Welcome to WATAI Online

Welcome to the web site of WATAI, the Washington Association of Technical Accident Investigators.  WATAI was formed in 1979 and is the oldest of the technical accident investigation organizations in the United States.  Thirty plus years since its inception WATAI remains true to its original mission; “to promote education and research in the field of accident investigation; to encourage interdisciplinary communication between the practitioners of accident investigation; and to cooperate and participate with other organizations dedicated to the science of accident investigations”.

To that end WATAI sponsors semi-annual conferences each year.  The Spring Conference usually takes place in May and the Fall Conference generally in the month of October.  Please look elsewhere on our website to view a database of previous conference topics and collected data plus get a preview of upcoming conference agendas.

The Washington Association of Technical Accident Investigators is comprised of nearly 200 members.  Current membership includes present and former law enforcement personnel, professional engineers, private investigators, forensic scientists, doctors, lawyers, medical specialists and others closely aligned to one of the aforementioned professions within the “collision reconstruction” community.  If you are already a part of this community or have an interest in pursuing a career within it and have not joined WATAI, please consider doing so.

Membership in WATAI offers a number of benefits:

• Members may attend our semiannual conferences at no additional cost.
• Test data and training topic materials associated with these conferences are provided to members in attendance at no additional cost.
• WATAI published a biannual newsletter for members for several years.  This practice was discontinued during the transition from “snail-mail” communication into the era of web-based communications.  Access to past newsletters, test data and research is available to members on the website.  Look for the new “electronic version” of our Newsletter elsewhere on this site.
• WATAI is a sponsoring association of ACTAR, the Accreditation Commission for Traffic Accident Reconstruction.  As a sponsor, WATAI pays for ACTAR CEUs related to WATAI conferences and training events.
• WATAI is also a participating organization of the ARC Network. As such, members of WATAI qualify for a $5 discount from the published rates for individual membership to the ARC Network.
• WATAI has worked with other accident investigation associations in the past to “pool resources” for combined training events.  We routinely look for opportunities to provide seed money for quality, large-scale training events, both in the Northwest and across the country.

Each member of the WATAI Board of Directors is committed to facilitating quality training and testing opportunities related to the field of collision reconstruction and providing a positive environment for interactions amongst the association’s diverse membership.  We anticipate the continued numerical growth of our association and expansion of our training topics and test scenario database into the new millennium.

We invite you to browse these pages on occasion to see what is happening within the collision reconstruction community in the Pacific Northwest.  If you have any questions regarding membership, our upcoming meetings, or any other matter, please drop us a line at info@watai.ws. We can also be reached through our mailing address:

WATAI
P.O. Box 70211
Bellevue, WA 98005

Thank you for visiting our web site!

Best regards,
Dave Wells
WATAI President