Dataset Information

Characteristics of officer-involved vehicle collisions in California.

ABSTRACT: PURPOSE:The purpose of this paper is to examine the situational and individual officer characteristics of officer-involved vehicle collisions that result in fatality, injury, and non-injury outcomes. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH:Data on 35,840 vehicle collisions involving law enforcement officers in California occurring between January 2000 and December 2009 are examined. A descriptive analysis of collision characteristics is presented. FINDINGS:There were 39 officers killed by collisions over this study period and 7,684 officers who received some type injury. Incidents involving officers on motorcycles represented 39 percent of officer fatalities and 39 percent of severe injuries. In the case of fatalities, 33 percent of officers were reported as wearing seatbelts, 38 percent were not wearing a seatbelt, and seatbelt use was not stated in 29 percent of car fatalities. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS:The findings only represent one state and the analysis is based on an estimated 86 percent of collisions that occurred during the study period due to missing data. Nonetheless, the results are based on a robust sample and address key limitations in the existing literature. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS:During the study period in California the estimated financial impact of collisions reached into the hundreds of millions of dollars when considering related fatality, injury, and vehicle damage costs combined. These impacts highlight the need for the law enforcement community to give greater attention to this issue. ORIGINALITY/VALUE:At the time of this writing there was no published independent research that compares the situational and officer characteristics across fatality, injury, and non-injury outcomes in these events. The findings reported here will help inform emerging interest in this issue within the law enforcement, academic, and policy-making communities.

SUBMITTER: Wolfe SE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4748714 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Characteristics of officer-involved vehicle collisions in California.

Wolfe Scott E SE Rojek Jeff J Alpert Geoff G Tiesman Hope H James Stephen S

Policing (Bradford, England) 20150101 3

<h4>Purpose</h4>The purpose of this paper is to examine the situational and individual officer characteristics of officer-involved vehicle collisions that result in fatality, injury, and non-injury outcomes.<h4>Design/methodology/approach</h4>Data on 35,840 vehicle collisions involving law enforcement officers in California occurring between January 2000 and December 2009 are examined. A descriptive analysis of collision characteristics is presented.<h4>Findings</h4>There were 39 officers killed ...[more]

PMID: 26877704

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Project description:ObjectiveThe mechanism of injury (MOI) criteria assist in determining which patients are at high risk of severe injury and would benefit from direct transport to a trauma center. The goal of this study was to determine whether the prognostic performance of the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) MOI criteria for motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) has changed during the decade since the guidelines were approved. Secondary objectives were to evaluate the performance of these criteria for different age groups and evaluate potential criteria that are not currently in the guidelines.MethodsData were obtained from NASS and Crash Investigation Sampling System (CISS) for 2000-2009 and 2010-2019. Cases missing injury severity were excluded, and all other missing data were imputed. The outcome of interest was Injury Severity Score (ISS) ≥16. The area under the receiver operator characteristic (AUROC) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were obtained from 1,000 bootstrapped samples using national case weights. The AUROC for the existing CDC MOI criteria were compared between the 2 decades. The performance of the criteria was also assessed for different age groups based on accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. Potential new criteria were then evaluated when added to the current CDC MOI criteria.ResultsThere were 150,683 (weighted 73,423,189) cases identified for analysis. There was a small but statistically significant improvement in the AUROC of the MOI criteria in the later decade (2010-2019; AUROC = 0.77, 95% CI [0.76-0.78]) compared to the earlier decade (2000-2009; AUROC = 0.75, 95% CI [0.74-0.76]). The accuracy and specificity did not vary with age, but the sensitivity dropped significantly for older adults (0-18 years: 0.62, 19-54 years: 0.59, ≥55 years: 0.37, and ≥65 years: 0.36). The addition of entrapment improved the sensitivity of the existing criteria and was the only potential new criterion to maintain a sensitivity above 0.95.ConclusionsThe MOI criteria for MVCs in the current CDC guidelines still perform well even as vehicle design has changed. However, the sensitivity of these criteria for older adults is much lower than for younger occupants. The addition of entrapment improved sensitivity while maintaining high specificity and could be considered as a potential modification to current MOI criteria.

Dataset Information

Characteristics of officer-involved vehicle collisions in California.

Publications

Characteristics of officer-involved vehicle collisions in California.

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