Police Vehicle Orientation During Traffic Stops: Protecting Pedestrian Officers from Adjacent Traffic

Screening experiments were run with the HVE simulation software by Engineering Dynamics Corporation to identify a roadside police vehicle orientation that is more effective than current practices at protecting the extravehicular police officer from being struck by an errant passing vehicle as the officer makes contact with the driver of a suspect vehicle. The most common roadside police vehicle orientations used by police officers were modeled in the simulation to identify adjustable factors and practical level settings for the factors to be utilized in the screening Design of Experiments. Subsequently, the main effects were evaluated, a recommended vehicle orientation was identified and optimized using the simulation and a practical procedure for orienting the police vehicle in the recommended position was developed. Finally, a crash test was conducted to confirm the study methodology.