
277Accident Reconstruction
of such a vehicle requires the use of calculus. As a general rule in the case where accelera-
tion is a constant, the velocity of the vehicle increases or decreases at a constant rate. With
variable acceleration, the rate of change of the velocity would not be constant. Such a sce-
nario might exhibit itself when a vehicle is performing complex maneuvers such as brak-
ing, acceleration, or turning. Most of these cases can be dealt with easily by analyzing each
component separately. e total reconstruction can then be determined by a step-by-step
analysis of the total scenario. For convenience, we list the general equ