Disabled Cars Can Put a Limit on the Number of Daily Patrols
By Christina Hall, The Toledo Blade
When a traffic accident occurs, the police are the first to respond. Sometimes, however, law enforcement officials find themselves - and their patrol cars - amid the mangled mess of metal.
For example, a Toledo police officer was driving on Cherry Street recently when an alleged drunk driver slammed into his cruiser. Fortunately, the officer escaped with only minor injuries.
The vehicle was another story. It will need extensive repairs totaling thousands of dollars.
Perrysburg police can relate. Two officers were outside of their patrol cars investigating an earlier accident on Sept. 21 when an intoxicated driver slammed into the parked cruisers.
The officers weren’t hurt, but one of the cruisers was demolished. The other required $4,800 to repair it.
More often than not, police cars involved in crashes in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan are not the result of pursuits as seen on television shows such as Cops or World’s Wildest Police Videos. They are usually the result of a drunk driver or someone else striking police cars, officers hitting animals, or officers who get into accidents while responding to emergency calls.
“The vast majority will be from fender-benders. Someone backed into someone or ran into someone,” said Officer Randy Kozina, who oversees the motor pool for the Toledo police department.
Officials at most area law enforcement agencies agree that accidents are a cost of doing business. Few departments are spared:
# In Bowling Green, 11 police cruisers have been involved in accidents since the beginning of 2003, resulting in $5,400 damage to the vehicles. Most of the accidents were minor; some involved drunken drivers hitting the cruisers.
# Oregon police, with a fleet of a dozen vehicles, have been involved in 17 minor accidents since 1996, with the most serious causing $3,500 damage.
# Rossford police have had 13 accidents in the last five years with damages estimated between $7,500 and $10,000. One vehicle was damaged in a pursuit.
Vehicle damages from accidents can cost a municipality anywhere from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars if a vehicle has to be replaced.
Small departments suffer
For larger departments, having a vehicle out of service might not be quite as debilitating as for a smaller agency.
Toledo police, the largest municipal police department in the area, have 172 marked and 130 unmarked vehicles. On average, more than 100 vehicles have been involved in accidents each year since 2001.
“It varies widely day to day,” Officer Kozina said. “Certain days you come in and there are 15 cars lined up.”
Smaller departments, such as Lake Township in Wood County and Erie Township in Monroe County, Mich., feel the pinch when just one vehicle is out of service from an accident.
“We’re short-handed on cars as it is, so anytime we lose a car, it drastically affects us,” said Lake Township Police Chief Mark Hummer. who has seven cars in his fleet.
One Lake Township car was demolished in an accident in November - replacing it cost $24,000. A collision with a deer caused $1,800 damage to the windshield and light bar on a cruiser in 2001, the chief said.
“Even if we just lose one to mechanical failure, it can put us in a position to have a car driving 24 hours a day with three different drivers, which is very hard on the car,” Chief Hummer said.
Crashes limit patrols
Erie Township police have four cruisers in their pool, but they’ve suffered more than their share of collisions. In each instance, the wreck put the cruiser out of service until it could be fixed, making road patrols more difficult for the small agency.
Two of them during the last 18 months involved Officer Anthony Konopka, through no fault of his own.
“I’ve gotten hit twice,” he said. “Once last winter I was on I-75 writing a [crash] report when somebody lost it behind me and slammed into the back of my car. Just a few months ago, I got T-boned [struck broadside] while I was northbound on Telegraph [Road] by a car that ran a stop sign at Rauch Road.”
In some cases, area police vehicles were involved in accidents while responding to emergency calls.
In Ottawa County, a third of the nine accidents that occurred since 1998 involved sheriff’s deputies responding to such calls, Chief Deputy Bob Bratton said.
Maumee police have been involved in 15 accidents that damaged cruisers since 1999. Of these, six occurred while responding to emergency calls, Sergeant Gayle Lohrbach said.
One happened in May on the Anthony Wayne Trail at Michigan Avenue when an officer and a volunteer firefighter were responding to the same fire call. The firefighter, who was driving his own car, collided with the police cruiser. The cruiser was destroyed, and both drivers were hurt.
In Toledo, about 10 percent of the total number of officer injuries each of the last four years has been from motor vehicle accidents.
No Lucas County sheriff deputies have been hurt this year in accidents involving five vehicles among its pool of 99.
Authorities said fatal traffic accidents involving law enforcement personnel are rare, but they do occur. Four years ago, a Clay Township police officer was killed when his cruiser hit a tractor-trailer as it was pulling onto State Rt. 51 near Genoa. He was working an overtime shift for Genoa police.
Fatalities in police pursuits are also uncommon, but likewise do occur and are more likely to happen than when officers are on routine patrol.
Toledo police officers who lost track of a suspect in a pursuit in 1995 collided with a car at Douglas Road and Berdan Avenue, killing a 9-year-old girl.
Policies on pursuits
Each area law enforcement agency has a written policy in place covering vehicle pursuits. Some of the policies are several pages long and most take into consideration a variety of circumstances, including type of crime, road and weather conditions, and location.
Swanton police officers can intentionally cause damage to patrol cars during chases only if there is danger of a suspect causing injury to bystanders or other citizens, Chief Homer Chapa said.
Most law enforcement agencies, including the Lucas County sheriff’s office and Delta police, generally prohibit using their vehicles to deliberately ram a suspect vehicle or to create a “running road blocks” where patrol cars surround a vehicle to force the driver to stop.
“Our policy states that deliberate physical contact between vehicles is not justified unless the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious harm to others if he escapes,” Maumee’s Sergeant Lohrbach said.
In some cases, policies require that chases must be reported to a dispatcher, authorized or monitored by a supervisor, and remain in the jurisdiction unless for a serious offense. Tire-deflation devices are used to end pursuits in many, but not all communities.
Short chases take toll
Sylvania Township is operating with 10 marked cars after one was damaged in an accident during a short pursuit when a theft suspect slammed on the brakes and then ran, Capt. Robert Boehme said.
The suspect was later arrested although the police car chasing him had significant damage.
Law enforcement agencies who serve rural areas - Wood County and Fulton County sheriff’s offices and Swanton police among them - said most of their wrecks are from collisions with deer.
Authorities in some smaller communities surveyed stated it’s rare for them to have vehicles damaged in accidents.
Ottawa Hills Police Chief Robert Overmeyer said he can’t recall when one of his five patrol cars has been out of service because of damage.
Vehicles sometimes are damaged when officers hit or scrape an object pulling into or out of an unfamiliar driveway.
Aside from a possible quick chase on Central Avenue, the village is too residential for pursuits, he said.
One of six Sylvania police cruisers was struck in the rear this year while it was stopped at a red light. No vehicles were hit last year and only one vehicle was damaged in 2002, again when it was hit from behind.
Damage is expected
Adrian Police Chief Mike Martin said there are usually just two or three accidents each year in which there is some significant damage to the department’s 10 marked and six unmarked vehicles, but some damage has to be expected.
“That’s the nature of our work. We’re on the streets 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said.
Toledo’s fleet of police vehicles averages about 3 million miles a year. Officer Kozina said 82 marked vehicles had more than 100,000 miles on them in June.
The five oldest paddy wagons registered more than 200,000 miles and one is close to 300,000 miles.
“Picture your own car but double the years on it and triple or quadruple the maintenance on it,” Officer Kozina said.
Capt. MaryAnne Ortman, who oversees the Monroe County, Mich., sheriff department’s fleet of 73 vehicles, including about 30 marked patrol cars, understands.
The largest law enforcement office in Monroe County, the sheriff’s vehicles travel as many as 600 miles daily, depending on the vehicle’s assignment.
The fleet averages about 20 incidents of vehicle damage a year.
“When you put as many miles on as we do, chances are you’re going to get pretty banged up,” Captain Ortman said.