IRVINE : Officers Honored for Driving Safely

Police patrol officers in this city each log about 20,000 miles a year on their cars and motorcycles, so fender-benders come with the job.

But almost a third of the city’s patrol officers have cruised the city for the last five years without an accident--or at least without one that was their fault, Police Chief Charles S. Brobeck said. The 22 officers recently were commended for their millions of miles of safe driving by Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan and an official of the Automobile Club of Southern California.

The auto club offers police officers a safe-driving plaque if they regularly drive on patrol and go five years without a preventable accident, said Klaus Goedecke, district manager in the Automobile Club of Southern California’s Newport Beach office. The award means each of the 22 officers has logged about 100,000 miles of on-duty driving with a clean record.

“It’s a remarkable achievement,” Goedecke said. “When you think of how many miles they drive . . . it’s considerably more than what you or I put on our cars.”

The auto club began the recognition program with the California Highway Patrol in 1979, Goedecke said. It later expanded the program to any police department that wanted to participate, he said. Irvine has been the only department participating in Orange County this year.

Police Traffic Sgt. Al Murray said he brought the auto club’s safe-driving program to Irvine this year to help recognize the officers’ safe-driving skills.

Police officers receiving the safe-driving plaques were: Bob Anderson, Mario Asturias, Richard Bartolo, Charles Baxter, Henry Boggs, Jon Coltrane, Allan Day, Jim Eppstein, Steve Giannini, Rick Handfield, Kent Hansen, Dave Husted, Frank Johnson, Bob Kluck, Rudy Malik, Dennis McNeely, Ralph Parkes, Mark Schneider, Wayne Shaw, Craig Smith, Steve Soto and Dick Worcester.