International Journal of Police Science & Management Volume 15 Number 2

A longitudinal examination of officer

deaths from vehicle pursuits

Richard R. Johnson
Criminal Justice Program, University of Toledo, 2801 W. Bancroft St., MS 119, Toledo,
OH 43606, USA. Tel: +1 419 530 4639; Fax: +1 419 530 2153;
email: Richard.Johnson4@utoledo.edu
Submitted 16 June 2013, revision submitted 1 October 2013, accepted
1 October 2013
Keywords: pursuit, police, law enforcement, officer safety, vehicle safety,
public policy

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Richard R. Johnson, PhD, is an associate pro-
fessor of criminal justice at the University of
Toledo in Ohio, and he is a former law enforce-
ment officer. He holds a doctorate in criminal
justice from University of Cincinnati. His research
interests include issues of police management
and police–citizen interactions.
ABSTRACT
Little research has examined the changing
dangerousness of police high-speed pursuits over
time, especially with regard to the safety of the
officer. Using data from all pursuit-related officer
deaths in the USA between 1960 and 2011,
this study tested the hypothesis that the officer
death rate has been decreasing. Least-squares
lines were calculated through the data point of
each year to estimate trends in officer death rates
over time. The findings revealed that the death
rate for officers directly involved in pursuits has
decreased steadily, as has the death rate for officers
manning roadblocks. The death rate for officers
deploying spike strips or travelling to assist in the
pursuit, however, has been steadily increasing.
The findings suggest further development of pur-
suit policies to address these issues.
INTRODUCTION
Police high-speed vehicle pursuits create
many hazards for the public. While the vast
majority of vehicle pursuits are initiated for
minor criminal or traffic offences (Alpert,
1997), 40 per cent of pursuits result in
property damage from a motor vehicle
crash (Alpert, Dunham, & Stroshine, 2006),
with damage costs estimated to be over
$1,000,000 annually (Alpert et al., 2006).
Almost half of pursuit crashes also result in
physical injuries to the occupants of the
fleeing vehicle, police officers or
uninvolved third parties (Alpert et al.,
2006). Approximately 1 in every 100 pur-
suits results in a fatality (Hill, 2002), with
more than one third of these fatalities being
uninvolved third parties or police officers
(Rivara & Mack, 2004).
Fortunately, the dangers posed by police
vehicle pursuits appear to have been
decreasing in recent years. Improvements in
vehicle safety technology (Vanderbilt,
2009), emergency medicine (National
Research Council, 2007), more restrictive
police departmental policies governing pur-
suits (Alpert et al., 2006) and anti-pursuit
technologies such as spike strips to deflate
the suspect’s vehicle (Hill, 2002) have com-
bined to reduce the broad risk to the public
posed by pursuits. One examination of
pursuit-related fatalities in the USA from International Journal of Police
Science and Management,
1994 to 2002 revealed that overall fatalities Vol. 15 No. 2, 2013, pp. 77–94.
DOI: 10.1350/ijps.2013.15.2.304
from pursuits decreased by almost 20 per

Page 77
Officer deaths from vehicle pursuits
cent during that nine-year period (Rivara &
Mack, 2004). Although some have studied
the overall dangerousness of vehicle pursuits
(Hill, 2002; Rivara & Mack, 2004), little
research has examined whether vehicle pur-
suits have become increasingly safer for the
police officers involved.
On the one hand, it could be argued that
the same changes and improvements that
have helped reduce the overall fatality rate
for vehicle pursuits would have had a similar
effect on officer fatalities. On the other
hand, the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (2011) reported that,
between 1980 and 2008, the raw number of
police officer deaths from pursuits
increased. Thus the very limited knowledge
about officer pursuit lethality is equivocal.
It would be beneficial, therefore, to spe-
cifically examine the officer fatality rate
(rather than raw numbers) for pursuit-
related deaths. This study sought to do this
by longitudinally examining the number of
pursuit-related officer deaths per 100,000
officers employed in the USA from 1960 to
2011. It tested the research hypothesis that
the officer death rate from pursuits has been
decreasing since 1960. It also tested this
hypothesis using three different types of
pursuit involvement: direct pursuit of the
suspect, executing a tactic to block the
fleeing suspect, and travelling to reach and
assist in a pursuit.
Changes influencing dangerousness
of pursuits
Over the last half-century, substantial
changes have occurred within the areas of
vehicle accident survivability, legal decisions
governing pursuits, police pursuit policies
and technological advancements. Taken col-
lectively, these changes would suggest that
police pursuits have gradually become less
frequent, and, when they do occur, less
likely to result in death than in years past.
Each of these areas of change is discussed in
greater detail below.
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Vehicle crash survivability
Over the last several decades, vehicle manu-
facturers have made great strides in improv-
ing the survivability of vehicle occupants
involved in crashes (Vanderbilt, 2009).
These improvements have included seatbelts
with shoulder restraints, front- and side-
impact airbags, fire-resistant fuel tanks and
vehicle bodies that absorb kinetic energy
and direct it away from the occupants
(Vanderbilt, 2009). Seatbelts, which were
first introduced in the 1950s and only used
11 per cent of the time in 1980, have seen
increased usage with an estimated three-
quarters of drivers wearing their seatbelts
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today (National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, 1998). While studies of
seatbelt effectiveness in reducing deaths in
crashes have ranged from 8 to 86 per cent
(Levitt & Porter, 2001; Robertson, 1976),
depending on the characteristics of the
occupant and the circumstances of the
crash, adult drivers wearing seatbelts in a
crash are generally 55 per cent more likely
to survive the crash than drivers not wear-
ing seatbelts (Halman, Chipman, Parkin, &
Wright, 2002; Levitt & Porter, 2001).
Drivers’ side airbags were first introduced
into vehicles in 1987 and were being
installed in all new vehicles sold in the USA
by 1998 (Levitt & Porter, 2001). As with
seatbelts, the effectiveness of airbags varies
widely with the characteristics of the
vehicle occupant and the circumstances of
the crash. On average, however, adult
drivers of vehicles with airbags who were
involved in head-on crashes were 35 per
cent more likely to survive after controlling
for seatbelt use (Braver, Ferguson, Greene,
& Lund, 1997; Levitt & Porter, 2001;
Zador & Ciccone, 1993). Vehicle handling
characteristics have also improved, increas-
ing one’s chances of avoiding a crash in the
first place, and innovations in road con-
struction and traffic signals have continued
to improve road safety (Vanderbilt, 2009).

Advances in trauma medicine and emer-
gency medical responses have improved the
chances that crash victims will survive their
injuries. Ambulance services first became
commonplace in the USA during the
1950s, but were little more than a station
wagon with a stretcher (National Research
Council, 2007). Often run by funeral
homes, petrol stations, towing services or
police departments, between the 1950s and
the mid-1970s, ambulance crews typically
had no formal medical training or, at best,
only basic first-aid training (National
Research Council, 2007). Emergency med-
ical technician (EMT) training first began
in the early 1970s, expanding rapidly until
almost all ambulance crews had received
such training by 1990. As ambulance crew
training became more sophisticated, so did
the life-saving equipment available in most
ambulances (National Research Council,
2007). Response times to emergencies has
also improved, in the 1980s, the industry
standard was a response time of 15 minutes,
whereas the current industry standard is
arrival on the scene of an emergency in less
than 8 minutes (Pell, Sirel, Marsden, Ford,
& Cobbe, 2001; Pons & Markovchick,
2002).
Providing even faster response and trans-
port across great distances, air ambulances
have become more common over the last
few decades. The first hospital-based air
ambulance service in the USA began in
Denver, Colorado in 1972, but rapidly
expanded in use in both urban and rural
areas (Sullivent, Faul, & Wald, 2011). It is
estimated that more than 1,000 air ambu-
lances operated within the USA by 2010,
and trauma victims transported by air
ambulance are 39 per cent more likely to
survive than those transported by land
ambulance (Sullivent et al., 2011).
All of these medical and safety improve-
ments have combined to result in many tens
of thousands of lives saved in motor vehicle
accidents. Examining US traffic fatality rates
Johnson
per 100 million vehicle miles travelled
between 1966 and 1994, Levitt and Porter
(2001) found that the average driver fatality
rate declined steadily, decreasing by almost
70 per cent across the 29-year period. More
recent data on motor vehicle crash fatalities
in the USA between 1994 and 2011 found
that the number of fatalities per 100,000
licensed drivers had declined from 23.21 in
1994 to 15.28 in 2011, a decrease of 34 per
cent over 18 years (National Highway Traf-
fic Safety Administration, 2013). It could
reasonably be assumed from these facts
about motor vehicle accidents in general,
that police pursuits have also become pro-
gressively safer for the officers engaged in
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them. It is likely that police officers have
benefited, over time, from vehicles with
better handling performance and occupant
protection during crashes, as well as the
emergency medical care available after
crashes.
Changes in pursuit law
Since the mid-1980s, a number of landmark
federal court case decisions have involved
police vehicle pursuits. In Galas v McKee
(1986), the US Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit formally acknowledged the
permissibility of high-speed vehicle pursuits
by the police, stating that the act of pursu-
ing a fleeing felon or misdemeanant by
vehicle, even with its inherent dangers, does
not constitute a violation of the Fourth
Amendment to the US Constitution. This
ruling was reaffirmed by the US Supreme
Court in County of Sacramento v Lewis
(1998). Through these and other cases, the
courts have protected the right of the police
to engage in high-speed vehicle pursuits,
yet several cases have placed limits and con-
sequences on police actions during these
pursuits.
One of the earliest landmark cases to
influence police pursuit tactics was Tennessee
v Garner (1985). Although Garner involved
using a firearm to stop an unarmed felon
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Officer deaths from vehicle pursuits
fleeing on foot, the ruling was also applic-
able to vehicle pursuits. In Garner, the US
Supreme Court eliminated the ability of the
police to use potentially lethal force simply
to apprehend a fleeing criminal suspect
unless the officer or a third party was in
danger of imminent serious bodily injury
(Tennessee v Garner, 1985). This ruling
essentially banned such police pursuit prac-
tices as shooting at fleeing vehicles from a
roadblock or moving vehicle, or ramming
fleeing vehicles with the likelihood of injur-
ing the driver.
Jamieson v Shaw (1985), decided by the
Fifth Circuit of the US Court of Appeals,
extended Garner to include other roadblock
tactics that had a high likelihood of severely
injuring or killing a fleeing suspect. In
particular, this case suggested that placing a
patrol car across the road on a blind curve,
and shining bright lights in the fleeing
driver’s eyes to prevent him from seeing the
roadblock before crashing into it, consti-
tuted an unreasonable seizure. The US
Supreme Court affirmed this ruling in
Bower v Inyo County (1989), ruling that
roadblock tactics that create a likelihood of
death or injury to the fleeing suspect con-
stituted an unreasonable use of force. In this
case, officers had placed a semi-trailer truck
completely across the highway around a
blind curve, with a patrol car’s headlights
aimed to blind the fleeing driver on
approach so that he would crash into the
truck. These two cases basically eliminated
the use of most police roadblock tactics.
Court decisions also opened up the
police to civil liability for any injuries to
third parties sustained because of a high-
speed pursuit. In the case of City of Canton,
Ohio v Harris (1989), the US Supreme
Court decided that civil liability exists
when the police exhibit ‘deliberate indif-
ference’ to the rights of persons with whom
they contact. Although this case did not
involve a police pursuit, it has been widely
applied to pursuit situations in which the
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pursuit posed a danger disproportionate to
the seriousness of the offence for which the
suspect was being chased (Becknell, Mays,
& Giever, 1999; Pipes & Pape, 2001).
These court decisions, occurring
between 1985 and 1989, changed the legal
landscape of police pursuits and influenced
the development of stricter police pursuit
policies. It could be suggested that these
legal changes would have made vehicle pur-
suits safer for officers in many ways. First,
restricting the use of firearms in vehicle
pursuits, officers would be less likely to be
injured by a stray bullet fired at the fleeing
suspect’s vehicle. Second, restricting the use
of ramming the suspect’s vehicle, officers
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would be less likely to be injured in the
ramming. Third, restricting the use of road-
blocks would make officers less likely to be
rammed by the fleeing suspect vehicle or hit
as the suspect tried to swerve around the
roadblock. Fourth, expanding police civil
liability for injuries or property damage
caused by the pursuit, officers would be less
likely to engage in pursuits at all, and more
likely to call off pursuits when the risks to
public safety outweigh the importance of
catching the suspect. These propositions
suggest that the police officer fatality rate
from vehicle pursuits has declined, espe-
cially since 1985.
Changes in pursuit policies
Court decisions regarding pursuits have
prompted many law enforcement agencies
to establish written policies and procedures
regarding pursuits (Becknell et al., 1999;
Pipes & Pape, 2001). In the early 1960s,
very few law enforcement agencies had
written policies governing the use of force
or pursuits (Alpert & Fridell, 1992). This
began to change in the 1970s as civil litiga-
tion against the police increased. Police
departments found themselves losing law-
suits because they had failed to properly
train and supervise their officers, amounting
to a deliberate indifference to the rights of

citizens (Alpert & Fridell, 1992). The num-
ber of law enforcement agencies with for-
mal, written policies on when and how
pursuits could be conducted, expanded
rapidly in the 1980s until such policies were
commonplace in the mid-1990s. In a 1996
nationally representative sample of 436
municipal and county law enforcement
agencies, Alpert (1997) found that 91 per
cent of these agencies had written policies
governing pursuits. Another national survey
in 1998 of 420 law enforcement agencies
revealed that 97 per cent reported having a
written pursuit policy (National Institute of
Justice, 1998a).
Although some of these pursuit policies
gave officers great discretion over when to
initiate a pursuit, and the tactics to be
employed during the pursuit, even the
limited structure provided by these policies
was an improvement over having no writ-
ten policy at all (Alpert & Fridell, 1992). At
the very least, these permissive policies
required officers to abide by the federal
court decisions prohibiting firing at a flee-
ing suspect or using roadblocks likely to
cause serious harm. Some agencies, how-
ever, did develop more restrictive pursuit
policies that strictly limited when vehicle
pursuits could be initiated. These restrictive
policies often prevented pursuits for only
traffic offences, and required officers to take
into consideration the environment in
which the pursuit was taking place, such as
the excessive speeds involved or traffic con-
gestion (Alpert & Fridell, 1992). A few
agencies even had policies that prohibited
vehicle pursuits except in extreme situations
(such as trying to stop a kidnapping in
progress or apprehend a known murder
suspect), and even then, only with a super-
visor’s approval.
It could be argued that the proliferation
of written pursuit policies has improved
officer safety by avoiding dangerous road-
blocks and eliminating gunfire. More
restrictive pursuit policies would provide
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the added benefits of reducing the number
of permissible pursuits, and calling for the
termination of pursuits when the risks to
the public far outweighed the benefits of
apprehending the suspect. In fact, Alpert
(1997) found that almost half of the law
enforcement agencies surveyed had updated
their pursuit policy within the last two
years, and most of these changes had made
their policy more restrictive than before, a
finding supported by Becknell et al. (1999).
In one such agency, the more restrictive
policy coincided with an 82 per cent reduc-
tion in pursuits the year after the intro-
duction of the new policy (Alpert, 1997).
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Changes in pursuit training
Although pursuit driving makes up only a
small proportion of police academy training
(Alpert, 1997), the number of hours
devoted to academy training has grown over
the last five decades (Haberfeld, 2002).
Matheny (1996) reported that in 1961,
some New Jersey law enforcement agencies
required no pre-service academy training,
whereas others had academy training
requirements that ranged from 10 to 40
hours. McManus (1970) surveyed a national
sample of 360 city police departments and
found that all required some sort of basic
police academy training, and the shortest
academy training reported was 120 hours.
In 1993, all 50 states had established basic
police officer training and standards guide-
lines, and the average police academy train-
ing length was 640 hours (Edwards, 1993).
In a 1997 survey of 436 law enforcement
agencies, 60 per cent of agencies acknow-
ledged covering pursuit driving in their
academy curriculum, with a mean of 14
hours of pursuit training (Alpert, 1997).
These agencies also reported spending an
average of 3 hours annually on in-service
training with regard to pursuits.
Police pursuit training has also improved
in quality. One way in which this has
occurred is through the use of computer
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Officer deaths from vehicle pursuits
simulation systems that replicate the experi-
ence of a high-speed pursuit, but do not
pose dangers to the trainee or department
vehicles (Alpert et al., 2006). These com-
puter simulations also allow instructors to
systematically debrief trainees about their
actions during each step of the pursuit
(Alpert et al., 2006; Hill, 2002). Police
officers, therefore, have progressively
received more, and better, training in pur-
suit driving since the early 1960s, leading to
the assumption that this training has made
vehicle pursuits safer for officers.
Changes in pursuit technology
Several changes in police vehicle pursuit
technology that might potentially have
made vehicle pursuits safer for officers have
occurred over the last several decades. Some
law enforcement agencies have incorpor-
ated helicopters into their pursuit tactics,
permitting fleeing suspects to be followed
safely from the air without endangering
other motorists on the ground. Helicopters
can also direct ground units to the suspect
when he stops or exits the vehicle (Alpert,
1998). Unfortunately, helicopters are pro-
hibitively expensive for most police depart-
ments. Police radio systems, however, have
improved dramatically for all police depart-
ments since 1960, when many radios in
police cars could not transmit, but only
receive calls (Sanow, 2002). In a steady
evolution of technological improvements,
police agencies gradually developed two-
way radios, car-to-car communications,
centralized dispatch centres, computer-
aided dispatch and in-car computers sys-
tems with instant messaging and
global-positioning capabilities. These com-
munication improvements allowed better
coordination of pursuits between multiple
patrol cars, and allowed supervisors to mon-
itor and control the pursuit by radio and
computer (National Institute of Justice,
1998b).
Page 82
Since the late 1980s, a number of new
technologies have been developed to disable
the vehicles of fleeing suspects. Devices
have been developed for police use that can
turn off the fleeing vehicle’s engine through
electronic pulses, but these devices are still
in their infancy today (Alpert et al., 2006).
The most developed, and widely used,
police technology to disable a fleeing sus-
pect’s vehicle has been the use of spike
strips. These strips, placed in the fleeing
vehicle’s path, slowly deflate the vehicle’s
tyres without causing the vehicle to lose
control at high speeds (Alpert et al., 2006;
National Institute of Justice, 1998a).
According to the US Patents Office, in the
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1960s, no patents were filed for spike strip,
tyre deflation devices. In the 1970s, two
such patents were filed, and in the 1980s,
seven patents were filed (US Patent and
Trademark Office, 2012). In the 1990s,
however, 19 patents were filed, and another
24 were filed in the first decade of the
2000s. A national survey of 419 large police
departments found that these spike strip
devices were the anti-pursuit technology
used most by these agencies, and were
strongly supported by officers in the field.
These technological advances all suggest
that vehicle pursuits may have become safer
for police officers.
Officer deaths in pursuits
Although the innovations and policy
changes described above could be assumed
to decrease the fatality rate for police
officers involved in pursuits, the only study
of this issue to date produced unexpected
results. The National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (2011) examined all
vehicle-related deaths of police officers
between 1980 and 2008. The total number
of police officer deaths from all types of
crashes, including pursuit-related crashes,
had actually increased since 1980. Unfortu-
nately, this report did not control for the
growing number of law enforcement

officers employed in the USA across that
same period (Lilley & Boba, 2008; Worrall
& Zhao, 2003). The higher number of
deaths could be the result of a steady or
declining fatality rate, but with significantly
more officers patrolling the roads. It would
be beneficial, therefore, to specifically
examine the officer fatality rate for pursuit-
related deaths.
This study sought to do this by examin-
ing longitudinally the number of pursuit-
related officer deaths per 100,000 officers
employed in the USA between 1960 and
2011. It tested the research hypothesis that
the officer death rate from pursuits has been
decreasing since 1960. It also tested this
hypothesis using three different types of
pursuit involvement: direct pursuit of the
suspect; executing a tactic to block the
fleeing suspect; and travelling to reach and
assist in a pursuit.
METHOD
This study examined longitudinally officer
death rates related to high-speed, vehicle
pursuits to test the research proposition that
pursuit death rates have been decreasing
between 1960 and 2011. The study exam-
ined total officer death rate related to pur-
suits, death rate due to direct pursuit
involvement, death rate due to participation
in blocking a pursuit and death rate related
to travelling to assist in a pursuit.
Data for the study were collected from
various sources. Officer death data were
collected from the Law Enforcement Officers
Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) reports pub-
lished annually by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation from 1972 to the present.
These reports provide one- or two-
paragraph narratives of the death circum-
stances of each officer that died in the line
of duty that year, providing enough detail
to determine if the officer’s death resulted
from a pursuit, and the role the officer
played in the pursuit. As these reports only
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covered data on officer deaths from 1971
(the data reported in the 1972 report) to
2011, additional data sources had to be used
to reconstruct officer deaths from 1960 to
1970.
For these years, the primary information
source was the Officer-Down Memorial
Page website operated by the Concern of
Police Survivors (COPS) organisation
(Concerns of Police Survivors, 2013). On
this website, law enforcement agencies post
the names of their officers who died in the
line of duty. Most of these entries include a
description of the death event and a photo-
graph of the officer. While the majority of
entries are from post-World War II officer
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deaths, many agencies even have entries
about officers killed in the 19th century.
The validity of this website was checked by
comparing the pursuit-related officer deaths
from the LEOKA reports and the website
for the years 1971–2011. Although the data
from the 19th and early 20th centuries are
probably less complete, the data from the
website and LOKEA reports matched per-
fectly for the period of overlap.
To supplement the pre-1971 data and
any cases in the LOKEA reports that were
unclear, articles were collected from the
archives of the local newspapers to garner
further information about each officer
death circumstance. These newspaper art-
icles identified a few additional officers who
were listed as dying in vehicle crashes, but
as details were reviewed, it was determined
that the crash occurred as the officer was
travelling to assist in a pursuit.
To calculate the rate of officer deaths, the
number of officers potentially at risk must
be known. The annual number of sworn
law enforcement officers employed in the
USA has been estimated by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, and provided in
their Uniform Crime Reports since 1962.
These annual estimates were used to calcu-
late the number of officer deaths per
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Officer deaths from vehicle pursuits
100,000 officers in the USA, with years
1960 and 1961 using the 1962 estimate.
Sample
In the years 1960–2011, a total of 479 law
enforcement officers lost their lives as a
result of vehicle-pursuit-related circum-
stances. The largest number of total deaths
occurred in the decade of the 1960s (106
deaths), followed by the 1970s (101 deaths).
The decade with the lowest number of
deaths was the 1990s, with only 64 deaths.
The vast majority of all deaths (73.7 per
cent) occurred with officers in direct pur-
suit of a fleeing suspect. Another 19.6 per
cent died while attempting some sort of
blocking technique, such as manning a
roadblock or deploying spike strips into the
path of the fleeing suspect. The remaining
6.7 per cent died from vehicle crashes while
travelling to assist with a pursuit, either by
attempting to catch up with the pursuit or
trying to get ahead of the pursuit to estab-
lish a roadblock or deploy spike strips. Table
1 displays the death rates per 100,000
officers for each year in the sample, and by
each type of death circumstance.
Procedure
The objective of this study was to deter-
mine trends in pursuit-related officer death
rates over a 52-year period in order to test
the research hypothesis that the death rate
has been steadily decreasing. Although most
longitudinal studies use the autoregressive
integrated moving average (ARIMA) stat-
istical technique, this was not appropriate
for the current study. First, ARIMA gener-
ally requires a minimum of 100 data points
(Box, Jenkins, & Reinsel, 1994). Our data,
being annual, had only 52 data points. Even
if the data had been converted to monthly
or weekly periods to increase the number of
data points, accurate calculations would
have been difficult because of the significant
number of weeks or months with no deaths
reported. Second, ARIMA is best used to
Page 84
measure changes in trends before and after a
specific point in time when an intervention
was introduced (Box et al., 1994). As was
revealed earlier in this paper, changes in
medical care, vehicle safety, police policies,
training and technology occurred gradually,
rather than being implemented at one point
in time. The only exception to this may
have been changes to the law through
appellate court decisions from 1985 to
1989.
It was decided, therefore, to calculate
regression lines through the data points to
determine the ‘line of best fit’ (Cohen &
Cohen, 1983) to reveal whether the slope
was declining or inclining over time. A
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regression line would reveal if the trend was
linear, and if it was positive or negative. Flat
line trends would fail to demonstrate statist-
ical significance. Using year as the inde-
pendent variable, and each death rate
category as dependent variables, plots were
constructed, regression models were calcu-
lated, and regression lines were applied to
the plots. This technique was repeated for
the total death rate, direct pursuit death
rate, blocking activity death rate and travel-
ling to assist death rate. It was believed that
autocorrelation posed no threat, as none of
each year’s deaths was dependent on pre-
vious year’s deaths. Substantial year-to-year
variation was observed, and the death inci-
dents were widely dispersed across the
nation each year.
RESULTS
The overall pursuit-related death rate was
examined first. A longitudinal plot of the
data points was created and inspected for
observable trends (Figure 1). As Figure 1
shows, there is substantial year-to-year vari-
ation, but visual examination of the plot
suggested a slightly negative slope, with the
death rate decreasing over the 52-year
period. To confirm this visual observation, a
least-squares regression line was calculated,
 Johnson

Table 1: Annual officer death rates per 100,000 officers

Year Total Direct pursuit Blocking activity Travelling to assist

1960 1.06 0.93 0.13 0.00

1961 0.79 0.79 0.00 0.00
1962 1.59 1.46 0.13 0.00
1963 1.46 1.32 0.13 0.00
1964 1.19 1.06 0.13 0.00
1965 1.19 1.06 0.13 0.00
1966 1.99 1.59 0.26 0.13
1967 1.46 1.19 0.26 0.00
1968 1.99 1.99 0.00 0.00
1969 1.32 0.79 0.53 0.00
1970 1.72 1.72 0.00 0.00
1971 0.93 0.93 0.00 0.00
1972 1.59 1.59 0.00 0.00
1973 1.19 0.93 0.26 0.00
1974 1.72 1.32 0.13 0.26

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1975 1.06 0.93 0.13 0.00
1976 1.85 1.59 0.26 0.00
1977 0.93 0.66 0.26 0.00
1978 1.32 0.93 0.40 0.00
1979 1.06 0.40 0.40 0.26
1980 1.46 0.79 0.66 0.00
1981 0.79 0.40 0.40 0.00
1982 1.06 0.79 0.13 0.13
1983 1.59 0.93 0.40 0.26
1984 1.06 1.06 0.00 0.00
1985 1.06 0.93 0.00 0.13
1986 0.53 0.13 0.40 0.00
1987 1.46 1.19 0.26 0.00
1988 0.79 0.53 0.26 0.00
1989 1.85 1.32 0.40 0.13
1990 0.66 0.53 0.00 0.13
1991 0.93 0.79 0.13 0.00
1992 0.53 0.53 0.00 0.00
1993 0.79 0.66 0.00 0.13
1994 1.19 0.66 0.26 0.26
1995 1.46 1.06 0.26 0.13
1996 0.93 0.40 0.40 0.13
1997 0.40 0.40 0.00 0.00
1998 0.53 0.40 0.13 0.00
1999 1.06 0.93 0.00 0.13
2000 1.06 0.79 0.26 0.00
2001 1.46 0.79 0.53 0.13
2002 1.06 0.66 0.13 0.26
2003 1.99 0.93 0.93 0.13
2004 1.06 0.93 0.00 0.13
2005 1.32 0.79 0.40 0.13
2006 0.53 0.40 0.13 0.00
2007 0.79 0.26 0.13 0.40
2008 0.79 0.66 0.13 0.00
2009 0.53 0.13 0.40 0.00
2010 0.79 0.79 0.00 0.00
2011 1.32 0.40 0.66 0.26

Page 85
Officer deaths from vehicle pursuits
using years as the independent variable and
annual death rate as the dependent variable.
The regression line calculated was statistic-
ally significant at p = 0.004, confirming the
presence of a linear relationship between
year and death rate. The line that was com-
puted is superimposed as a dotted line over
the plot in Figure 1. It has a negative slope,
confirming that the overall death rate has
generally decreased. The resulting equation
for this line of best fit was Y = 22.410 +
(-0.011) X.
As this equation reveals, each year
resulted in a mean decrease in the death rate
of only 0.011 per 100,000 officers. Because
the total number of deaths per 100,000
ranged only from 0.40 to 1.99, this slope
was actually quite pronounced. This equa-
tion suggested that the overall death rate
Figure 1
Pursuit-related death
rate per 100,000 officers,
1960–2011. Dotted line
represents line of best fit
Intercept
Regression line 22.410
Page 86
from pursuits decreased by an average of
0.572 deaths per 100,000 officers across the
span of the study. This is a decline of
approximately 66 per cent over 52 years.
The research hypothesis suggested a neg-
ative slope, and, thus, the analysis of the
total pursuit-related officer death rate ap-
peared to support the research hypothesis.
Next, the death rate for those killed
while in direct pursuit was investigated.
Officers in this category were following
behind the fleeing suspect vehicle or
rammed the suspect vehicle when they
experienced a crash that took their lives.
Some collided with another patrol car, the
suspect vehicle or an innocent third-party
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vehicle. Others lost control and either
rolled the vehicle or struck an object, such
as a bridge support or power pole. The same
Coefficient (SE) p
–0.011 (0.004) 0.004

analysis procedures were used with this sub-
sample and the total sample. A longitudinal
plot was produced (see Figure 2) and exam-
ined visually for evidence of any trends.
Again, year-to-year variation was substan-
tial, but a general declining trend was
clearly visible. A least-squares regression line
was then calculated to confirm this visual
observation and is represented in Figure 2 as
a dotted line.
The regression line for this calculation
was statistically significant at p > 0.000,
confirming the presence of a linear relation-
ship between year and death rate. The equa-
tion for this line of best fit was Y = 32.111
+ (–0.016) X. As this equation reveals, the
slope was negative, and the degree of slope
was steeper than the line for all deaths. In
the case of officers killed while in direct
Intercept
Regression line 32.111
Johnson
pursuit, each year resulted in an average
decrease of 0.016 deaths per 100,000
officers. This finding strongly supported the
research hypothesis that vehicle pursuits
have been getting progressively safer for
officers over the last 52 years. This decline is
more pronounced when only those officers
killed while in direct pursuit are
examined.
The third analysis involved officers killed
while attempting to assist in the pursuit
through a blocking tactic. These tactics
included establishing a roadblock or
attempting to lay out spike strips into the
path of the fleeing suspect vehicle. This
analysis proved to be more complex than
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the first two. When the plot was produced
and examined, it appeared that the data
points began as a positive slope, dropped
Figure 2
Death rate per 100,000
officers in direct pursuit,
1960–2011. Dotted line
represents line of best fit
Coefficient (SE) p
–0.016 (0.003) <0.000
Page 87
Officer deaths from vehicle pursuits
into a trough, and then began a positive
slope again. To address this non-linear trend,
multiple regression lines were calculated
(Cohen, 1988). Starting with the first five
years of data, numerous regression lines
were calculated, adding one more year at a
time in a stepwise manner. Each additional
year of data decreased the statistical sig-
nificance level, and increased the regression
coefficient of the line until the year 1985
was reached, when the significance levels
increased, and the regression coefficients of
the lines began to decrease again. The first
regression line, therefore, spanned the years
1960–1984. This line of best fit (Line A)
had a positive slope and an equation of
Y = –13.11 + (0.007) X.
Figure 3
Death rate per 100,000
officers attempting
blocking tactics,
1960–2011. Dotted line
represents line of best fit
Intercept
Regression line A –13.110
Regression line B 43.340
Regression line C –25.339
Page 88
During this first 25-year period, the
death rate for officers involved in blocking
tactics increased by an average of 0.007
deaths per 100,000 officers each year. This
was a total increase of approximately 0.175
deaths per 100,000 officers for this first
period, a 27.5 per cent increase in officer
death rate to 1984. Beginning in 1985,
these types of officer deaths appeared to
decrease sharply, so a second regression line
was calculated using 1985 as a starting
point. As with Line A, various regression
lines were calculated by adding one year at a
time. The regression coefficients of each
successive line continued to strengthen until
the year 1996 was reached. Starting with
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1996, the addition of each successive year
Coefficient (SE) p
0.007 (0.005) 0.057
–0.022 (0.014) 0.126
0.018 (0.015) 0.160

moved the line further from statistical sig-
nificance. As a result, a second line segment,
Line B, was used for the years 1985–1995,
when the officer death rate from blocking
tactics decreased.
The equation for Line B was Y = 43.340
+ (–0.022) X, indicating a negative slope
and an average annual decrease in death rate
of 0.022 per 100,000 officers. Over the
11-year span of this decrease, the death rate
dropped by approximately 0.242 deaths per
100,000 officers, or approximately 44 per
cent. Although this line did not achieve
statistical significance at p > 0.005, this
could easily have easily been the result of
calculating the line with only 11 cases
(Cohen, 1988).
The final line segment, Line C, was
calculated in the same manner as the first
two lines, but started from 1996. The
Intercept
Regression line –4.891
Johnson
strength of the regression coefficients of
each line calculated increased until the last
year of the data, 2011, so Line C spanned
the 16 years from 1996 to 2011. Line C had
a positive slope and an equation of Y =
–25.339 + (0.018) X, indicating an annual
increase in death rate of 0.018 deaths per
100,000 officers. Lines A, B and C revealed
that, although the death rate from direct
pursuits has decreased steadily, the death
rate from blocking tactics increased steadily
until 1984, dropped sharply from 1985 to
1995, and then increased again after 1996.
This finding does not give support to the
research hypothesis that death rates for pur-
suits have decreased steadily since 1960.
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The final analysis involved officers who
died while travelling to assist in a vehicle
pursuit. These officers died in crashes while
either trying to catch up with the pursuit or
Figure 4
Death rate per 100,000
officers travelling to
assist in a pursuit,
1960–2011. Dotted line
represents line of best fit
Coefficient (SE) p
0.003 (0.001) 0.007
Page 89
Officer deaths from vehicle pursuits
trying to get ahead of the pursuit to attempt
a blocking tactic. Examination of the plot of
this death rate (see Figure 4), revealed a
steady increase since 1960. In the first
decade-and-a-half of data, these types of
deaths were very rare, but have increased
steadily in later decades. The least-squares
line calculated through the data points had
an equation of Y = –4.891 + (0.003) X. This
equation had a positive slope and suggested
an annual increase of 0.003 deaths per
100,000 officers, meaning that the average
death rate due to travelling to assist in
pursuits increased by approximately 0.156
deaths per 100,000 officers during the
52-year period of data. Between 1960 and
2011, the death rate for these types of
deaths increased by 15.5 per cent. This
outcome does not support the research
hypothesis that vehicle pursuits have
become progressively safer for officers as
these types of deaths have been gradually
increasing.
To review, examination of the overall
pursuit-related death rate for police officers
from 1960 to 2011 revealed a steady
decline, supporting the research hypothesis.
Examination of the death rate for officers
directly involved in a pursuit also demon-
strated a steady decline. This result provided
strong support for the research hypothesis.
Examination of officer death rate related to
attempting to employ a blocking tactic,
such as a roadblock or spike strips, did not
produce a linear trend. The death rate for
these types of deaths steadily increased until
reaching a peak in 1984, then plummeted
until 1996, and began to increase again.
This result did not support the research
hypothesis that death rate was steadily
declining. Finally, examination of officer
death rate related to travelling to assist in the
pursuit showed a steady increase from 1960
of about 16 per cent. This increase also
failed to support the research hypothesis.
Page 90
DISCUSSION
This study sought to test the hypothesis that
the changes in emergency medicine, vehicle
safety technology, law, policy, police train-
ing and pursuit technology had resulted in a
lower death rate for police officers involved
in vehicle pursuits. The results found here
were that, in general, this was the case
between 1960 and 2011. The overall death
rate for pursuits declined during this
52-year period. The decrease in death rate
was even more substantial for officers spe-
cifically in direct pursuit of the suspect
vehicle. When most people (including
policy-makers and appellate court justices)
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envisioned involvement in a police pursuit,
they probably thought only of an officer in
direct pursuit, following behind the fleeing
suspect. It is possible, therefore, that the
majority of the changes in policies, tactics,
equipment and laws were focused on mak-
ing this sort of pursuit involvement safer
and less frequent. If this was the case, these
changes and improvements were successful.
These same changes, however, may have
had unintended consequences for other
types of pursuit involvement. The death rate
for officers involved in blocking tactics or
travelling to assist in pursuits increased dur-
ing the same 52-year period, and both are
still on the increase today. A review of the
changes discussed above, with a new view
regarding these indirect deaths from pur-
suits, may suggest potential causes of these
rising death rates. For example, the death
rate pattern from 1960 to 1984 increased
steadily for officers involved in blocking
tactics, while at the same time it decreased
steadily for officers in direct pursuit. All of
the officer blocking-related deaths prior to
1985 occurred to officers manning road-
blocks, suggesting that roadblocks either
steadily became more common or more
dangerous from 1960 to 1984.
Perhaps the former was more likely than
the latter, owing to improvements in police

radio technology. In the early 1960s, many
radios in police cars could only receive and
not broadcast, while others could broadcast,
but only to a limited range (National Insti-
tute of Justice, 1998b). In the early years of
the study, therefore, officers in pursuit were
unable to communicate with a dispatcher or
other patrol cars about the pursuit. As radio
technology improved, patrol car radios
developed greater range and signal strength
(National Institute of Justice, 1998b). These
improvements gradually enabled officers to
communicate to dispatchers about the pur-
suit, its location and its direction of travel.
Assisting officers could then be directed to
assist by establishing roadblocks in the path
of the fleeing suspect.
Perhaps, as roadblocks occurred more
frequently, so did officer deaths, as fleeing
suspects crashed into them or swerved
around them, hitting the officers nearby. As
the fleeing felon rule still applied during
this era, when officers could shoot at any
fleeing felony suspects in an attempt to
prevent their escape (Tennessee v Garner,
1985), some of these roadblocks also
included gunfire that could have accident-
ally hit an officer directly or by ricochet.
The gradual improvement in communica-
tions technology may be the key to the
increasing number of officer blocking tactic
deaths from 1960 to 1984.
What, then, might have caused the death
rate for blocking tactics to plummet after
1984? Radio technology allowing the
coordination of roadblocks to continue to
exist, so what other possible changes could
have occurred so suddenly in 1985? As was
discussed earlier, a number of landmark
appellate cases involving pursuits were
decided between 1985 and 1989. The case
of Tennessee v Garner (1985) restrained
police authority to shoot at fleeing suspect
vehicles, or ram them, under most circum-
stances. Jamieson v Shaw (1985) discon-
tinued the use of roadblocks that might
potentially cause death or serious bodily
Johnson
harm to fleeing suspects, strictly limiting
the use of roadblocks in police vehicle
pursuits instantaneously. Shortly after these
court decisions, more law enforcement
agencies developed pursuit policies or made
existing polices more restrictive (Alpert,
1997; Alpert & Fridell, 1992). It is likely
these legal decisions (and their resulting
policy changes within police agencies) were
the cause of the sudden decrease in officer
deaths related to blocking tactics.
As these cases have not been overturned,
what has caused the more recent steady
increase in officer deaths due to blocking
tactics? Since 1995, the death rate from
blocking tactics has been increasing. One
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possible explanation is the proliferation of
spike strip devices. Although first patented
in the 1970s, spike strip use in pursuits grew
dramatically in the 1990s until the majority
of police agencies used them by 1997
(Alpert, 1997; National Institute of Justice,
1998a). Correspondingly, almost all block-
ing deaths since 1995 have involved an
officer struck while attempting to deploy or
retrieve spike strip devices. Some officers
were killed when they were struck as the
suspect vehicle swerved around the spike
strips. Others were struck as they misjudged
the speed or direction of the suspect, step-
ping into the vehicle’s path as they deployed
the strips. Still others were killed by police
vehicles following the suspect that accident-
ally struck the officer as he or she attempted
to retrieve the spike strip from the road.
Although spike strips have been credited
with safely ending high-speed vehicle pur-
suits (Alpert, 1997; National Institute of
Justice, 1998a), one unintended conse-
quence may be that officers are more likely
to be killed attempting to use these
devices.
Finally, what might explain the gradual
increase in death rate for officers killed
while travelling to assist with pursuits?
Although the death rate for officers in
direct pursuit declined, rate of death has
Page 91
Officer deaths from vehicle pursuits
increased in officers travelling to assist in
these same pursuits. Perchance the answer
is, again, linked to improved radio com-
munication. As radio technology has gradu-
ally improved over the decades, so has the
ability to coordinate support from other
police vehicles to either join in the pursuit
or establish a blocking tactic. In the early
1960s, the existing radio technology often
did not permit pursuing officers to alert a
dispatcher about the pursuit. Gradually,
officers could communicate to the dis-
patcher but, as a result of weak radio signals,
other patrol cars could not hear about the
pursuit unless they were nearby (National
Institute of Justice, 1998b). The dispatcher
had to relay information to the other
officers, which delayed the time taken for
the information to reach assisting officers.
Correspondingly, between 1960 and 1973,
only one recorded death involved an officer
killed while travelling to assist in a pursuit.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, police
car radio signal strength increased, as did the
officer death rate for those assisting in pur-
suits this way. Finally, by the late 1990s and
2000s, in-car computers with GPS systems
had become commonplace, permitting
officers to track the location of the pursuit
without the use of a radio (National Insti-
tute of Justice, 1998b). These changes
correspond with the steady increase in
officer death rate for those travelling to
assist in pursuits. It is likely that, because
more officers are aware of the ongoing
pursuit, and its exact location and direction
of travel, more officers have been travelling
to assist in the pursuit, thus increasing the
likelihood of a crash. Because vehicle pur-
suits are usually at high speeds, assisting
vehicles may often have to travel at even
greater speeds to catch up to the pursuit or
get ahead of it to deploy spike strips. Travel-
ling at high speeds, while simultaneously
monitoring the location of the pursuit on
the radio or via computer terminal, are
risky activities in themselves. As more
Page 92
officers engage in these activities, the risk
likely increases.
The results of this study have implica-
tions for policy and practice. First, it sug-
gested that the technological and policy
advancements implemented in past decades
have worked to reduce the risk of death
from pursuits. Restrictive policies that limit
the number of pursuits, safer vehicles, better
emergency medical technology, and the use
of helicopters have steadily driven down the
death rate for officers in direct pursuit.
Legal decisions severely limiting the use of
firearms and roadblocks also demonstrated a
quick decline in death rate for officers man-
ning roadblocks. These policy changes
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achieved their intended goals.
Second, the findings suggest that new
policy changes may be in order for officers
assisting in pursuits. The recent increase in
officer death rate for those deploying spike
strips warrants a closer look at how these
devices are used. These deaths need to be
closely examined to determine what tactical
changes need to be made in how they are
deployed. Safe and unsafe techniques for
deploying these devices need to be identi-
fied, and written policies developed in
accordance with the safe techniques.
Officers should also be properly trained in
the safe use of these devices. Similarly,
departmental pursuit polices need to address
the behaviour of officers not directly
involved in the pursuit. Perhaps the number
of assisting vehicles should be strictly
limited, with assisting units clearly identi-
fied and coordinated by a supervisor. Other
units should be prohibited from involve-
ment in the pursuit. Pursuit policies should
also place limits on the speed and disregard
for traffic regulations that these assisting
officers can exhibit while travelling to
assist.
This study revealed that police pursuits
have generally become safer over the last
half-century. It revealed that policies and
innovations directed at improving vehicle

safety and improving pursuit safety have
worked. It also revealed, however, that new
threats have developed as a by-product of
the technological improvements in radio
and spike strip technology. Further research
is warranted in these two increasing danger
areas, to inform police training, policy and
practice better.
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