To draw an accident reconstruction diagram, choose Roads & Freeways from the All section of Popular.
Or select one of the templates for Traffic and Accidents under the Legal category.
Adding Roads
Step 1 will be to construct your scene using roads. Drag and drop road symbols, intersections, turn lanes, bike lanes, and cross walks, as necessary.
Adding Lane Dividers
To add a lane divider, you can draw a straight line using the Draw Lines tool.
By default this will draw a black line.
To change it to a white dashed line to signal a passing zone, select the line and in the Line drop-down menu on the Home tab, choose a dashed line under Dashes.
Next, go back to the same Line menu and choose the color of the line to be white.
To create a double yellow line, draw two lines, select them and make their color yellow using the Line menu.
Alternatively, SmartDraw has a library of road markings you can find by clicking on More and then selecting More Symbols. The Road Markings library will be under the Roads & Freeways category. To add it to your diagram, click Add Library. You can now drag and drop road markings to layer on top of your roads.
Finding Symbols
Once your scene is set, you're ready to add symbols representing the specifics of your accident.
SmartDraw has symbols for a variety of vehicles, pedestrians, traffic signs, and roadway objects.
Like with the Road Markings library, you can find them under More -> More Symbols.
Adding Symbols
To add a vehicle or sign to your diagram, drag and drop it from the library.
Adjusting Symbols
Once a symbol is added to your page, you can resize it and rotate it as necessary.
Resizing Symbols
To resize a symbol, first select it. You'll see black squares appear around the selected symbol. Grab any of these squares, known as grow handles, and drag them to resize your symbol.
For a more precise resizing, type in the exact dimensions of the car where you see the width and height dimensions on the page or go to the Design tab and type in the dimensions there while your symbol is select.
Rotating Symbols
To rotate a symbol, grab the circular rotation handle located around the middle of the object on the right hand side.
You can also use the Rotate menu on the Design tab to rotate a symbol by a precise amount.
Learn about all the controls on the Accident Reconstruction SmartPanel.