Lessons Learnt from Roadside Collisions: A Canadian Police Perspective

Traffic related collisions involving law enforcement vehicles are typically classified as vehicle to vehicle or roadside collisions. According to the FBI’s Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) reported there were 62 officers killed between 2015 and 2020.  In 2021, there were 19 officers struck by passing vehicles, 42% of these officers were investigating crashes and 26% were conducting traffic control.  Canada does not track these statistics, so researchers sought to determine the level of concern for Canadian officers.

To reduce collisions, it is important to identify contributing factors.  These are typically classified as:

• Environmental (weather, road type, time of day)
• Human Behavior (driver behavior – i.e. impaired and police behavior – vehicle placement)
• Vehicle Technology (Warning systems)

The issue is compounded by few studies that have been conducted of roadside collisions. This study sought to address four issues:

• Whether roadside collisions involving Canadian officers are an issue to be concerned?
• What are the contributing factors?
• Are officers being provided proper training?
• Are officers willing to utilize technology to provide warnings of a potential collision

Researchers used the survey responses from 59 officers with a range of experience of 1 to 34 years. Forty-nine percent had more than 10 years of experience. The survey questioned contributing factors for near-miss and real collisions regarding environmental factors, human behavior, and type of roadway. Of the 59 officers, 19 (32%) had been involved in a roadside collision for a total of 11.  All the respondents had been involved in a near-miss collision for a total of 136 incidents. Sixty percent of the collisions occurred when the officer was located inside the patrol vehicle.

Researchers found the occurrence of near-miss and collisions followed the same pattern on any road except for freeways and rural roads. Freeways had a greater percentage of collisions than the number of near misses whereas rural roads had a higher percentage of near misses as compared with collisions.

Officers reported 40% of the near misses occurred while the officer was inside their vehicle and 60% of collisions occurred while they were outside the vehicle.  Conversely, 60% of the

collisions occurred when the officers were inside the vehicle and 40% occurred when they were outside the vehicle.

The researchers inquired how officers conducted traffic-related activities:

Position of Vehicle:                                  Approach to Vehicle:

54% angled                                                79.3% driver’s side

41% parallel                                               10.3% Passenger Side

                                                                   10.3% Both sides

Using this information, they created six scenarios and asked for feedback on how they would respond to a near-miss or collision.

As part of their survey, 81% of respondents said they had little to very little training of how to avoid a collision.  Fifty-four percent said they had no awareness of the best practices. When asked of how to learn of best practices about half referred to training, and half noted experience.

In summary, 73% of real collisions and 70% of near misses occurred on high speed roads (interstates and major highways). Sixty percent of near misses occurred when the officer was out of the vehicle. Of this 60%, 41% occurred when the officer was on the driver side of the stopped vehicle.

Eighty-one percent said they have little to very little training to respond to roadside collisions, highlighting the need for training and potential technology to warn officers of a collision. While the ‘move over’ rule has been effective, officers still feel unsafe when performing activities on the side of the road.

NOTE: For more information on vehicle positioning please see our previous Georgia Police Chief article on research conducted by the Georgia Public Safety Training Center.