group of crimes, the theoretical foundations of criminalistics, materials of investigative and judicial practice, in addition, he used the results of a survey of 137 full-time employees of investigative bodies in the Krasnodar Territory who have practical experience in investigating crimes against road safety and operation transport. The author examines in detail the specifics of the investigator's establishment of the situation and mechanism of a traffic crime, with special attention paid to the issues of detecting and obtaining information about the incident recorded by technical means of objective control. The authors note that when investigating a crime against road safety and the operation of transport, a competent study by the investigator of the situation and the mechanism of the crime is a key component of his cognitive and certifying activities to establish the truth in a criminal case. The conducted research made it possible to identify certain shortcomings allowed during the detection, removal and fixation of traces, during the inspection of the road network, at the scene of the incident, the author also notes the low level of use of information technologies by investigators when establishing the mechanism of a traffic crime. The authors suggest ways to eliminate these shortcomings: in order to obtain objective data about the various circumstances of the accident, it is necessary to use more actively the information recorded by the technical means of objective control, to implement in investigative activities a program for computer modeling of the mechanism of an accident.