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Cops love to tell us they deserve very high pay because they have very dangerous jobs. That is a lie!
Police Officers are not even in the top 10 most dangerous jobs. The most dangerous jobs are fishermen, loggers, pilots and construction workers. When it comes to being murdered a Taxi Cab Driver is a far more dangerous job then a cop. I guess robbers are smart enough not to rob cops because they are always armed and can defend themselves. On the other hand taxi drivers are easy pickings because the are frequently unarmed and in fact in many parts of the country it is illegal for taxi drivers to carry guns to defend themselves. Any job which requires you to drive an automobile is a dangerous job, simply because car crashes are one dangerous side effect of jobs that require you to drive an automobile. Being a truck driver is a much more dangerous job then a cop according to this list. Cops come in number 11 on the list because of driving makes their job dangerous, not because they are heroes who risk their lives protecting us.
Here is a few other listing of dangerous jobs from other sources. Note that the jobs petty much stay the same while the rankings shift slightly from year to year or from survey to survey. In most of the surveys the job of being a police officer didn't even show up in the top 10 dangerous jobs. In a few surveys the job of being a police officer did come into the top ten, but being a cop never came in higher then 6th place. Firemen also like to do the same type of bragging. Firemen only showed up in one table and they came in 14th place.
Source: U.S. Labor Department
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics - Compensation and Working Conditions Online
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics; survey of occupations with minimum 30 fatalities and 45,000 workers in 2002
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1.4 million injuries and illnesses that required recuperation away from work occurred in private industry in 2002. Sprains and strains were the leading cause of injury in every major industry. What occupations tend to report the highest number of injuries?
Being a police officer isn't a dangerous job. Cops love to lie and tell us they risk their lives on a daily basis protecting us. But the bottom line is being a cop is no more dangerous then being the driver of a UPS or FexEx truck. The most dangerous jobs are usually fisherman, loggers and lumberjacks and construction workers. Year after year the job of being police officer rarely breaks into the list of the top 10 dangerous jobs. Any job that involves driving a car or truck is much more dangerous then a job that doesn't involve driving. For that reason being a cop is a much more dangerous job then a job that doesn't involve driving. And for that reason being a cop is about as dangerous as being the driver of a UPS or FexEx truck. Cops are assassinated and murdered now and then but not at the rate normal people are murdered. A liquor store clerk or Circle K clerk has a much higher probability of being murdered in a robbery then a cop, simply because cops are always armed in American and criminals rarely are dumb enough to rob a police officers who can defend themselves. The article didn't mention firemen, but firemen often love to lie and tell us they risk their lives for us on a daily basis, but when you look at the industry statistics being a fireman isn't any more of a dangerous job then being a cop. More officers killed on duty in 2010 by Mary Pat Flaherty - Dec. 29, 2010 12:00 AM Washington Post A total of 160 law-enforcement officers on federal and local levels died in the line of duty this year as of midday Monday, an increase over the 117 killed last year, when the number of deaths reached a 50-year low, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Traffic accidents were the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths, as they have been for 13 years. Seventy-three officers were killed in traffic-related incidents this year, compared with 51 in 2009, the organization said. Fifty-nine officers were fatally shot this year, an increase over the 49 killed last year, caused in part by the shootings of clusters of officers in Fresno, Calif.; West Memphis, Ark.; Hoonah, Alaska; Tampa; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Eighteen officers were killed in Texas, more than in any other state. The agencies with the most deaths were the California Highway Patrol and Chicago Police Department, each with five, the memorial fund reported. The 2010 tally does not include the death of a Georgia State Patrol trooper who was shot twice in the face Monday night after an attempted traffic stop and brief chase in Atlanta. A Washington Post investigation found that 511 police officers were killed by firearms in the United States from early 2000 through Sept. 30, 2010. |
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