Abstract
TRAFFIC SAFETY EFFECTIVENESS
OF ADDITIONAL STATE TROOPERS
Dana Steil and David Brown,
University of Alabama Center for Advanced Public Safety
On average, these are conservative estimates in that they are based on only the reduction of crashes during short term increases in the trooper patrol force. It does not take into account the cumulative effect of adding troopers over a longer time period, nor does it take into effect the reduced severity of crashes where officers’ presence serves to deter excessive speed, and enables them to be available to arrive at the scene, administer first aid and otherwise mitigate the consequences of the crash.
It is known that every ten miles per hour reduction in impact speed cuts the probability of a crash being fatal in half. Thus, the expected presence of an officer can have much more of an effect on fatalities than overall crashes. The estimates above were based on total crashes with their normally expected severities.
The following display presents the data used in this study in graphical form. The blue line indicates the number of officers on patrol for a given week. The red line indicates the number of crashes that occurred during that week. Generally it can be seen that when there is a spike up on the number of officers there will be a spike down in the number of crashes, and vice versa.
Reduction in Crashes during Increased Patrol Periods
The Alabama Department of Public Safety as well as other local law enforcement agencies are facing severe budget restrictions in the coming years. There can be little doubt that this will negatively impact the safety of Alabama roadways.
For the full report see: http://sha2.aladata.com/articles/Enforcement-Additional_Troopers-04.pdf