{"id":1389,"date":"2012-04-27T12:25:18","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T16:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=1389"},"modified":"2012-07-16T11:25:27","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T15:25:27","slug":"florida-highway-patrol-the-latest-victim-of-media%e2%80%99s-crystal-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=1389","title":{"rendered":"Florida Highway Patrol the Latest Victim of Media\u2019s Crystal Ball"},"content":{"rendered":"

On January 29, 2012, there was a\"\"<\/a> terrible series of crashes on I-75 in Alachua County in the Paynes Prairie Preserve area just south of Gainesville.\u00a0 Smoke from a wildfire and early morning fog conspired to create deadly road conditions, which resulted in six vehicle crashes and 11 fatalities.<\/p>\n

A 38-page report<\/a> released by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement yesterday detailed a number of findings indicating the Florida Highway Patrol, and specifically FHP Lt. John Gourley, made decisions that morning which would ultimately impact the events on I-75.<\/p>\n

Following the release of this report, mainstream media outlets immediately slanted the findings of the report to insinuate that the FHP made errors that caused the crashes, despite the FDLE conclusion that no member of the FHP acted with \u201ccriminal intent\u201d and that \u201cagency personnel acted in a manner which they believed was appropriate and in the best interest of restoring the safe and orderly flow of traffic to the roadways.\u201d<\/p>\n

District Lt. Gourley was off duty on Jan. 29 when he was notified of the closure of I-75.\u00a0 He came in service and responded to assume command at the scene.\u00a0 He personally observed road conditions on I-75 and U.S. 441, another affected roadway, for over an hour and a half.\u00a0 He drove the eight mile Paynes Prairie I-75 stretch several times, each time noting various levels of visibility.<\/p>\n

At 0326 hrs, Gourley felt that the conditions on I-75 were safe for motorists and he ordered the roadway to be opened.\u00a0 He requested Florida Department of Transportation assets stay on scene.\u00a0 He further requested Alachua County Sheriff\u2019s Office assist FHP with monitoring I-75.\u00a0 He recalled FHP Day Shift to report in at 0400 hrs to supplement the Midnight Shift watch.<\/p>\n

Because of low visibility conditions and previous crashes on both I-75 and US 441 on Jan. 28 and 29, agencies involved in the situation included FHP, ACSO, Gainesville PD, Florida Forest Service, Florida Parks Service, Florida Office of Agricultural Law Enforcement, FDOT, and Alachua County Fire Rescue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Lt. John Gourley, FHP<\/p><\/div>\n

I-75 had originally been closed at 0021 hrs and remained closed in both directions until it was reopened at Lt. Gourley\u2019s order at about 0326 hrs.\u00a0 At about 0400 hrs, an FDOT worker noticed a wall of smoke\/fog over the northbound I-75.\u00a0 The series of fatal crashes occurred minutes later.<\/p>\n

The FDLE investigation identified what it felt were FHP policy deficiencies and communication errors that had an impact that night.\u00a0 The policy deficiencies relate to road closure evaluation and training.\u00a0 Some communications breakdowns occurred between the different government agencies.<\/p>\n

There was a constantly changing set of variables at work on Jan. 29 in Paynes Prairie.\u00a0 One man had the duty and made a call based upon his experience and his direct observations.\u00a0 That decision was questioned by a subordinate, who then denied some of his own statements and changed his account during the FDLE inquiry.<\/p>\n

I disagree with the media implication that FHP was responsible for the crashes.\u00a0 The driver of a motor vehicle is ultimately responsible for its safe travel.\u00a0 The FHP is statutorily empowered:<\/p>\n

\u201cto patrol the state highways and regulate, control, and direct the movement of traffic thereon; to maintain the public peace by preventing violence on highways; to apprehend fugitives from justice; to enforce all laws regulating and governing traffic, travel, and public safety upon the public highways and providing for the protection of the public highways and public property thereon, including the security and safety of this state\u2019s transportation infrastructure\u201d (F.S.S. 321.05).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is no way the FHP can account for every road condition and adjust to ever changing weather and human limitations.\u00a0 If that were the case, they\u2019d close the all roads each time a rain shower came down.\u00a0 More dangerous, right?<\/p>\n

Lt. Gourley\u2019s decision to reopen I-75 would be a non-issue and just another one of thousands of routine decisions made every day by Florida\u2019s law enforcement officers if the unpredictable smoke had not drifted over the highway and drivers\u2019 situational awareness not become overloaded.<\/p>\n

The media apparently thinks it is easy to predict the outcome of a decision forged in a fire of complex factors, so I will gladly replace my cruiser\u2019s Mobile Data System with their Crystal Ball.\u00a0 Anybody know where I can requisition a console mount?<\/p>\n

Randall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On January 29, 2012, there was a terrible series of crashes on I-75 in Alachua County in the Paynes Prairie Preserve area just south of Gainesville.\u00a0 Smoke from a wildfire and early morning fog conspired to create deadly road conditions, which resulted in six vehicle crashes and 11 fatalities. A 38-page report released by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement yesterday detailed a number of findings indicating the Florida Highway Patrol, and specifically FHP Lt. John Gourley, made decisions that morning which would ultimately impact the events on I-75. Following the release of this report, mainstream media outlets immediately slanted the findings of the report to insinuate that the FHP … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[407,349,10],"tags":[262,260,261],"class_list":["post-1389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-politics","category-street","tag-fatal-crash-i-75","tag-florida-highway-patrol","tag-lt-john-gourley"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28xkp-mp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1389"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2276,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389\/revisions\/2276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}