Over the last several years, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have developed a strong partnership that has allowed the two groups to disseminate information on traffic safety topics and training to officers throughout the country through online webinars, as well as live events.
This article appeared in the January/February issue of OFFICER Magazine. Click Here to subscribe to OFFICER Magazine.
In January, the two groups held their 2024 4th Quarter Traffic Safety Webinar and looked at some of the statistics and trends surrounding both law enforcement traffic-involved injuries and deaths last year. Nick Breul, Senior Program Manager for National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, who was joined by Reo Nelson from the Enforcement and Justice Services Division NHTSA, shared some insights surrounding the statistics.
By the numbers
According to the 2024 End-of-Year Preliminary Law Enforcement Officers Fatalities Report (read more on page 48), released by the NLEOMF in early January, traffic-related fatalities increased by 48% with 46 deaths in 2024, compared to 31 deaths in 2023. The 29 fatal crashes in 2024 represents an increase of 26% compared to the 23 fatal crashes in 2023. “Struck-by” fatalities, defined as an officer struck outside of their patrol vehicle, increased 113% from 8 in 2023 to 17 in 2024.
Breul says he’s alarmed by the almost 50% overall increase, and focused on several areas of concern. “Of the 27 automobile crashes, 6 of those 27 were single-vehicle crashes. You know, I can always call those out. Those are preventable crashes, and are largely the result of a driving error by an officer, speed, overcorrection, failing to negotiate a curve, or distraction.”
Another thing his team did was break down the cases by the type of agency. “We do that just to give everybody a general idea and remind them that there are a large number of different types of law enforcement agencies in the United States. Each of them has its own training regimens, its own requirements and its own duties.” Sixteen of the fatalities were from municipal agencies. Fourteen were from sheriff’s agencies. Thirteen were from state, one in federal and one territorial. There were two constables and one tribal line of duty death.
Of the traffic-related deaths, 48% of the fallen officers were not wearing their seat belts. “We talk about this all the time,” he says. “This is this number has been at that level for the last 10 years. This to me is one of the major things that we have to address.”
Struck by crashes
Breul stressed that the area of struck by crashes, in which an officer is out of the vehicle and struck by an oncoming motorist, is a major concern that needs to be addressed. “We can work harder to make these scenes safer,” he says.
Six of the 17 struck by fatalities were officers working on the scene of a crash. “They were investigating it, getting driver information, setting up cones, whatever it may be. Those six law enforcement officers were struck and killed while working the scene of a crash, often with lots of emergency equipment out there. Lots of flashing lights. To me it’s inexplicable that people don’t see this and seem to drive through. I know in one case they’ve already documented a guy who was watching a movie on his phone and drove right into the crash scene. It just shocks me.”
A five year look at struck-by crashes shows that between 2019 and 2024 there were 105 such deaths. In 2019 there were 19. In 2020 and 2022 there were 16 recorded in each year. The 5-year high was 27 in 2021, and the low was 10 in 2023.
“This gives you an idea of kind of where we stand. Twenty-seven was the huge outlier, which prompted us to take some action and begin to really even look harder at the problem. I thought we were seeing success, but now we’ve gone back up.” He adds that to him, a year-over-year increase of seven cases is a lot. “I know these are small numbers. They may be—technically in terms of the number of law enforcement officers who serve these areas—statistically insignificant numbers, but they’re significant to us here at the NLEOMF and they’re certainly significant to all the agencies that have officers struck and killed. While a seven-case increase might not seem like much, it’s actually quite large for what we’re measuring.”
He singled out one incident that occurred in Florida late last year. Palm Beach County Deputy Ignacio “Dan” Diaz, Cpl. Luis Paez and Deputy Ralph “Butch” Waller Jr. were struck by a vehicle in Loxahatchee at approximately 9 a.m. on Nov. 21. One of the deputies had completed a traffic stop when his patrol motorcycle would not start. The deputy called other officers for assistance. While Diaz, Waller and Paez were waiting for another deputy to help with the disabled motorcycle, a driver traveling east on Southern Boulevard switched lanes to pass a slower vehicle, overcompensated, and struck all three deputies. The responding deputy witnessed the collision. Waller and Paez were flown to St. Mary’s Hospital, where they were pronounced dead. Diaz passed away four days later. The driver suffered only minor injuries.
“It’s just terrible. This is huge for this agency, and it’s very rare that we have these multiple cases, but I wanted to highlight it because it is emblematic of the problems that are going on in our roadways where officers are being struck and killed in these incidents,” he says. “We’ve got to figure out how to do better to keep people’s eyes on the road and off their phones or whatever it is they’re on.”
Keeping track of cases
As part of his research, Breul reviews news reports from across the country involving officer-involved traffic-related incidents. Out of the more than 300 incidents he tracked, 262 resulted in an injury. Out of those cases, a total of 291 officers were injured with many of the cases including multiple injuries. He added that the number of crashes he found through news sources is likely close to double that number when unreported crashes are included.
Sixty-nine of the cases involved pursuits. Fourteen of those pursuits involved stolen police vehicles. “These are things that I think law enforcement needs to be aware of,” Breul says, adding that something needs to be done to allow the vehicles to be instantly disabled. “They all lead to pursuits. There are guns in that car, there’s ammunition in that car. There’s tactical gear, there’s radio gear. There is all kinds of stuff in that car, not to mention it’s a marked police car, that you can’t have a non-law enforcement officer driving the city in.”
He also added that other non-civilian vehicles that were stolen and led to pursuits included tractor trailers, construction equipment, farm equipment, city buses, fire trucks, ambulances and military trucks. “It’s a real problem when you have buses that are stolen, heavy equipment that can bash through things. It may be a good idea to think about developing a tactical plan.”
The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are unified in their effort to research and address traffic incidents involving law enforcement personnel. “We have featured videos on officers who’ve survived crashes before and one of our first videos was an officer who was not able to make it back to work because of the traumatic brain injury that she suffered when she was struck,” says Breul. “We cannot ignore the injuries and I’m doing my best to really get my arms around what the data looks like as best I can.”
To view the webinar, visit: officer.com/55264603
Paul Peluso | Editor
Paul Peluso is the Managing Editor of OFFICER Magazine and has been with the Officer Media Group since 2006. He began as an Associate Editor, writing and editing content for Officer.com. Previously, Paul worked as a reporter for several newspapers in the suburbs of Baltimore, MD.
