Opinion ID: 461025
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Hazardous Driving Convictions

Text: 98 Similarly, we affirm the district court's finding that the City's remaining challenged job requirement, involving hazardous driving convictions, is job related. Cecily Ann Hine, a consulting actuary for Independent Actuarial Services, gave expert testimony that evidence of moving traffic violations is a reliable predictor of future accident involvement and the best available means of screening drivers with high accident potential. When asked what empirical evidence she had to support her opinion, Hine testified that she examined six different studies which considered prediction of accident involvement. She testified: 99 [I]n all but one, prior conviction records, prior accident records were considered predictors of future accident involvement. The one where it wasn't significant was an extremely small study, and lacked what we called statistical power. And in the remaining five, all but one found convictions to be one of the best predictor variables. (Emphasis added.) 100 Redlinger likewise testified that there is a relationship between the hazardous traffic requirement of the City and an officer's ability to be an effective police officer. Redlinger added that a person who is habitually an offender of the traffic laws is more likely to offend them in the future. Also, more likely to be a person that engages in hazardous driving other than when they get caught; and that, given the significant amount of time the majority--the vast majority of officers spend in their automobiles, that this would be of serious concern to any police department. Both for the safety of the officers, the safety of the citizens, as well as the cost to the organization. 101 Hine's and Redlinger's testimony was supported by studies which the City introduced into evidence. A study by the California Department of Insurance, Rate Regulation Division, entitled Study of California Driving Performance (Phase II), stated that there was a definite trend toward increased accident involvement as a function of a driver's prior conviction and prior accident frequency, and that the poor record drivers have many more accidents than do drivers who are free of convictions or accidents. In fact, the study concluded that [p]rior traffic citation frequency appears to be a significantly better predictor of future accident involvement than prior accident history. Similar correlations were found in a Department of Transportation study entitled The Psychometric Prediction of Negligent Driver Recidivism and a University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center study entitled The Statistical Association Between Past and Future Accidents and Violations. 102 The district court, in reliance on this evidence, found that the defendants had again shown the job relatedness factor of th[ese] criteria. The court noted that the ability to drive safely is an essential part of [an officer's] ... duties. All new recruits are assigned to a patrol car for six months of field training. Subsequent to such training, the recruit is then assigned to a patrol division for at least two years. 20 The court concluded that the lives and property at risk each time a Dallas police officer operates a squad car necessitates the city's rejecting of applicants who, based upon past driving records, are likely to have accidents. The district court's finding is not clearly erroneous. If anything, the requirement that an officer not have three or more hazardous, or moving, violation convictions in the past year nor six such in the past two years seems an obvious necessity in a job which so heavily involves the performance of driving duties. The decisions of other courts which have addressed the public interest in having safe drivers, considered under our discussion of Public Risk and Responsibility, reinforces our conclusion.