DPS Accident Reports Riddled With Errors
State troopers turned in hundreds of error-riddled accident reports in 2007 and 2008, according to an internal audit report compiled by the Texas Department of Public Safety last year.
In Hillsboro — the region with the most errors — more than two-thirds of the reports that officers filed in the first half of 2007 contained mistakes, according to the audit, which The Texas Tribune obtained through an open records request. Internal DPS auditors reviewed accident reports from troopers in 22 regions across the state. In 17 of those regions, auditors found that at least 30 percent of the accident reports that troopers ...
Comments (1)
dickson
There was a considerable amount of hyperventilation about this subject when it first came to light. There are hundreds of data fields on the CR-3 Peace Officer's Crash Report, and it gets more complex every year. The report is completed by peace officers although the report itself is less useful to law enforcement than to lawyers and insurance companies.
Per data field, the actual error rate is probably closer to one percent, or perhaps even lower. Of the hundreds of data fields on each report, the DPS identified eight data fields as being "critical." The error rate on these "critical" data fields is significantly less than the thirty percent error rate that got everyone in a tizzy.
It can take hours at the scene of a collision and more hours in front of a computer to complete these crash reports. Troopers are given deadlines for submitting them and are also pressured in subtle and less-subtle ways to spend more time on patrol and less time on filling out reports.
We might all be safer and get more and better law enforcement for our tax dollars if Troopers could focus on collecting and reporting only that "critical" data and leaving the rest for the lawyers and insurance adjusters to figure out on their own.
I won't even mention what can happen to these reports AFTER they are submitted....the Texas Tribune already reported on THAT subject.
Don Dickson
Counsel to the Texas State Troopers Association
(The opinions expressed are those of the author)