A Rise In Traffic Fatalities Leads To A Spike In Law Enforcement Officer Deaths

[cpzilliacus]

NPR: A Rise In Traffic Fatalities Leads To A Spike In Law Enforcement Officer Deaths

Traffic poses the biggest threat to officers

Car crashes and other traffic-related incidents pose the biggest threat to police officers, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the memorial fund.

More than 800 officers died as a result of these incidents from 2006 to 2019. That's 43% of all line-of-duty deaths.

The CDC says behavior-related hazards put officers at particular risk for traffic-related injuries or death on the job. These include not wearing a seat belt, speeding, being distracted while on a device while driving or experiencing tunnel vision from increased stress.

[jamess]

Police know that traffic deaths are really high - which is why I dont understand why they push so hard against camera enforcement.

Pulling over someone for speeding creates two dangers. One, the possibility of another motorist crashing into the officer standing on the road, and two, the possibility of the person being pulled over shooting the officer.

Camera enforcement removes both dangers.

[hotdogPi]

Camera enforcement removes both dangers.

Camera enforcement catches innocent people.

[jakeroot]

WSDOT regularly shares news of their attenuator trucks being struck by errant vehicles. It's very alarming.

I seem to recall reading that people are naturally drawn to bright lights, like those of an emergency vehicle in the shoulder. Combinations of fatigue, rubbernecking, and perhaps a bit of hypnosis...there's no excuse, and far be it for me to suggest there ever would be. But it seems the same thing that warns drivers of the presence of an emergency vehicle could be the very thing that draws the occasional motorist to the vehicle. Combined with drivers who don't understand the concept of a safety buffer (aka: giving a lane), and it seems like we have a recipe for at least an occasional disaster.

I think like jamess said above, the ultimate solution is really to reduce the number of emergency stops. Cars are like water: they can be controlled, but in large amounts, are truly overwhelming. Thinking that we can end this sort of thing is wishful thinking, I fear, and the best solution is to switch to automated enforcement of basic road laws, reserving emergency stops for only the most paramount of situations. Removing police from the dangerous situation (basically: incredible speed differential) is certainly not as valuable as eliminating said dangerous situation, but we have to do what we can in the interim before self driving or whatever.

There is plenty of precedent: British police services already work like this. Sure, the public has an overall distaste for average speed cameras, but I don't read about news stories like this as police are not usually stopped in the hard shoulder of a motorway or dual carriageway.