{"id":765,"date":"2012-03-10T13:32:37","date_gmt":"2012-03-10T18:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=765"},"modified":"2012-03-11T07:31:22","modified_gmt":"2012-03-11T11:31:22","slug":"florida-forms-police-car-crash-task-force%e2%80%94for-no-good-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=765","title":{"rendered":"Florida Forms Police Crash Task Force\u2014For No Good Reason"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A State Task Force has been empaneled to study police vehicle crashes.\u00a0 The Governor\u2019s Office has appointed Florida Highway Patrol Director Col. David Brierton Jr., Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight, and Winter Park Police Chief Brett Railey to study law enforcement training, agency policies, and crash data.\u00a0 I do not see why.<\/p>\n

The Orlando Sentinel<\/em> boasts the State Task Force was formed based upon the newspaper\u2019s series of articles about police crashes and public safety. Sentinel<\/em> reporters studied crash statistics from 2006 to 2010 and tallied an average of 7,400 police car crashes per year, causing 2,400 injuries, 20 deaths, and $25 million in property damage.<\/p>\n

One Sentinel<\/em> article states, \u201cAbout 7,400 crashes a year involve cops.\u00a0 In one out of every four, they\u2019re at least partially to blame, and they seldom are ticketed, the data revealed.\u00a0 In fact, though average drivers receive citations if they are at fault in crashes more than 64 percent of the time, officers are cited less than 11 percent of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look dispassionately at The Orlando Sentinel\u2019s<\/em> numbers.\u00a0 For the five-year period, 1.6 million Florida crashes were studied.\u00a0 Using The Sentinel\u2019s<\/em> calculations, the overall number of police crashes in those five years comes to 37,000.\u00a0 That is just 2 percent of crashes statewide.<\/p>\n

Further, The Sentinel<\/em> said that the police are \u201cat least partially to blame\u201d in one out of four law enforcement crashes.\u00a0 Since that would be only 9,250 of 1.6 million, the number of at-fault police crashes is a tiny one-half of one percent.\u00a0 Great job, troops!<\/p>\n

Hey, I can turn that around to read:\u00a0 Private Citizens Responsible for 99.43% of Florida Car Crashes!\u00a0 Let\u2019s take away everyone\u2019s car keys.<\/p>\n

\u201cOfficers are cited less than 11 percent of the time.\u201d\u00a0 Yes, but we are subject to disciplinary action much stricter than a civil fine.\u00a0 In my municipality, an at-fault crash is an automatic three-day suspension.\u00a0 For the average officer, that can amount to over five times the civil penalty a citizen pays.\u00a0 In addition, we can be fired from our jobs because of at-fault crashes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Florida Senate Bill 416 and House Bill 299 seek to make it illegal to text while driving.\u00a0 When polled, 71 percent of Florida voters (who cause 99.43% of all crashes) recognize that distracted driving is dangerous and causes wrecks, hence the texting legislation.<\/p>\n

A police officer behind the wheel has a ridiculous amount of mandatory work-related distractors: \u00a0computer terminals, radio frequencies, the need to scan for crime outside the car, officer safety requirements when driving into scenes, and more.\u00a0 Add to that running lights and siren and\/or chasing violators.\u00a0 I would say that for the most part, cops do a fantastic job of driving their public vehicles.<\/p>\n

Sooo, I do not see why the State Task Force, which will first meet April 6 in Tampa, was formed to study this issue\u00a0 Even Task Force member Railey says he is not sure there is<\/em> a problem.\u00a0 Since The Orlando Sentinel<\/em> is so proud of their work being the impetus for this unnecessary task force, maybe the citizens of Florida should send a bill to the newspaper for wasting taxpayers\u2019 dollars.<\/p>\n

In all seriousness, as law enforcement professionals, we should use extreme care when driving our police vehicles and take our training very seriously.\u00a0 Because of the daily demands of our job, we need to recognize that we are at risk to be distracted and have a vehicle crash.\u00a0 Be alert and be safe.<\/p>\n

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

A State Task Force has been empaneled to study police vehicle crashes.\u00a0 The Governor\u2019s Office has appointed Florida Highway Patrol Director Col. David Brierton Jr., Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight, and Winter Park Police Chief Brett Railey to study law enforcement training, agency policies, and crash data.\u00a0 I do not see why. The Orlando Sentinel boasts the State Task Force was formed based upon the newspaper\u2019s series of articles about police crashes and public safety. Sentinel reporters studied crash statistics from 2006 to 2010 and tallied an average of 7,400 police car crashes per year, causing 2,400 injuries, 20 deaths, and $25 million in property damage. One Sentinel article states, … 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":[5,8,10],"tags":[139,137,134,136,138,135],"class_list":["post-765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal","category-misc","category-street","tag-cruiser-accident","tag-defensive-driving","tag-orlando-sentinel","tag-police-car-crashes","tag-police-vehicle","tag-state-task-force"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28xkp-cl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765","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=765"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":774,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions\/774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}