How does the analsyis of paint help in a car crash investigation?

How does the analsyis of paint help in a car crash investigation?

Richard Saferstein (Former Chief Forensic Scientist) gives expert video advice on: How does the analysis of metals help in CSI?; How is metal identified and compared in CSI?; How does the analysis of paint help in CSI? and more...

Well paint is first subjected to a low powered microscopic examination where we will look at its surface features color and underlying color layers if any do exist. Once that is accomplished, we will then look at the chemistry of the paint. Paint is what we call a polymer. It is a special type of chemical which can be characterized in a crime lab by a number of analytical techniques. So in a nutshell what we look for is color, layer structure and chemistry of paint. The first and probably the most important tool is the old fashioned microscope low powered stereoscopic microscope is what we first call up on to examine a paint chip.