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String of CHP Officers Killed This Year

It has been a deadly 2010 for the California Highway Patrol. There we way too many CHP officers killed. The job of these troopers is undoubtedly a dangerous one, but even with these risks, the death toll this year has been unbearably high.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a total of five California Highway Patrol officers have been killed in the line of duty in the first six months of the year alone. Two officers were killed in two separate accidents this Sunday. The first death occurred six weeks ago when a California Highway Patrol pilot died when his plane crashed in the Imperial Valley. Another officer was killed in a motorcycle accident, when his motorcycle crashed into a tractor-trailer as he was chasing suspects in a stolen car. Out of the five deaths, three CHP officers killed were mowed down by cars on the shoulder of the freeway.

The job is one of the most dangerous in California, and involves high-speed chases in potentially deadly situations involving dangerous people. But these five deaths raise questions about the kind of protections that are offered to California’s law enforcement elite. It’s not that California has done little to enhance protections for California Highway Patrol officers. In 2007, California adopted a law that requires drivers to move to the left or slow down whenever they see a CHP vehicle at the side of a highway. California was one of the states in the country to pass a law that allowed California Highway Patrol officers to approach a stopped vehicle from the passenger side rather than from the driver’s side, in order to avoid being hit by a speeding car.

The safety of California Highway Patrol officers who do so much to keep our highways safe for motorists, has been the subject of much research. According to experts who have studied the California Highway Patrol for decades, the age or experience of the officers has nothing to do with the risk of a fatal accident. In fact, there don’t seem to be any particular patterns in the five deaths that occurred this year. The only conclusion that California accident lawyers can draw is that motorists need to be extra careful when there are emergency vehicles on the street.

The last major spike in fatalities involving California Highway Patrol officers was back in 2005 when they were six deaths in a span of six months. Soon after those deaths, there was a review that looked at how officers pull over cars. This new spike in deaths has not yet led to the announcement of the review.

Nationwide, the number of law enforcement officers being killed in accidents has actually been on a decline. According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, in 2009, 51 officers were killed across the country in the line of duty, compared to 84 in 2007. This year, the number of fatalities has increased with 41 deaths so far, compared with 31 during the same period in 2009.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of car accidents. Please visit our website at http://www.robertreeveslaw.com/. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us at contact@robertreeveslaw.com.

The Reeves Law Group is not representing any party in the matters discussed in this posting.

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