On the issue of increasing the effectiveness of the activity of the investigator in the study of the situation and the mechanism of traffic crimes

Frolov Vyacheslav Vladimirovich Lecturer of the Department of Criminology, Kuban State Agrarian University named after I.T. Trubilin 350044, Russia, Krasnodar Territory, Krasnodar, Kalinina str., 13, room 030 Slava.Frolov.84@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Every year, about 130 thousand road accidents occur in Russia, their consequences are several times greater than the amount of damage from fires and railway accidents (in 2022, 126705 road accidents were registered on the territory of the Russian Federation, in which 14172 people died and 159635 were injured ^{[1, p. 4]}). It should be noted that from January to November 2022, 57184 traffic violations were registered by persons previously subjected to administrative punishment for their violation and deprived of the right to drive vehicles ^{[2, p. 8]}. All this requires the adoption of comprehensive measures on this problem, including improving the quality of the investigation of road traffic crimes, as well as improving the methods of their investigation. A significant amount of scientific research has been devoted to the investigation of road traffic crimes, such jurists and criminologists as I. G. Malandin, B. L. Zotov, V. N. Ivanov, A. P. Onuchin, L. D. Rodionov, V. A. Myznikov, N. F. Kolosov and others have been engaged in their solution. Nevertheless, a number of provisions of the methodology of investigation of road traffic crimes require further refinement due to such circumstances as the complexity of the mechanism of this group of crimes, a significant footprint of the scene, etc. Therefore, the cognitive and search activity of the investigator in the investigation of this group of crimes is complex and multifaceted, which in turn involves the development of scientific and practical recommendations aimed at its modernization.      

  The situation of an accident, as an element of a forensic characteristic, is a complex system of mutually dependent, unequal, but directly subordinated phenomena and processes, objects, events and other factors affecting the nature of the event in a given place, at a given time, under given conditions and with the participation of these objects ^{[3, p. 42]}. This system is formed by: the road section on which the accident occurred (the road structure, the presence or absence of technical means to regulate traffic, equipment with the necessary road signs, marking of the roadway, fencing of the carriageway, buildings and structures adjacent to it, etc.); time of day, year and weather conditions (illumination, cloud cover, rain, fog, snow, etc.); residual phenomena formed as a result of an accident. It should be noted that some of the elements of the situation are relatively static, i.e. they have an unchangeable state for a sufficiently long time period (road structure, road markings, etc.), and some change with less (illumination, weather conditions) or more speed during certain time intervals (traffic intensity and location of vehicles during an accident, i.e. immediately before, during, and after the collision) ^{[4, p. 19, 5, p. 64]}.

The transport and operational state of the road network has an impact on road safety, as its shortcomings are recorded in the places where almost every fourth road accident (26.8% of the total number) is committed ^{[6, p. 15]}. We use data on the Krasnodar Territory, as we believe that the content of this element of the forensic characteristics for this category of crimes is in direct envy of factors such as the state of the road transport network, the number of vehicles, prevailing weather conditions, etc. in the region in which the subject of the investigation is located. Accordingly, the more accurately the structure of criminal activity is reflected in the criminalistic characteristics of the crime, the higher its effectiveness. The main array of accidents with unsatisfactory road conditions occurs on the road network of cities and settlements. So on the territory of the Krasnodar Territory in 2021, 2076 such accidents were recorded, in which 192 people died, 2532 were injured. In 2022, respectively, 1411 road accidents, 159 dead, 1646 injured. On highways outside cities and settlements, the number of accidents with unsatisfactory road conditions is significantly lower: 2021 – 202, 60 dead, 266 injured; 2022 – 144, 62 dead, 182 injured ^[6]. It should be noted that at the sites of road works, the traffic police when registering an accident in every 2nd case fixes violations in their arrangement. In 2022, 105 road accidents were registered at the sites of road works, in which 24 people were killed and 130 injured. In 53 of them, violations were recorded: the absence of temporary technical means of organizing traffic (ODD) – 21; the absence, wear of markings – 19; incorrect use of signs – 7 ^[6].

Thus, we consider it mandatory for the investigator in the investigation of this category of crimes to build and verify versions that the cause of the accident or one of its causes was the unsatisfactory quality of the transport and operational condition of the road network (Article 263.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ^[1]). The whole set of elements of its components, as well as their condition, should be identified during the inspection of the scene of the incident and recorded in the protocol of this investigative action, it should also be recorded using photo and video recordings.

Information about the transport and operational condition of the road network on which the accident occurred can be obtained by an investigator in: a) the relevant traffic police department; b) the relevant department of the Federal Road Agency. Its representatives as part of the commission carry out checks to identify the possible impact of road conditions on the occurrence of an accident.^[2] Our analysis of criminal cases revealed the availability of certificates on the transport and operational condition of the road network on which the accident occurred in 1% of cases (hereinafter, the archive of the Krasnodar Regional Court and district courts Krasnodar Territory. Case № 1-247/2013, 1-262/2015, 1-123/2015 Accordingly, the transport and operational condition of the road network is completely unreasonably excluded by investigators from the causes of the accident.

The time of day, year and weather conditions (illumination, clouds, rain, fog, snow, etc.), as an element of the situation of an accident, are less static compared to the transport and operational condition of the road network. The immediate arrival of the investigator at the scene of the accident, in the vast majority of cases, allows you to identify and record these elements of the situation in the form that they had at the time of the accident. But it should be borne in mind that in some cases there are inconsistencies (at the time of the inspection, the fog has dissipated, the snow has stopped, etc.). The weather conditions that existed at the time of the accident, illumination, etc. should be established by the investigator and taken into account when determining the guilt of specific persons in the accident. The means of their establishment will be: interrogations of participants in an accident, as well as its witnesses; obtaining data from vehicle video recorders, external control cameras and objective traffic control cameras (hardware and software complex "Safe City", etc.); obtaining data from organizations that monitor and monitor the weather (Krasnodar Center for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring – branch of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "North Caucasus Department for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring"; Federal State Budgetary Institution "Main Computing Center of the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring"). In order to promptly obtain this information, as part of determining the subject of the investigation, building versions, it is possible to use RP5 sites (Access mode: https://rp5.ru /), Gismeteo (Access mode: https://www.gismeteo.ru /) and others.

Such a component of the situation as residual phenomena formed as a result of an accident can be divided into two groups:

– residual phenomena associated with the mechanism of an accident (the location of vehicles involved in an accident, a corpse, parts of a car that separated from it as a result of damage sustained in an accident, tread marks, fuel stains, etc.) ^{[7, pp. 68-69]};

– accidental residual phenomena unrelated to the mechanism of an accident (changes made during the provision of medical care to persons injured as a result of an accident, elimination of the consequences of an accident in the form of a vehicle fire, etc.). Taking into account the fact that the situation of an accident, its investigation by the investigator, is part of the knowledge of the mechanism of an accident, the erroneous attribution of accidental residual phenomena the phenomena associated with its mechanism will negatively affect the process of cognition. Therefore, the investigator conducting an inspection of the accident site should take into account the possibility of making such changes in the situation and establish their presence, as well as the reasons that caused them.

The analysis of criminal cases in this category of crimes draws attention to the fact that in the vast majority of cases, the investigator received information about the accident from its direct participants: 1) drivers of vehicles involved in an accident; 2) passengers in vehicles involved in an accident; 3) a pedestrian or other persons injured in an accident.

 It is noteworthy that all of the above persons are interested in the outcome of the criminal case.

We also consider it important to point out that the study of the materials of criminal cases and the survey conducted (the results of the survey of 137 full-time employees of investigative bodies in the Krasnodar Territory who have practical experience in investigating crimes against road safety and transport operation) allowed us to find out the following:

– 72 % of the accidents were attended by his eyewitnesses;

– in 77% of the witnesses of the accident were persons who are not its participants;

– only 32% of the identified eyewitnesses who were not participants in the accident were questioned as witnesses. To the question posed in the questionnaire for investigators: "What is the reason that eyewitnesses of the incident are not always involved in criminal proceedings as witnesses?" the answers received allowed us to establish:

a) some of the eyewitnesses of the accident evade participation in criminal proceedings (due to indifference, unwillingness to waste personal time, etc.). There have been cases of both non-appearance of such persons for questioning, and they reported incorrect personal data, information about the place of residence, contact phone number during the survey conducted in parallel with the inspection of the scene of the incident;

b) in some cases, this was the result of the formal attitude of traffic police officers to this issue, who did not fully carry out actions to establish the personal data of the witnesses of the accident;

c) a certain part of the eyewitnesses of the accident, due to various objective and subjective reasons, when conducting the survey, reported information that differed from the already established circumstances of the accident, because they were mistaken in good faith.

Thus, firstly, a certain part of the eyewitnesses of the accident (disinterested persons) do not fall into the sphere of criminal proceedings. To minimize this omission will allow more active activities to identify eyewitnesses of the accident during the inspection of the scene, as well as careful consolidation of their personal and contact data. Secondly, the specifics of the accident (surprise, transience, etc.), as well as the personality characteristics of the eyewitness of the accident, his emotional state, have a negative impact on the quality of perception, often forming a picture of the accident that does not correspond to the real incident. Thirdly, in a significant number of criminal cases, where the sources of information about the accident were persons interested in its outcome (the driver, passengers of the vehicle involved in the accident; pedestrian and other persons injured in the accident), cases were identified, both false information and non-communication (concealment) of individual details of the accident. Fourth, already in the course of the investigation, there were attempts by the guilty person to bribe the witnesses of the accident, the victim. Attempts by the perpetrators to obtain recordings from CCTV cameras, video recorders, etc., where the circumstances of the accident are captured, were not made with a view to destroying them, due to the complexity, primarily objective implementation of this event (lack of access; lack of information about the presence of cameras, the location of the owner of the car with a DVR, etc.).

Therefore, in order to obtain objective information about the various circumstances of the accident that occurred, it should be more actively used:

– multifunctional automated systems that have the function of registration and search of criminally significant objects (hardware and software complex "Stream"; stationary hardware and software complex for automatic recognition of state registration plates of vehicles and fixing traffic violations "AvtoUragan VSM2"; APK "Safe City"). Cameras that could record the mechanism of an accident, the vehicle involved in its commission, the driver and passengers in the vehicle, etc. It is possible to obtain information about the presence of video recording on a specific section of the road network in the relevant traffic police authority (item 57. The installation locations and operating mode of stationary automatic fixation devices are determined by the dislocation approved by the head of the management body. The places and time of application of mobile means of automatic fixation are determined by the decision of the head of the department on the order of service by the employee ^[3]). From September 1, 2024, traffic violation video cameras (stationary, mobile, mobile) will function in automatic mode, i.e. in their viewing area to record all traffic violations for which they are intended. Any influence on the implementation and content of the video recording of a person, any subjective discretion, is excluded. In accordance with the amendments coming into force: "Information about the places of installation of stationary, mobile means of fixation and (or) routes of movement of vehicles with mobile means of fixation placed on them should be publicly available and posted on the official website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs."^[4] The investigator can get information about the presence of video cameras in specific places of the agro-industrial complex "Safe City" from the operator of the regional system.^[5] The storage period of archived videos of the APK "Safe City" is 30 days. But it should be remembered that video recordings of yard surveillance are stored for 5 calendar days;

– surveillance cameras installed on the buildings of institutions, organizations, enterprises, residential buildings, etc. in the viewing angle, which fall sections of the road network. It is quite difficult to get information about the availability of such video cameras, because the legislation defines only a list of objects where the installation of video cameras is a mandatory requirement (railway stations, airports; sports facilities; city playgrounds and other places of mass stay of people, public events; buildings and open spaces functioning in the field of culture; trade enterprises; educational and educational institutions medical profile, etc.). It is not required to install a video camera for fixation in a public space, any permission, or to inform any authorities about the presence of a camera. Usually, it is enough for enterprises, organizations, institutions to install a camera and conduct video shooting in a public space to indicate the information: "Attention! Video shooting is underway." Therefore, the identification of such video cameras should be carried out by conducting a search event "Combing the area" and (or) an operational search event - a survey;

– video recorders installed on vehicles. To date, a significant number of vehicles are equipped with this technical means. There are no official statistics on the number of vehicles equipped with video recorders at the moment in Russia. According to a survey of drivers conducted in most regions of the Russian Federation (15040 people were interviewed from 22.08. to 4.09. in 2019; 10960 people from 30.06. to 14.07. in 2023) to the question: "Do you use a DVR?". In 2019, 51% of respondents responded positively, in 2023 – 56%. Only 24% of the drivers surveyed, both in 2019 and in 2023, indicated that they do not use and are not going to install a DVR in the car ^[8]. Moreover, it should be assumed that an accident can be recorded not only by video recorders installed in vehicles participating in it, but also by video recorders of vehicles that were moving on this section of the road network at the time when it occurred. The identification of vehicles that were in this place at the time of the accident, the identification of the persons who drove them, as well as the passengers who were in them, will not only increase the number of eyewitnesses and include them in the number of witnesses, but can also provide access to a DVR recording on which the circumstances of the accident can be captured.

The mechanism of the crime, and not the method of its commission, in the criminalistic characteristics of an accident, as most researchers rightly point out ^{[4, p. 20, 9, p. 21]}, is its leading element. At the same time, we do not share the point of view that "the allocation of the method of committing a crime as an element of the criminalistic characteristics of crimes committed by negligence, in our opinion, is unlawful" ^{[4, p. 26]}. Yes, in reckless crimes there is no such element of the method as preparation for the commission of a crime, but there are actions of a person to commit it, and in some cases to conceal the crime. Only consideration of the mechanism and method of the crime in the relationship will allow to fully establish all the circumstances of the accident. The mechanism of an accident is understood as a dynamic process, the interaction of the elements involved in it (driver, vehicle, road network, passenger, pedestrian), the relationship of causes and conditions affecting the occurrence, development and completion of the crime ^{[10, p. 13, 11, p. 21]}. The opinion of forensic scientists on the number of stages of the accident mechanism is different, there are six stages ^{[12, pp. 25-32]}; four stages ^{[3, pp. 22-23, 56]} and three stages ^{[13, pp. 60-61, 14, p. 117]}. These and other approaches to dividing the mechanism of an accident into stages (stages) are scientifically justified, I would only like to note that some of them contain an unnecessary division in our opinion, which complicates their use in practice, even taking into account the use of computer modeling of the mechanism of an accident. Therefore, it seems to us the most optimal allocation of three stages (stages) in the mechanism of an accident: pre-accident, emergency and post-accident stages.

1. At the pre-accident stage, road users begin to be influenced by factors that threaten the implementation of safe traffic, which requires them to take special actions to normalize the situation or minimize negative consequences. These factors are objective (the condition of the road and street network, weather conditions, etc.) and subjective (the technical condition of the vehicle, the psychophysiological condition of the road user, including alcohol or drug intoxication, etc.) in relation to traffic. At this stage, road users are obliged to take all possible actions (reduce speed, leave the roadway, stop the vehicle to eliminate its malfunction, etc.) in order to avoid an accident. The person conducting the investigation needs to thoroughly investigate the features of this stage of a particular accident, because firstly, the danger to traffic should be considered to have arisen at the moment when the driver had an objective opportunity to detect it, secondly, the technical possibility of preventing an accident is determined in each specific case, taking into account the road situation preceding the accident, in-third, if the accident was caused not only by the driver (for example, a pedestrian crossing the roadway with a violation Traffic regulations), and even more so without his fault (the person responsible for the technical condition of the vehicle, the person who carried out substandard repairs of the vehicle), then these circumstances can mitigate the punishment or even exclude criminal liability of the driver of the participant in the accident.^[6] Analysis of the materials of criminal cases allowed to establish that there are cases when it is not established the entire scope of the circumstances of the pre-accident stage of the accident mechanism.

2. At the emergency stage, the traffic system reaches a critical point of safe functioning, as a result of which road users are not able to influence the development of events by their actions, i.e. the traffic system becomes uncontrollable. There is an interaction (contact) of the vehicle with another vehicle, pedestrian, obstacle, etc. or an action (overturning of the car, its exit from the road, etc.). This stage ends with dynamic material phenomena that occur after that.

3. The post-accident stage includes the actions of the participants of the accident and other persons to take measures to eliminate, minimize the consequences of the accident (normalization of traffic, provision of medical assistance to victims, extinguishing the fire of the vehicle, etc.). An integral part of this stage are also possible measures and actions of the participants of the accident aimed at concealing the crime (leaving the scene of the accident, destruction of traces, making changes to the situation at the scene, etc.) ^{[15, p. 490]}.

At all stages, traces (material and ideal) are formed, a competent approach to their detection, removal, fixation and following allows the person conducting the investigation to recreate the mechanism of an accident, to identify its specific culprits ^{[16, p. 138]}. It is the trace pattern formed as a result of an accident that is of decisive (central) importance in establishing all the circumstances of the event that occurred ^{[17, p. 17]}.

The investigator should search for traces at the scene of an accident when investigating an accident purposefully, using, among other things, information about typical traces of an accident and their location ^{[18, 19]}, as well as the mechanism of their formation ^{[20, p. 223]}. One of the methods of investigative cognition is the modeling method. When investigating an accident, modeling is a mandatory and irreplaceable action, it is it that allows you to know the mechanism of an accident and establish other circumstances that matter. It seems to us that the most effective way to solve this problem is to use information technologies and create a computer simulation program for the mechanism of an accident. This program should include a general database containing information about the mechanism of trace formation in an accident, characteristics of various types of vehicles, data on the ratio of speed and braking distance of the vehicle, etc., as well as a database of a specific accident generated by the investigator. This database includes information obtained during the inspection of the scene of the accident: the situation and the traces found; the type, model, number of vehicles; the estimated speed of vehicles; the location of vehicles and their damage; the location of the participants in the accident, indicating the injuries they received; the parameters of the road network (characteristics of the carriageway; the quality of the road surface, horizontal and vertical profile of the road); characteristics of the terrain adjacent to the road network (locality, forest, steppe, etc.); other characteristics (weather conditions, illumination, etc.). It should be noted that the quality of modeling directly depends on the accuracy of the data recorded during the inspection of the scene, and this is in in turn, it requires competent, scrupulous work of the investigator when studying the situation of the accident site, detecting and fixing its traces. Data on accidents, which are currently unknown, are entered in various variants (range), when determining them, the established dependencies between the elements of the forensic characteristics of the accident contained in the general database of the program should be used. The data can be changed by the investigator, as well as the change of the entered parameters should be carried out in an automated mode by the program itself, since its data processing capabilities are very high (Big Data, OLAP and DataMining are technologies designed to process a large volume of heterogeneous data ^{[21, 22]}. All information about automatic changes should be contained in the resulting final report on the mechanism of the accident. The use of computer modeling by the investigator is not an attempt to replace the necessary expert research, it is a way to optimize the investigation process, which will ensure the construction of the most likely versions about the mechanism of the accident, will help to recreate its picture, i.e. it will streamline, concretize search and cognitive activity, make it more effective.

Summing up the above, we note that we have identified the incompleteness of the investigation by investigators of the transport and operational condition of the road network during the investigation of traffic crimes, as well as the non-use of the entire complex of means of studying the situation of the scene. In addition, there is a slight use of information technology by investigators to determine the mechanism of a traffic crime. The time spent on the appointment and production of forensic examinations to establish this circumstance often does not allow the investigator to quickly streamline the investigation, create its structure, the result of this may be an incorrect determination of the direction of the investigation.

In our opinion, the right direction in solving this problem is a more active use of information recorded by technical means of objective control (multifunctional automated systems that have the function of registering and searching for criminally significant objects; surveillance cameras installed on buildings of institutions, organizations, enterprises, residential buildings, etc. in the viewing angle, which fall sites road network; video recorders installed on vehicles), as well as the implementation and implementation of a computer simulation program for the mechanism of an accident in investigative activities.

1. The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation of 13.06.1996 No. 63-FZ (ed. of 04.08.2023) [Electronic resource]. Access mode: https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_10699/c011ede44f5f7d2a4fc5c202f70bcd87c8bf36aa/

2. On the publication and application of ODM 218.6.015-2015 "Recommendations for the accounting and analysis of road accidents on the highways of the Russian Federation": Rosavtodor Order No. 853-r dated 12.05.2015 (together with "ODM 218.6.015-2015. Industry road methodological document") [Electronic resource]. Access mode: https://docs.cntd.ru/document/1200120721

3. On the approval of the Administrative Regulations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the execution of the state function for monitoring and supervision of compliance by road users with requirements in the field of road safety: Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation No. 185 dated March 2, 2009 [Electronic resource]. Access mode: https://www.garant.ru/products/ipo/prime/doc/12067826/

4. On Amendments to the Federal Law "On Highways and on Road Activities in the Russian Federation and on Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation" and Article 3 of the Federal Law "On the State Company "Russian Highways" and on Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation: Federal Law No. 29.05.2023 197-FZ [Electronic resource]. Access mode: https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_448075/

5. On the concept of construction and development of the hardware and software complex "Safe City": Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 2446-r dated December 3, 2014 [Electronic resource]. Access mode: https://www.garant.ru/products/ipo/prime/doc/70717448/

6. On judicial practice in cases of crimes related to violation of traffic rules and operation of vehicles, as well as their unlawful seizure without the purpose of theft: Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 09.12.2008 No. 25 (ed. dated 24.05.2016) [Electronic resource]. Access mode: https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_82656/