Characteristics of Officer-Involved Vehicle Collisions in California

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this paper is to examine the situational and individual officer characteristics of officer-involved vehicle collisions that result in fatality, injury, and non-injury outcomes.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH:

Data on 35,840 vehicle collisions involving law enforcement officers in California occurring between January 2000 and December 2009 are examined. A descriptive analysis of collision characteristics is presented.

FINDINGS:

There were 39 officers killed by collisions over this study period and 7,684 officers who received some type injury. Incidents involving officers on motorcycles represented 39 percent of officer fatalities and 39 percent of severe injuries. In the case of fatalities, 33 percent of officers were reported as wearing seatbelts, 38 percent were not wearing a seatbelt, and seatbelt use was not stated in 29 percent of car fatalities.

RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS:

The findings only represent one state and the analysis is based on an estimated 86 percent of collisions that occurred during the study period due to missing data. Nonetheless, the results are based on a robust sample and address key limitations in the existing literature.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS:

During the study period in California the estimated financial impact of collisions reached into the hundreds of millions of dollars when considering related fatality, injury, and vehicle damage costs combined. These impacts highlight the need for the law enforcement community to give greater attention to this issue.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE:

At the time of this writing there was no published independent research that compares the situational and officer characteristics across fatality, injury, and non-injury outcomes in these events. The findings reported here will help inform emerging interest in this issue within the law enforcement, academic, and policy-making communities.

Frequency of officer-involved traffic collisions, injuries, and fatalities during the observation period

Year	Officer-involved collisions n	Officer injuries n	Officer fatalities n	% of collisions that resulted in injurya	% of collisions that resulted in fatalitya
2000	3,622	825	3	22.6	0.1
2001	3,668	829	3	22.2	0.1
2002	3,456	788	3	22.6	0.1
2003	3,508	822	7	23.2	0.2
2004	3,417	779	6	22.6	0.2
2005	3,353	732	5	21.7	0.1
2006	3,376	694	3	20.4	0.1
2007	3,893	756	4	19.1	0.1
2008	3,691	716	3	19.1	0.1
2009	3,856	743	2	19.0	0.1
Total	35,840	7,684	39	21.2	0.1

Note:

aPercentages are calculated by dividing the number of collisions that had at least one officer injury/fatality by the total number of officer-involved collisions in each year

Weather and road conditions during officer-involved traffic collisions during the observation period

	n	%
Weather
Clear	28,918	80.7
Cloudy	5,161	14.4
Raining	1,202	3.4
Snowing	99	0.3
Fog	202	0.6
Other	59	0.1
Not stated	199	0.6
Road surface conditions
Dry	31,992	89.3
Wet	2,928	8.2
Snowy or icy	285	0.8
Slippery (muddy, oily, etc.)	285	0.8
Not stated	350	1.0
Lighting
Daylight	21,163	59.0
Dusk or dawn	1,091	3.0
Dark – street lights	10,368	28.9
Dark – no street lights	2,929	8.2
Dark – street lights not functioning	91	0.3
Not stated	198	0.6

Factors surrounding officer-involved traffic collisions during the observation period

	n	%
Location of collision
Intersection	8,661	24.2
Non-intersection	26,830	74.9
Missing	349	1.0
Type of collision
Head-on	1,140	3.2
Sideswipe	6,838	19.1
Rear end	10,879	30.4
Broadside	8,054	22.5
Hit object	5,833	16.3
Overturned	438	1.2
Vehicle/pedestrian	445	1.2
Other	2,030	5.7
Not stated	183	0.5
Number of vehicles involved
Single vehicle	8,416	23.5
Multiple vehicle	27,424	76.5
Driving under the influence a
Had not been drinking	35,650	98.0
Had been drinking, under influence	29	0.1
Had been drinking, not under influence	33	0.1
Had been drinking, impairment unknown	8	< 0.1
Impairment unknown	69	0.2
Not applicable	243	0.7
Not stated	349	1.0
Officer at-fault a
Single-vehicle collision
Yes	6,366	75.6
No	2,050	24.4
Multiple-vehicle collision
Yes	10,402	37.2
No	17,563	62.8

Note:

aThis information is derived from the “party/officer level” data file and, therefore, the frequencies sum to greater than the total number of collisions because multiple officer vehicles could be involved in single collision

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By:  Wolfe SE1, Rojek J2, Alpert G1, Tiesman H3, James S4.

• 1Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA.
• 2Department of Criminal Justice, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, USA.
• 3Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Morgantown, West Virginia, USA.
• 4Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA.
• Policing. 2015;38(3):458-477. 

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