Rumor or truth????

[Veteran Deputy]

Due to the passage of Amendment 1, every county and local governmentis feeling the pinch. There have been stories or rumors lately that the following may be occurring VERY soon. How much of this is true;

1)ECSO deputies will have to investigate ALL traffic accident occurring on all roads EXCEPT state highways and the interstate (within the county of course)

2)FHP and DOT may consolidate to overcome the 400 shortage of troopers. This is part of the problem leading to counties investigating their own county crashes,

3)the @37 court security officers will be removed from the court house and put within the department to fill our own shortfalls. This will enable a REAL traffic unit to be started consisting of @30 deputies to work the crashes and DUI's, keeping patrol deputies free for patrol calls

4)charging a small fee for a funeral escort, almost like a minor sig 15

Ive heaard a variety of issues and if we have to start our own accident investigations, we are in a world of hurt. The science involved and the amount of training needed will be overwealming at first and not be cheap.

Input?????

[Dr Pepper]

http://forums.leoaffairs.com/viewtopic.php?t=50522

According to the FHP forum, the proposal to restrict FHP to state roads and insterstates had been killed.


I huess nothing is really final until their next budget is in place and they see what their manpower allotment will be.

Traffic Crash: Can't confirm the rumor but I have heard it. That makes sense. FHP is down anywhere from 60 to 160 officers now, depending on who you listen to. Many SO's do TCrash now as a service since FHP response times are slow because they are spread thin. This would put a hurt on the SOs that don't do this. I would suspect driver's exchanges and short forms. For injuries, I would expect that FHP would work these whereever they occured. As you said, they require special training, investigations, etc., and FHP has all that covered. However, with that said, who knows what they will do. Most likely whatever they do will defy common sense.

DOT & FHP Combine: Rumor but rumor has been around Tally that the Gov has wanted to combine FHP, FDOT, FWC and FDEP law under the FDLE for quite some time. There are many pro's and cons. Most of the changes for consolidation would be in administration and support and not so much on the road and water. Makes sense as long as they don't mess with the uniqueness required for each to perform their duties.

Except when fatalities are involved, traffic crashes are used mostly for the benifit of insurance companies to determine what their liabialty is.

If the state wants to save hundreds of thousands of man hours responding to and writing up fender benders, put in on the back of the insurance companies and their adjustors. Their policy holders can write them a report and file a claim if they want paid for their loss.