Highway Safety Initiatives: A Day to Remember, A Day to Pledge

We understood on the proudest day of our professional lives—the day we took the oath of office—that we might die in the course of discharging our sworn responsibilities. But even if we seriously pondered the prospect of an in-the-line-of-duty death, we most likely believed it would come to pass in a barrage of bullets during a high-profile felony arrest. However, the reality is that 41 percent more officers were killed accidentally than feloniously (746 officers versus 530 officers) between 1999 and 2008, and that 66 percent of those killed accidentally in that same decade (492 officers) died in automobile and motorcycle crashes.