How one agency used the Below 100 initiative to change their culture—preventing injury & saving money
This is for all the commanders who have a problem in their agencies with officers speeding and driving recklessly. You know it's happening, just like I knew it was happening. Catching them doing it and trying to make them realize that they "just can't do that in this day and age" is like trying to herd cats. Right?
I thought that too—until the light bulb finally came on after I attended a Below 100 training seminar and our department finally figured out a way to motivate deputies to dramatically reduce this type of behavior.
My Introduction
In October, 2012, Yolo County Sheriff Ed Prieto wanted a command level officer from our agency to attend a three-day California POST (Peace Officer Standards and Training) Safe Driving Symposium in San Diego. When I heard "San Diego" and "three days," I decided to take one for the team and agreed to go.
Once in San Diego, I learned that this symposium was centered around the Below 100 initiative. The goal of Below 100 is to drive down line-of-duty deaths to fewer than 100 annually, a level not seen since 1944. The program focuses on areas that have proved deadly for law enforcement and are clearly under an officer's control. During the program, we saw videos of cops doing stupid things. Preventable things like speeding, driving recklessly and not wearing their seatbelts, all captured by video cameras they knew were mounted in their own cars.
You know that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you were a kid and you got caught doing something you weren't supposed to be doing? I had that feeling again half way through the first day of training. I knew my deputies were speeding out there, I just didn't know how to make it stop.
That is, until I heard the story of Kim Schlau who lost her teenage daughters, Jessica and Kelli Uhl, when they were killed instantly after being hit head-on by an Illinois state trooper who was driving 126 mph while talking on his cell phone. I read this story in the training materials and it touched me to my core. Then, on day three, a presenter started telling the story. I couldn't hang. I had to go outside to get some air. When I came back in, Kim Schlau herself was on the stage telling the story. I didn't last but a few minutes before I had to leave the room to an area where no one would see me sobbing—no one except for the 35 other cops who were with me doing the same thing. I realized that something had to change in my agency, and we had to change it right now.
After I was sure it was over, I went back into the room where Kim was talking with attendees. I told her I was sorry for her loss and admitted to her that I just couldn't watch her relive her heartbreak. But right then and there I promised Kim that I would slow down our patrol cars.
The Effort
My first day back to work after the conference was the following Monday. My first stop that morning was Sheriff Prieto's office where I briefed him on what I had learned at the seminar. I told him that it was my plan to have the Below 100 training program ready to implement within two weeks. He gave his full support and told me to run with it.
The first thing I looked at was our agency's seatbelt policy. It was sadly lacking. I re-wrote the policy so it would be mandatory to wear one at all times, with certain tactical exceptions, and the sheriff implemented it the next day.
I also contacted the county's risk manager and asked for information regarding how many on-duty crashes we had experienced in the last ten years and how much had been paid out as a result. I learned that each year, for the past ten years, we averaged one crash per month, injuring 1.5 deputies each year—two of whom had to retire due to their injuries. Each year we were spending over $100,000 on liability, property damage, workers comp, legal fees and costs to repair damage to our own patrol vehicles.
We also ran a report showing speed activations by our deputies. Our patrol car dash cameras are constantly on but one of the "triggers" to save the information is when the vehicle speed hits 90 miles per hour. When this happens the device saves a full two minutes prior to the activation. This allows us to determine if the activation was justified and appropriate. The system also documents how frequently this occurs. As a result, we learned that we had 836 high speed (over 90 mph) activations during the 16-month period since the cameras were installed. More than 600 of those were in the preceding 12 months and one of those activations was for 126 mph for a deputy not even en route to a call. Although 90 mph may sound like a high threshold, Yolo County is 1,180 square miles of mostly rural area, broken down into four patrol zones.
I met with my two patrol lieutenants and trained them on everything I had learned at the seminar. We knew we couldn't just put together a presentation, show the deputies and expect them to change. We had to devise a way to motivate deputies to do their part in changing a culture where bad driving had become the norm. This meant we had to go beyond just having them sit through a training session.
We started by downloading the Below 100 PowerPoint presentation (made available to those who attend Below 100 training), which includes compelling videos that underscore the importance of common-sense officer safety. We added our crash stats and some of our own videos of deputies crashing. I really have to give a lot of credit to the lieutenants who put this together—it's one of the most eye-opening training presentations I have seen during my 27 years in law enforcement. It was shown to the sheriff and undersheriff and training started that same day: Nov. 15, 2012.
We systematically presented Below 100 training to all patrol deputies, detectives, animal services officers, court services deputies, coroners and anyone in our department of 240 employees who would have access to driving a county vehicle.
In keeping with our effort to go beyond "just" training and actually change culture, we downloaded motivational posters from Below 100. We also created our own poster which featured a photo of the Uhl sisters, their wrecked vehicle and the totaled state police cruiser. By now I was in regular e-mail contact with Kim Schlau and she gave us the photos and permission to use them in the poster. The poster also featured a description of the incident and the phrase, "Drive like a life depends on it." We hung these posters strategically throughout the building so you literally could not go outside or to the bathroom without seeing one of the posters.
We then started to actively monitor speed activations. The deputies were told that they would have to personally justify every speed activation by narrating into the video, as it was recording, why they just set off an activation. There are definitely acceptable speed activations: Code-3 calls, pursuits, trying to overtake high-speed vehicles and occasionally for tactical advantages where there is no exposure to public safety. But the deputy must justify the need.
One of our patrol lieutenants was made responsible for reviewing all speed activations each month and then providing me with a list of the unjustified ones. In the first three months following Below 100 training, the unjustified speed activations dropped to 39 compared to 199 for the previous three month period. Over half of the deputies dropped their activations to zero, and a majority of the remainder had two or fewer. The half who dropped to zero were recognized with Sheriff's certificates and department challenge coins. The non-believers were issued memorandums of counseling to remind them of department expectations. One deputy had a majority of the speed activations and he was issued a permanent written reprimand. This did not sit comfortably with the Deputy Sheriff's Association (DSA).
Sheriff Prieto met with the DSA and their concern was not so much that they were getting into trouble for speed activations, but rather what were the exact parameters for them to stay out of trouble. He reminded them that the program was not designed to get anyone into trouble, but rather to keep the deputies safe and reduce the frequency of at-fault crashes. He also reminded them that they had zero on-duty crashes since training, which equated to everyone going home safely since the program began.
We continued to monitor speed activations until we had a year's worth of statistics. The chart at the top of page 34 shows the period before and after Below 100 training. Notable is the twelve month period after Below 100—December 2012 through November 2013—which shows a dramatic decrease in the frequency of unjustified high-speed vehicle operation.
One day, while driving on a long trip with a good friend who is a high-ranking law enforcement official from another agency, I started preaching about our success with the Below 100 program. He told me his agency didn't have a problem with speed activations, even though his agency was twice the size of mine. I asked him if his agency had at-fault, on-duty crashes and he said, "Of course. That's the cost of doing business." Again—that's what I used to think.
He then asked, "So your cameras are set to go off at 90 mph. How do you know the deputies aren't just driving everywhere at 89 mph?"
"I don't," I said. "But I know they're not driving between 90 and 126 mph like they used to, and that's saving lives and money."
Another great feature of implementing Below 100 is the cost. To date, the only expenses incurred were for printing posters and safe-driving certificates plus the cost of the challenge coins that we presented. Sheriff Prieto believes in employee recognition, and, after an entire year with zero at-fault crashes, every patrol deputy received a certificate of merit for their role in reducing crashes to a level never seen in the history of our department.
The county's risk manager was so impressed with the results of our program and the savings of more than $100,000 that he offered to support other training. As a result, we're rolling out county-wide training on excited-delirium with risk management covering the cost.
Conclusion
It would be an outright lie to say that any one command-level person in our agency is responsible for our success in this arena. The real credit goes to the deputies who demonstrated the necessary commitment to ensure they and their fellow deputies make it home safely every night.
Hopefully our experience with Below 100 will inspire you to consider how you can actually change culture, not just provide training. We're definitely not experts but perhaps you can take a little of what worked for us and use it for the benefit of your agency and personnel.
