Rusty Haight has been in more than 700 car wrecks.
On Wednesday, the crash test driver prepared a Pontiac Aztek for one more.
"I would be lying to you if I said I didn't get nervous," he said, as he helped remove the driver's side door from the Aztek.
The car crash - No. 721 for Haight - was part of a two-day crash data retrieval course by the MSU Highway Traffic Safety Program.
Haight, director of the San Diego-based Collision Safety Institute, drives cars, such as the Aztek, into other vehicles at different rates of speed.
"The idea is we train accident investigators to give them tools to do their jobs better," he said. "We can make some effort to make cars and people safer."
Police officers from three countries and 10 states came for the course centered around data being collected by a scientific diagnostic module known as a black box.
This black box, which is actually silver, records data when sudden braking, swerving or acceleration occurs. The box notes the change in speed at impact, the application of the brakes, if the seat belt was connected, engine revolutions per minute and the throttle.
"It tells us what the car was doing five seconds back from the time of impact," civil and environmental engineering Professor Dan Lee said.
Officers can then use the data to supplement what they have examined at the crime scene, Lee said. "It serves as a cross-check to the normal procedure of reconstruction on an accident."
Michigan State Police Sgt. Gary Megge, who works in traffic crash reconstruction, downloaded data from more than 45 vehicles last year.
"(The black box) is just a supplement for what we have been doing for years," Megge said. "This is just another tool we use to complete a thorough and accurate investigation."
By having Haight behind the wheel instead of crash test dummies, officers are able to witness how the crash affects a real person. Dummies are used for near-death test crashes.
"We can minimize risk because we understand crashes," Haight said. "We know how people get hurt and we can plan the crash so I don't get hurt."
The only injury Haight has received in his career came when the group was testing the affects airbags have on skin.
"It stung for a minute, but the benefit is we have empirical data and that is something you can't get from a crash dummy," Haight said. "They don't have skin, they don't bleed."
Haight was crashing into a dummy sitting in the driver's seat of a rusty brown Chevrolet Cavalier that had been donated by a local towing service.
As the Aztek crunched into the side of the Cavalier the wind shield popped off and the dummy flew against the passenger side window.
Haight just stepped out with his baseball catcher's shin guards and his protective face mask on and gave the crowd a thumbs up.
"Just another day at the office," he said.
