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HomeMy WebLinkAboutIR 8166 INFORMAL REPORT TO CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS No. 8166 A 1 0 January 12, 1999 To the Mayor and Members of the City Council X P"I Subject: VEHICLE COLLISION AND INCIDENT INFORNIATION, SAFETY PROGRAM AND POLICE PATROL VEHICLE AVAILABILITY Purpos On November 3, 1998, City Council members requested information regarding accidents involving Police vehicles and the degree to which those accidents might contribute to the availability of Police patrol vehicles. The discussion expanded to a request for information regarding vehicle accidents, training and safety Citywide. This report discusses City vehicle accidents, driver certification, training and safety program. The issue of Police vehicle availability and how it is affected by collision repair is also discussed. Vehicle Collisions and Incidents Information regarding vehicle-related collisions and incidents was collected for the period October 1, 1997 through September 30, 1998. There is currently no centralized, standardized method of collecting and coding all information on these accidents and incidents in a setting that facilitates analysis and reporting, thus the data-gathering and analysis phase of this report has been extensive, and the comprehensiveness of the collision/incident information Citywide for departments other than Police is at issue. One of the outcomes of this recent research effort is the development of such a system that is now underway. By far the most comprehensive electronic database on vehicle-related collisions and incidents has been developed and is being maintained by the Police Department. This is particularly important as the Police Department's vehicles account for almost half(48%) of the total miles driven by City vehicles annually. For purposes of this report, vehicle events are categorized as collisions, 3rd party, or incidents. • Collisions are defined as contact by a moving vehicle operated by a City driver with another vehicle or fixed object for which the City operator was responsible. • 3rd 12ga events are those events wherein another driver who was responsible struck a City vehicle. • Incidents represent damage to City vehicles as a result of vandalism, acts of God, road hazards, and undercarriage damage. ISSUED BY THE CITY MANAGER FORT WORTH, TEXAS The Mayor and Members of the City Council Page 3 January 12,1999 ro, Additionally, persons driving their personal vehicles on City business must provide a copy of his/her Texas Driver's License and annually provide a copy of his/her liability insurance card to the Department of Risk Management Current employees who fail to meet these criteria will not be permitted to operate a City vehicle. After each review of a chargeable vehicular accident, the Accident Review Board may decide whether or not the employee should be permitted to continue to operate a City vehicle. The driving histories of City drivers are checked every six months through a request for this information to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Persons whose driving history does not meet the criteria above are not permitted to drive City vehicles or their personal vehicles on City business. Drug and Alcohol Testing As a part of the City's compliance with the federal Drug Free Workplace Initiative, testing is done on an ongoing basis of all drivers required to have a Texas Commercial Driver's License (CDL). The City's group of CDL drivers numbers approximately 700 persons who are subject to random testing for alcohol and for drugs. Within this group of 700, fifty percent are randomly tested annually for drugs and twenty-five percent are randomly tested for alcohol. In addition to the CDL random testing group, an additional 3,700 employees are randomly screened each year for drugs; this testing involves approximately 20% of the 3,700 employees each year Employees who are promoted or receive lateral transfers to safety-sensitive positions are required to submit to a drug screen. Within the City workforce, approximately 4,400 employees are classified as occupying safety-sensitive positions. The Alcohol Misuse/Drug Abuse Policy provides for mandatory post-accident testing if the following factors are present: (1) Accident involves a fatality; (2) Accident results in the City's driver being cited for a moving violation; (3) Accident results in the need for medical attention for any person involved the accident above the level of first aid. This policy requires that post-accident tests for alcohol be performed within eight hours of the motor vehicle accident(MVA) and/or a drug test within 32 hours of the MVA. Driver Training The City's safety program requires each employee who operates a City vehicle as a part of his/her job or each employee who operates his/her personal vehicle on official City business to complete a Defensive Driving Course (DDC) once every three years. The Mayor and Members of the City Council Page 4 January 12,1999 The Police Department driver training in addition to DDC is included as part of its academy for Police officer trainees. These trainees are required to complete 32 hours of course instruction in Professional Police Driving. As part of this a 12-hour block of instruction stresses the need to develop proper driving attitude in the overall approach to safe vehicle operation. Topics include: • unique characteristics of Police driving • civil litigation and tort law applicable to routine and emergency driving • basic through advanced vehicular dynamics • specific operation considerations during routine patrol • emergency response • pursuit driving • principles of sound decision-making regarding emergency vehicle operation. During the last weeks of academy training, trainees receive an intensive 40-hour Pursuit and Emergency Driving Course. Trainees attend a total of five eight-hour sessions of 2 hours of classroom instruction and 6 hours driving (practical application and exercises) each day. Additional training is provided through on-going in-service training, National Safety Council Defensive Diving Safety, tactical driving training, and additional driving training for officers whose driving record with the department indicate that they could benefit from such additional training. The Fire Department also requires special training for drivers. This training begins in the academy and continues on a periodic regular renewal cycle. Firefighter recruits are trained in basic Defensive Driving as well as in a special 8-hour Emergency Driving class covering the techniques of operating large Fire Department equipment and typically involves thirty to sixty recruits per year. The Fire Department conducts Engineers School every three to four years and this training is required of all persons in the rank of Engineer or Firefighter; these classes are usually three 8-hour sessions. Accident Review Boards Across the City, several departments or departmental divisions have Accident Review Boards composed of departmental personnel that meet on a regular to review all motor vehicle accidents involving department vehicles. These committees make a determination of whether the collision is chargeable to the driver and may make recommendations regarding the appropriate disciplinary action to be taken. These committees may also recommend that driving privileges be removed as part of their findings. The Police Accident Review Board convenes monthly to review all police accidents for the purpose of determining all relevant facts relating to the cause and a ruling of "chargeable" or "non- chargeable." The Committee also makes a determination of Non-Preventable (The employee has done everything reasonable to avoid the accident.) or Preventable (The employee has failed to do everything reasonable to avoid the accident.). The Committee is comprised of one lieutenant, one 011?11*1 sergeant, one corporal, and two officers. The Mayor and Members of the City Council Page 5 January 12,1999 The Committee's determinations are forwarded to the employee's supervisor who reviews the Board's findings and forwards a written report and any recommended disciplinary action through the chain of command for final disposition. Appropriate disciplinary action may range from recommendations for additional training (Defensive Driving Course or Pursuit Driver's Training) and/or employee disciplinary action from employee counseling through termination. Police Patrol Vehicle Availability during Fiscal Year 1997-98 Patrol Fleet Deployment There are 121 patrol units, of which 76 are assigned to beat patrol and 45 are relief units. The 45 relief units are distributed among the 12 neighborhood policing districts and are used when beat patrol units are out of service due to repairs. The relief factor of 45 units must also be used when vehicles operated by 14 shift supervisors, 89 neighborhood patrol officers and 48 Zero Tolerance personnel are out of service. Effectively,the relief factor for beat patrol is 22 percent, or about 30 cars, and will support a minimum beat patrol unit availability of 78 percent. When availability falls below 78 percent, shortages of patrol vehicles occur more frequently. This requires officers to double up in a single car and to cover two beats with a single vehicle. Depending on the time of day and other factors, less than the full 76 beats can be staffed without a negative impact on emergency response time. Patrol Fleet Availability During the period 10/1/97 through 9/30/98, the Police Department's patrol fleet experienced significant variations in availability. Between 10/1/97 and 4/30/98, average daily availability was 76 percent. Between 5/1/98 and 7/31/98, average daily availability was 74 percent. Between 8/1/98 and 9/30/98, average daily availability stood at 88 percent, a figure that has been maintained so far during the current fiscal year and is not expected to decline significantly before the next group of replacement cars arrives in spring of 1999. There was a serious availability problem during the first 10 months of FY 1997-98 that was due to a combination of several factors. The primary cause of this problem was that only 30 patrol units were replaced during the previous fiscal year (FY 1996-97), compared to 120 units replaced during FY 1995-96 (the first year of the Crime Control and Prevention District, CCPD). Average annual mileage for a patrol unit was about 47,000 miles, so keeping most of the patrol units purchased during the first year of the CCPD into the third year of the CCPD meant that many of the cars had in excess of 90,000 odometer miles. This odometer mileage situation was made worse by a 90-day production delay at Ford due to a body style change in the 1998 model Crown Victoria. This forced the Police Department to operate poor-condition patrol vehicles into the unusually hot weather that started in early May. Since the 61 replacement patrol units went into service in mid-July, the Police Department has had sufficient patrol units on average to staff the city's 76 beats. Since the replacements were put into service, a neighborhood policing district experiences an average of one vehicle short for one-day The Mayor and Members of the City Council Page 6 January 12,1999 every other month. This is typically the combination of wrecked vehicles combining with the normal scheduled maintenance and mechanical repair problems that occur daily. Police patrol vehicle availability currently is sufficient to meet patrol requirements. There are several factors that will continue to affect availability in the future, however, and the Police Department is analyzing these factors and will have recommendations forthcoming designed to mitigate the effects of these factors on response. Mechanical or Body Maintenance or Repairs On an average day, about 15 patrol units are out of service for maintenance or repairs. According to the Equipment Services Division, about 55 percent of downtime in FY 1997-98 was attributable to non-collision vehicle repairs of all types. Of the remaining downtime, 29 percent was spent performing preventive maintenance and 16 percent was spent making collision-related repairs. Another way to express this is that, on average, 8 vehicles were down during the day for mechanical repairs, 4.5 were down for scheduled maintenance and 2.5 were down for collision repairs. According to Equipment Services Division, the average drive-in mechanical repair takes 1.2 days to complete. The average time for scheduled maintenance is 0.8 day, although this includes more extensive repairs found during the inspections (the average basic maintenance, including an oil change, takes about 24 Minutes). The average collision repair takes 8.3 days to complete, but major body repairs can take _3)0 days or longer depending on parts availability and labor requirements. Radio and Electronic Equipment Repair The other source of downtime for police vehicles is radio and mobile data terminal repairs. On average, about 5 vehicles per day spend 50 minutes at the Telecommunications facility obtaining repairs. Most of these repairs are made to the mobile data terminals, which are over 15 years old and are subject to frequent malfunction due to their age and the fact that they must be serviced with spare parts taken from cannibalized units. For electronic equipment repairs, the vehicle operators usually drive the vehicle to the repair facility and wait for the repair to be made. The effect is that a unit is out of service for an average of 50 minutes and unable to respond to emergency calls during that time. The planned replacement of the department's mobile data terminals is expected to substantially reduce this type of downtime. If you have questions or require additional information, please contact Libby Watson, Assistant City Manager, Susan Bulla, Director of the Risk Management Department or Police Chief Tom Windham. 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