How much training were you given in your basic or in-service training for driving at speeds of 110 mph? How about 100 mph? 80 mph... were you given any training at high-speed pursuits or emergency response training at 80 mph? 60 mph? In all of your training did you ever engage in pursuits in realistic conditions including marked intersections, with cross traffic, pedestrians and other obstacles present at 60 mph? How about at night? Have you ever completed any pursuit or emergency response training at night in low or subdued lighting? Last year 81 law enforcement officers in this country were killed in traffic related incidents. Isn't it time we deal with this issue?
Perception, Response Time and Decision Making
With average response times to a stimulus being around .75 to 1.5 seconds and a vehicle traveling 1.5 feet per mph, according to police driving instructor Rich Stammitti, an officer driving at 60 mph will travel around 120 feet after they perceive the need to apply the brakes but prior to pushing the brake pedal. This does not include the time/distance for the cruiser to actually stop. Drive faster and the response time/braking distance increases. Throw in the perceptual distortions of fight or flight (SNS - sympathetic nervous system reaction) such as tunnel vision and auditory exclusion and you may not see that citizen vehicle with the right-of-way approaching the intersection until you're right on top of it or hear that fellow officer's siren blasting as he barrels through that four-way.
Further, SNS does not promote good cognitive decisions on your part. While in the middle of a pursuit you may not realize that you should, for safety's sake, cancel the chase or that you are endangering innocents on the streets and highways while engaged in your activities. Supervisors must be given the right to cancel your chase based on your reported high-speeds, traffic conditions and the reason for the chase.
Training
Like any physio-motor skill your abilities behind the wheel improve with training. Heretofore training has focused on low-speed maneuverability events with an emphasis on backing-up. After all, that's where all those dinks and doinks appear on a patrol car. Granted those property related accidents are annoying to most agencies but can they be prevented? It is my contention that most are caused by driver inattentiveness - not lack of abilities. On the street do we really want them backing up as much as is required on most state's police driving courses? Wouldn't it be better if we promote backing-up only as far as is necessary to drive forward? Even if you use the rear-view and side-view mirrors, it cannot equal the amount of view you have when looking through the front windshield. A fellow trainer recently told the story about one agency's personnel that continually hit a pole while backing their transport vans out of a designated spot. The impact marks were on all of the vans and they had to resort to spending training time learning how to conduct this maneuver.
My question was, "Is it a load bearing pole?" If the pole was not required to be there it would be better to remove it than spend valuable training time for this damage. Instead we waste time learning to do something that could better be served in training to save officer's lives. Despite the over emphasis on backing-up in police driver's training, how many officers were killed or how many citizens were killed in low-speed reverse maneuvers conducted by police last year?
With lack of realistic training in most agencies, more than anything else we must emphasize sound decision making while behind the wheel. Some police driver's training promotes the idea that officers should drive at 80% of their abilities. Personally, I don't want officers driving at 80% while engaged in a pursuit or in emergency response. It is far safer if they don't put themselves in situations this demanding. Yes, the bad guys may get away more often but the officer(s) will be able to drive away as well... completing the #1 mission of police work - making it home. How fast or how reckless would you want patrol officers driving around with your loved ones in the family car on the same roads?
The Elephant in the Room
Police pursuit and emergency response driving is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund Law Enforcement Deaths, 2007 over the last ten years the majority (55%) of officers killed in-the-line-of-duty have been in traffic related incidents. If so many of our officers are being killed behind the wheel (and they are...) why are we not aggressively training them to avoid such tragedies? More importantly, why is it that agencies, counties or state law enforcement oversight entities are not building police driver training facilities to conduct such training? Don't tell me that the state academy has a wonderful facility... a lot of good that does a municipal agency two hours away. From a civil liabilities perspective alone (the driving force behind police training for the last twenty years) payouts from pursuit related civil suits have exceeded use of deadly force and are the number one liability in law enforcement. Yet our culture still breeds a "pursue at any cost" culture.
For the past ten years traffic related deaths have exceeded death by gunfire in law enforcement. We must stem the tide of traffic-related deaths in our profession. We must develop training facilities and train realistically in pursuit and emergency response operations. Until that the time when we have facilities and training, we must promote common sense behind the wheel and mandate sound decision making. If the goal is to arrive alive, and it should be, then let's slow down and be in complete control of the police vehicle.
