Memo to the county sheriffs: Look at a fatigue program now!

Now that the deputy sheriff who killed two bicyclists last year after falling alseep at the wheel has admitted his guilt, (Read the Mercury News story here), I'm hoping the department will do the right thing and immediately begin reviewing its shift policy for its officers.

Deputy James Council was in the middle of the second of three 121/2 hour shifts when the accident happened. Now he's looking at a jail sentence, community service and a personal Hell of asking, "What if?" for the rest of his life.

Would a shorter shift had made a difference? Some police departments believe the 12-hour shifts - which are usually three days on, four days off - are more manageable and cut down on overtime.

But a 2003 study of companies that utilize 12-hour shifts showed that accidents and injuries occurred twice as much during those shifts compared with eight-hour shifts. Federal stats show that about 1,500 people die in fatigue-related accidents each year, though there are no stats available on fatigue-related crashes involving law enforcement officers.

Here is what we do know: Police officers averaged six hours and 37 minutes of sleep per day, a 1999 survey of four representative police departments in the United States shows. That's 20 minutes less than the average American adult gets, according to the National Sleep Foundation's 1999 Sleep in America poll.

Maybe Santa Clara can take a cue from San Mateo County, which has developed a program to combat the issue of fatigue. To help deputies working 12-hour shifts, the sheriff’s office has established two locations where deputies can sleep in between shifts. One is located in a residential neighborhood in Redwood City and contains 14 beds. Another is located at one of the department’s substations and has four beds.

As I was finishing this blog, I heard that the Santa Clara department is going to work with a sleep researcher to learn more about the effect of sleep patterns on deputies. Maybe some good can come out of this tragedy to protect not only the cyclists on the road, but the officers as well.

For more on this issue, check out this study - Tired Cops: The prevalence and potential consquences of police fatigue by Brian Villa and Dennis Kenney.