In Central Louisiana, tight budgets put brakes on take-home police cars

The economic downturn has affected everyone in some way, even law enforcement agencies.

Tighter budgets have meant finding ways to cut costs. In some cities, such as Indianapolis, that has resulted in a change of policy at the police department. The department will begin charging officers a fee to take home their patrol cars.

In Rapides Parish, the take-home car policies of the Sheriff’s Office, Alexandria Police Department and Pineville Police Department are similar — special units and division heads have take-home cars.

Despite the growing national trend that has other agencies either stopping the practice or charging an officer a fee to take home a car, local law enforcement are happy with their policies.

Across the country a take-home unit is “a widespread practice some see as a perk and others view as a valuable crime-fighting tool,” said Darrel Stephens, executive director of Major Cities Chiefs Association, which represents leaders of the 63 largest law enforcement agencies in the United States. Stephens says many larger departments have in recent years examined or adopted cost-sharing policies or other restrictions on take-home cars.

“Departments, because of fiscal constraints, are being asked to curtail the use of take-home vehicles, or are taking them away from some officers or charging fees and setting limits on off-duty use,” said James Pasco, director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police labor organization.

North Miami Beach, Fla., has already ended the take-home policy for most of the department’s roughly 100 police officers, city spokesman Mark Perkins said.

At the Alexandria Police Department, only specialized divisions and units — those subject to call out or with specialized duties such as investigators, special response team and division heads — have “take-home units” assigned to them, according to Alexandria Police Chief Loren M. Lampert.

“Our patrol fleet is a one car to four officers 24/7 patrol fleet,” Lampert said. “In short, all four patrol shifts share the same cars.” Patrol cars, in other words, are always in use or on duty, so to speak.

Alexandria police once allowed many more officers to take cars home. As reported by The Town Talk in 2004, about two-thirds of Alexandria police officers were assigned a take-home car, according to Daren Coutee, who was then the police chief. Some of those cars were retired patrol cars. At the time, Coutee estimated it cost the city $80,000 a year to provide officers with take-home cars.

Five years later, those costs had skyrocketed with increases in the price of gasand other costs. Mayor Jacques M. Roy announced in Feb. 2009 that the city was eliminating the practice of allowing officers to use retired patrol cars as take-home vehicles. The city eliminated 61 take-home cars, which was expected to save about $180,000 a year.

In Pineville, 12 “working units” go home regularly. These are vehicles assigned to four lieutenants and eight sergeants.

“These are all working units,” said Rich Dupree, chief of staff to Pineville Mayor Clarence Fields. “That means they work out of the actual take-home unit and can be called out straight to a scene.”

“We are very pleased with the level of protection and service the Pineville Police Department consistently delivers,” Dupree said. “We have always supported take-home units for those officers in leadership positions … and it has also proven to be a valuable tool in the neighborhoods where our officers live and to response times when needed. We have also researched the impact on our budget and have determined the added protection it provides our community validates our policy.”

Selected deputies with the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office also drive their squad cars to and from work.

“Most of the take-home units at the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office are issued to personnel who are on call for their division or natural emergencies such as hurricanes, tornadoes and such,” said Tommy Carnline, RPSO public information officer. “That includes patrol supervisors, detectives, SWAT, special operations and house arrest and corrections. If they are off duty and roll up on something, they handle it or stand by until another deputy or law enforcement agency responds.”

The Alexandria Police Department is considering making one change. Lampert said the department is trying to reduce the number of officers assigned per car — from 4 to 1 now to 2 to 1 — to allow the patrol car fleet to run 12 hours a day and remain idle for 12 hours.

“This is predicted to reduce maintenance costs by as much as 35 percent and extend the life of the vehicles as much as 50 percent,” Lampert said. “The average life of a 24/7 patrol car is 12 to 15 months.”

The average life of a one officer take-home car is five years.

“As you can see,” Lampert said, “most in the industry agree that one-officer vehicles ultimately save the taxpayer money. However, there is significant cost associated with the initial acquisition of the vehicles.

“Our plan is to evaluate the actual savings of the two-officer vehicle ‘dual patrol fleets’ and then consult with the city administration to determine what is best for our citizens.”

Lampert said the best policy is the one that affords public safety and is cost-effective.

Pasco, the head of the National Fraternal Order of Police, says he understands the motivation behind Indianapolis and others changing their policies but thinks a narrow focus on money doesn’t account for valuable intangibles of take-home vehicles, such as the ability of officers to quickly respond to incidents even when they’re off duty and the crime-deterring effect of having more vehicles visible in a community.

“This is not a privilege,” Pasco says. “It really is about maximizing response times and the ability of officers to be where they need to be.”

Rapides Parish Sheriff William Earl Hilton agrees. “The more patrol cars seen in the community,” he said, “the safer the community is.”

Russian Lawmakers Aim at Foreign Cars, Films and Schooling in Patriotic Purge

The members of Russia’s lower house of Parliament — which last year passed so many harsh new laws with so little debate that commentators compared it to a “rabid printer” — returned to work last week as the standard-bearers for President Vladimir V. Putin’s brand of patriotism.

Having captured the world’s attention in December by banning all adoptions of Russian children by American families, members of Parliament have dreamed up a variety of further proposals to purge Russian politics and civic life of foreign influences.

Among them: A full ban on all foreign adoption. A requirement that the children of Russian officials return directly to Russia after studying abroad, lest their parent lose his or her post. A requirement that officials’ children be barred from studying abroad altogether. A requirement that movie theaters screen Russian-made films no less than 20 percent of the time, or face fines as high as 400,000 rubles, or about $13,000.

One group of legislators is working on a bill that would prevent anyone with foreign citizenship, including Russians, from criticizing the government on television. One proposal would ban the use of foreign driver’s licenses, another would require officials to drive Russian-made cars. One deputy has recommended strictly limiting marriages between Russian officials and foreigners, at least those from states that were not formerly Soviet.

Many of these ideas sound eccentric, in a capital city whose elite are well-traveled and integrated into the West, and are very unlikely to advance and become law. But they certainly will not hurt anyone’s career in the current political environment.

“You know, there is a principle in questions of patriotism or protecting the interests of the country, as the authorities see it, that it’s better to overdo it than to show weakness,” said Aleksei V. Makarkin, an analyst at the Center for Political Technologies in Moscow. “If you try too hard, and come up with some exotic, scandalous draft law, you are in any case one of us. Maybe you are too emotional — you’re a patriot.”

Since Mr. Putin’s inauguration, the Duma, the lower house of Parliament, has hurriedly passed a series of initiatives tightening the state’s control over dissent and political activism: it has steeply increased fines for Russians who take part in unauthorized protests; required nonprofit organizations to register as “foreign agents” if they receive money from overseas; reinstated criminal penalties for slander; and vastly expanded the definition of treason to include assisting international organizations.

When the adoption ban passed, cutting off all adoptions of Russian children by Americans, only four deputies out of 406 voted against it, with 400 voting for it and two abstaining. Grigory A. Yavlinsky, the founder of the liberal party Yabloko, described the vote on his blog as “a unanimous pseudo-patriotic frenzy.”

Over the January break, opposition activists began focusing efforts on the Duma, hoping that outrage over the adoption ban would re-energize flagging protests. Moscow City Hall has approved a Sunday demonstration targeting lawmakers, called “the march of scoundrels.” The newspaper Novaya Gazeta on Thursday announced that it had gathered 100,000 signatures in favor of dissolving the Duma, enough to require an official review.

“Let them come up with a draft law, for example, ‘on the right of a citizens of the Russian Federation to raise the question of lack of confidence toward the state Duma,’ ” reads the petition. “It is necessary to make this amendment to the Russian Constitution: ‘The people should have the right to recall deputies from their warm seats if they act contrary to its will,’ ” the petition reads, in part.

Yevgeny N. Minchenko, director of the International Institute for Political Expertise, said the major pieces of legislation that passed through the Duma last year were produced by staff members in Mr. Putin’s administration. Last year, he said, demonstrated that the Parliament serves as an “instrument” of the Kremlin.

“Unfortunately, in my view, there is a dangerous trend that practically the only way to consolidate all the parliamentary factions is with various kinds of anti-Western initiatives,” Mr. Minchenko said.

Mr. Putin has made patriotism a central theme of his third presidential term, and Yevgeny A. Fyodorov, a United Russia deputy, said strengthening Russia’s sovereignty is now the Duma’s “most important direction.”

Mr. Fyodorov said he would like to see the Constitution amended to allow for a national ideology, something that is now explicitly excluded in the text, but concedes that this will take time. He said the adoption ban — or, as he called it, “the ban on the export of children” — signaled the beginning of a major effort to “strengthen Russia’s sovereignty” by purging foreign influences on civic life.

“You know the saying — we saddle up slowly, but we ride fast,” he said. “The U-turn has just begun, and the most radical steps, including the ones connected to the Constitution, will take place in three or four years.”

Mr. Fyodorov, whose proposal to bar government officials from keeping property overseas has won some support in the Kremlin, said any permanent ties between government officials and foreign countries — a child residing abroad, or a spouse with property outside Russia — constitute a “factor of distrust” that, according to legislation passed last year, can now serve as grounds for an official’s dismissal. The long-term task, he said, “is to gradually reformat the elite to fit the national mood.”

“The existence of a strong connection between an official and foreign countries — I formulate this broadly — is a factor of distrust,” Mr. Fyodorov said.

This mission is complicated by the fact that Moscow’s ruling class is, in fact, already deeply integrated into Western Europe. One leader of the legislative campaign, a United Russia deputy, Sergei Zheleznyak, was pilloried by a blogger, Aleksei Navalny, because his daughters study at exclusive institutions in Switzerland and Britain. Nevertheless, the Kremlin has determined that officials’ foreign holdings must be brought under control, because they are alienating the public, said Sergei A. Markov, a political analyst who served as a legislator with United Russia until last year.

“The population considers the elite to be half-foreign,” he said. “Their property is abroad, their houses are abroad, their wives are abroad, their children are abroad. Even Russian industrialists work through offshore companies. Why do these people run Russia, they say.”

The proposals are bound to raise eyebrows in the West, but they are actually driven by domestic politics, analysts said. Mr. Minchenko noted that even as anti-American sentiment surged in the Duma this fall, Mr. Putin has avoided damaging steps like closing the NATO transit point in Ulyanovsk. He called the legislative campaign “carefully dosed” to avoid permanently hurting bilateral relations.

2013 Detroit Auto Show’s New Cars And Concepts

The North American International Auto Show, the Detroit Auto Show to most folk, is arguably the most important event on the automotive calendar in the U.S. It’s also the place where the global automotive community comes together for the first time each year, all hoping to find out what the major automakers have in store for us over the next 12 months.

In addition to some of the year’s most eagerly anticipated new vehicle debuts, there’s also the long list of concept cars to ogle as well as all the industry people to get updates from.

Last year there were a total 38 world premieres at the Detroit Auto Show and this year’s expected to be even bigger. Some of the highlights include the all-new Lexus IS, Infiniti Q50 (the replacement for the G37) as well as the updated Jeep Grand Cherokee and Mercedes-Benz E Class range. Oh, and the highly-anticipated C7 Corvette.

As with every show, the High Gear Media crew will be on hand to bring you all the breaking news, plus live photos and video footage.

To make sure you don’t miss anything, and to avoid all the crowds, bookmark the dedicated show hub from our sister site Motor Authority and remember to follow us Facebook and Twitter.

In the lead up to next Monday’s opening press day, let’s now take a look at many of the vehicles we know will be unveiled.

2014 Maserati Quattroporte: Maserati’s flagship sedan, the Quattroporte, has been completely renewed. The new car grows considerably in length, allowing it to better compete with its German rivals while also providing space for a mid-size Ghibli sedan to join the ranks later in the year. The new Quattroporte also brings more engine options to the table as well as all-wheel-drive capability, should you require it. We’re not completely sold on the looks just yet, though we’re sure it will look much better in person than in the initial press shots.

2014 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra: General Motors has launched the latest versions of its tough-as-nails Silverado and Sierra pickup trucks, both of which are now bigger and brawnier than ever. They’re also a lot more intelligent than ever, with both models offering new MyLink and IntelliLink connectivity features, a new damping system for the tailgates, accident-avoidance technology and more fuel-efficient engines.

The only trouble for General Motors Company [NYSE:GM] is that Ford may steal some of its thunder by previewing its 2015 F-150 pickup with a new concept. This is still a rumor though we wouldn’t rule it out completely. 2014 Mercedes-Benz CLA Class: One of the more interesting debuts is a brand new CLA Class from Mercedes-Benz. This will be the automaker’s first compact model sold in the U.S., though it certainly won’t be the last. The stylish sedan combines a sleek coupe profile with four-door practicality–and it should also be extremely fuel efficient. The only downside is that it’s based on a front-wheel-drive platform, though MB is expected to only offer all-wheel-drive versions in the U.S.

2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee: Jeep is introducing a substantial facelift for its popular Grand Cherokee model in Detroit next week. The new vehicle will sport revised styling, new LED lights, a revamped interior and a new diesel option. The new ZF eight-speed auto, which has already made its way into a number of Chrysler products, is also expected to be offered on the full 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee lineup.

Hit the next page for more of our 2013 Detroit Auto Show preview.

2014 Infiniti Q50: Just last month Infiniti took the bold step of completely renaming its lineup, choosing to discard the alphabet soup of names currently employed in favor of a new Q-based naming structure that mimics Audi’s strategy. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise as Infiniti’s new global president has been an Audi man for two decades.

The first of the new Q cars will be the 2014 Infiniti Q50, which is essentially the replacement for the aging Infiniti G37 sedan. It once again will be a spacious four-door sedan with V-6 engines and rear-wheel-drive dynamics, just this time around it’s a Q and not a G.

The new Q50 is a completely new design from Infiniti, though it is expected to share many elements with the next Mercedes-Benz C Class thanks to the alliance deal between Renault-Nissan and Daimler.

The teaser image above shows the new headlight design which incorporates an LED ‘eyebrow’ similar to Mercedes’ current headlight design trend.

2014 Lexus IS: One of the Q50’s direct rivals, the redesigned Lexus IS sedan, will also be on show in Detroit. It, too, gets a sleek new look and V-6 engines, though this particular model will be retaining its IS 250 and IS 350 nameplates. Overseas, a new hybrid model, the IS 300h, will also be launched.

2014 Chevrolet Corvette: Easily one of the most anticipated cars of the show, perhaps of the whole year, Chevrolet’s seventh-generation Corvette will be bowing in Detroit. We’ll only be getting our look at the standard Corvette at next week’s show, though this will still be packing a brand-new 450-horsepower LT1 V-8 engine that promises to rocket the car from 0-60 mph in less than 4.0 seconds. In addition to brute power, the C7 ‘Vette will also herald a new level of quality never-before-seen on the iconic American sports car.

2013 Nissan Leaf: In its third year on the market, the updated 2013 Nissan Leaf will have a slightly longer range, a new and lower-priced base model, faster charging, a more efficient cabin heater, and, perhaps most important of all, a “Made In America” sticker. The battery electric car goes into production at Nissan’s assembly plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, this week.Via Motors X-Truck: Electric vehicle startups come and go, but it’s harder to ignore one fronted by “father of the Chevy Volt” Bob Lutz. Yes, we are, of course, talking about Via Motors, which last year in Detroit debuted a Chevy pickup converted to electric power.

Via has started taking orders for the truck but deliveries are yet to happen, though that hasn’t stopped the company from announcing several new models. One of these will be an extended-range electric pickup with more than 800 horsepower on tap.

Hit the next page to see the rest of the vehicles, including concepts, that we know are coming to the 2013 Detroit Auto Show.

BMW 4-Series concept

2013 Dodge Dart GT

Honda Urban SUV concept

2014 Cadillac ELR

Hyundai Genesis four-door coupe concept

2014 Audi SQ5

2014 Audi RS 5 Cabriolet

2014 Mercedes-Benz E Class Coupe and Cabriolet

2013 Bentley Continental GT Speed

2014 Mercedes-Benz E Class

Toyota Furia concept

That’s just some of the cars and concepts we will be seeing at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show next week. But in addition to these, we’ll also see the winners of the respective North American car and truck of the year awards, which once again will be presided over by a panel of judges including our own editor Marty Padgett.

This year the finalists in the car award include the Cadillac ATS, Ford Fusion and Honda Accord, while in the truck category we have the Ford Motor Company [NYSE:F] C-Max, Mazda CX-5 and Ram 1500.

That’s it for now, but remember to tune in next week for all the breaking news direct from the halls of Detroit’s Cobo Arena. And remember, you can catch in-depth coverage of the show via the dedicated show hub of our sister site Motor Authority.

Driverless cars and The Jetsons

Only a week into the new year and The Next Hot Thing I’m incessantly bombarded by is “the driverless car.” Most recently, I read about it here in the Washington Post this morning. How can this description not sound alluring to anyone with a long commute:

During a frustrating rush-hour jam, drivers of an experimental car from Audi will be able to take their hands off the wheel, lift their feet from the pedals and focus on things other than the road, such as a movie or a newspaper. The car will take care of the driving.

Audi and Google, which began developing its own “driverless car” last year, both expect to have models on the road within the decade. Just the latest in the amazing technological miracles that we never imagined would come to pass when we first discovered their promise on The Jetsons Saturday morning cartoons. (I had no idea there were only 24 episodes — I must have seen each of them hundreds of times. But that’s a blog entry for another day.)

One thing’s for sure, if cars do go to autopilot, all the noise around texting-while-driving laws will die down.

Cars Briefly Escorted On I-5 Over Tejon Summit

Low visibility and cloud cover prompted the California Highway Patrol to temporarily escort vehicles on Interstate 5 over the Tejon Summit.

Officers reportedly escorted vehicles at low speeds through the icy conditions from 11 a.m. to about 11:30 a.m. Sunday.

Nearby, cars were reportedly spinning out in Frazier Park and heavy snow was reported along Elizabeth Lake Road near Palmdale.

Elsewhere, chains were required on Big Pines Highway from Pearblossom east past the Mountain High Ski Area, as well as, on Highway 2 from Islip Saddle to Wrightwood.

Murder Weapon of the Future: the Smartphone

As we all know, smartphones are terrific tools—but in the wrong hands they can become weapons capable of mass murder, Vanity Fair reports. Terrorists already use them to trigger bombs, but tech-security experts are finding that phones can also shut off pacemakers, make cars crash, hijack houses, exhaust batteries in hospital equipment, and take over electrical systems. “If I’m a bad guy, I’ll wait till there’s a major snowstorm or heat wave,” says Stuart McClure, chief technical officer at McAfee. “Then kill the heat or A/C” so that “the elderly die very easily.”

All you need to undermine an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), apparently, is a custom-built transmitter that makes a smartphone function like a wireless device used by doctors. Such a phone could signal an ICD to spit out 830 volts—a lethal zap. Equally vulnerable are the tire-pressure monitoring systems in cars, which could be wirelessly told to inform the car’s computer to lock the tires at 70 miles per hour. The list goes on: house “smart meters,” appliances, external defibrillators—all are at risk. And our technological society will only invent more. “Only when these embedded computers start to kill a few people—one death won’t do it—will we take it seriously,” says McClure.

Woman charged with ramming cars, assaulting officers

A St. George woman charged with ramming her vehicle into several cars before evading police and assaulting several law enforcement officials could be headed for mental health court.

Cassidy Lauren Trujillo, 29, made her initial appearance in 5th District Court on Thursday.

According to a probable cause statement by the St. George Police Department, Trujillo was traveling eastbound on Red Cliffs Drive at 11:19 p.m. Nov. 23 when she rear-ended a Volkswagen Beetle five times.

According to probable cause statements issued by the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and Washington City Police Department, Trujillo continued driving and struck two other vehicles.

Officers from the WCSO and WCPD attempted to apprehend Trujillo, but she led police on a chase that ended at 5300 West State St. in Hurricane. According to the probable cause statements, Trujillo was “non-compliant” and tried to “headbutt” a deputy when officers were detaining her. Officers also reported they smelled alcohol on her breath.

While being booked, Trujillo allegedly kicked a female deputy in the leg and struck an attending physician in the groin.

Trujillo was booked into Purgatory Correctional Facility on two charges of aggravated assault, three charges of leaving the scene of an accident involving property damage, reckless driving, two charges of evading police by vehicle, two charges of assault by a prisoner, assault of a health care worker, failure to comply with booking, driving under the influence, driving with no proof of insurance and improper lane travel.

Trujillo’s bail was set at $36,893. She later posted bail and is represented by attorneys Catherine R. Cleveland and Matthew T. Williams.

There will be a review hearing Dec. 31 to determine whether Trujillo will be accepted into mental health court. It is undetermined whether it will be a public hearing.

Reserve deputies outfit own squad cars

When Fortville Officer Matt Fox was shot in the line of duty July 27, every officer on duty rushed to the scene in Lawrence, just outside Hancock County.

Fox underwent surgery and survived. Meanwhile, the shaken officers working that night depended on reserve officers to pick up the slack.

But no one was on the road faster than Hancock County Sheriff’s Reserve Deputy Jeary Smith, thanks to his being part of a core group of reserve officers who have their own police cars.

“I get a text, ‘Somebody’s been shot,'” said Smith, who has been a reserve officer for 23 years. “I called dispatch, . I said, ‘You’re gonna need help.’ Ten minutes later, I was out the drive.”

About a year ago, Smith, who heads the reserve division of 26 officers; and fellow reserve Jon Lawrence, brought an unusual idea to the sheriff’s department. They offered to outfit their personal vehicles as police cars in order to cut down on response time in an emergency.

Lawrence, who has 10 years of experience as a reserve, already had a Ford Crown Victoria, a make and model frequently used by law enforcement agencies. Smith offered to buy one of the department’s trade-in cars to use as his patrol car.

Having a squad car readily available would do wonders for response time, the pair reasoned. Historically, going on patrol first required a trip to the jail, where reserves had to find and sign out a squad car. Were a car unavailable, the officer would find he had wasted a trip.

“For us to come in, volunteer for eight hours, it takes 10,” Smith told the Daily Reporter (http://bit.ly/12pkZ0c ).

It took months to work out the details, but Smith and Lawrence ultimately found they had support.

“It’s kind of thinking outside the box, coming up with other ways to be resourceful for the county,” Sheriff Mike Shepherd said.

It was determined the county would lease the cars from the officers and insure them. The officers would take them home at night, maintain them and agree to abide by the same take-home car rules as the full-time officers.

For example, the cars can’t be driven out of state without permission, and only a member of the sheriff’s department may get behind the wheel.

The county also pays for gasoline used while officers are on patrol.

Smith said he and Lawrence modeled the idea off a similar program in Marion County, which offers its reserve officers take-home cars. The arrangement is win-win, he said.

“It’s so easy for us,” Smith said. “We can drop what we’re doing without wasting an hour, . be there, help and disappear into the night like we were never there.”

Smith and Lawrence piloted the program for six months from March to August. Now, the program has expanded to include reserve officers Robert Huskisson and Blake Wampler.

Wampler is Smith’s son-in-law. He, too, went out on patrol the night Fox was shot, but unlike his father-in-law, his response time was not immediate.

“I was able to respond, but I had to go to the jail, locate a car, which we had other reserves come out as well,” he said. “It’s just a delay time, as to where now, I can just go out in my driveway, and I’m on. It would have saved me every bit of 30, 40 minutes.”

Wampler, who joined the reserves about five years ago, is now patrolling in a used Crown Victoria he purchased in Pennsylvania. The car was formerly used as part of a federal motor pool fleet and is now complete with lights, sirens and department decals.

Wampler said he isn’t the only one who is grateful to have a squad car in the driveway.

His neighborhood is also thrilled, he said, as having patrol cars visible is largely considered a deterrent to crime.

The newest addition to the program is Robert Huskisson, who has been a reserve with the department for eight years.

Huskisson purchased his own 2012 Dodge Charger, an endeavor he said took more work than he expected.

“Finding a good used car with good maintenance records with decent mileage is rare,” he said.

Huskisson began patrolling in the Charger Dec. 1.

Chief Deputy Brad Burkhart, Shepherd’s second in command, said the department is open to expanding the program further, though officers who are interested will have to go through a selection process.

Burkhart said he’s been impressed with the success of the program so far.

Electric cars maintaining value after sale

Potential resale value has been a question raised about electric cars, and the answer, according to two recent used car pricing estimates, is that two best-selling electrics may lag behind similar conventional vehicles — but not by much.

An all-electric 2012 Nissan Leaf (the 2013 is not on sale yet) is expected to be worth 20 percent of its new car list price after five years of ownership, compared with a used price in the low 30 percent range for a similar conventional Nissan Sentra compact sedan, according to price-tracker Kelley Blue Book. An extended-range electric 2013 Chevrolet Volt is forecast to be worth 30 percent of its sticker price at the end of five years, not far from the similar, conventional 2013 Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan at 38 percent.

Another pricing service, ALG, pegs the resale value a percentage point higher each for the Leaf and Volt. The average resale value of a 2013 compact car over the same five-year period is 36.6 percent of list, ALG says.

But the comparison looks even closer when federal tax incentives of up to $7,500 to buy new electric cars are taken into account, they say. Those rebates, in effect, shave the actual new car price for these vehicles, making it worth less as a used car.

“If you only look at residual percentages, it’s on the low side,” says Eric Ibara, director of residual value consulting for KBB. “But if you look at dollars,” how much people actually spend to keep an electric compared with conventional car, “it’s not.”

Predicted depreciation is an important factor for acceptance of electric cars, which have higher upfront prices than similar gas-engine cars and even hybrids.

To get more cars into the hands of customers, Nissan and General Motors’ Chevrolet have been offering heavily discounted leases, but Ibara doesn’t think the tactic will hurt prices on the used cars when they land on lots in a few years.

“It really doesn’t hurt the value,” Ibara says.

Another resale-value concern about electric cars has been the lifespan of their expensive batteries, but that seems to have been eased by long warranties and the fact that the smaller but similar batteries in gas-electric hybrids, with a longer track record on the road, have shown themselves to be surprisingly robust.

When Toyota rolled out its Prius hybrid in the U.S. in 2000, predicted residual values were low because of questions about the longevity of the batteries, says Larry Dominique, executive vice president of TrueCar.com and ALG, formerly Automotive Lease Guide.

“But it came back,” he says.

Now, plug-in cars including the all-electric Leaf, which is rated by EPA at a range of 73 miles before needing a recharge, and the Volt, which is rated at 38 miles of electric driving before the backup gas engine kicks in, “get the benefit of the Prius experience,” Dominique says.

Also helping value retention: Consumer Reports magazine says Volt topped its owner satisfaction survey a second-consecutive year, and Leaf also was among the top scorers.

Steve Israel: Dear teens: Please know cars can kill

The kids dug up handfuls of roadside dirt mixed with the blood of their dead friend. The Town of Newburgh girl was killed in a car crash two weeks ago. She was just 16.

The father who owns a funeral home had to have his co-workers prepare his own daughter for burial. The Monticello girl was just 15 when she was killed in a Sullivan County car crash in 2004 — one of three teens killed that summer day.

The mother still carries the bloody clothes her teenage son was wearing the day he was killed in a hamlet of Wallkill car crash in 2007. The boy was just 17. The mother shows the bloody clothes — and the pieces of her son’s shattered cell phone — to other parents and kids.

I’ll bet not one of these kids ever imagined he or she could die.

Yet more than 100 teens from Orange, Ulster and Sullivan counties have been killed in car crashes since 1996.

Those teens were riding in cars with other teens. A teen is five times more likely to die in a car crash when other kids are in the car.

I’ll bet not one of those teens ever thought about all of the kids who’ve been killed in car crashes when they got in their cars.

How could they?

They were kids. They thought they were invincible.

“We called him Superman,” said one pal of the boy killed in Wallkill, who actually carried a Superman book bag. “I would do anything to bring him back. I felt like he would never die.”

That’s how we all felt as kids.

That’s how kids feel today.

Why else would they ride without seat belts — like the girl who died two weeks ago?

Why else would another teen killed in a crash try to pass five other cars on a road, Route 302, where more than a dozen kids died in accidents in a recent 10-year period?

They’re kids. They feel invincible.

They don’t want to read or hear about another kid dying.

That’s why, when a colleague told his teenage daughter to read the most recent newspaper story about the 16-year-old girl who was killed in a car crash, she ran out of the room.

That’s exactly what happened when the mother who carries the bloody clothes of her dead son tried to make him read about another teen who died in a car crash — a week before he was killed.

“He didn’t feel like they were real people,” the mother, Sharon Jones, says today.

A week later, her son, Andrew Davis, was one of those all too real people. Dead.

If there’s one message that should be hammered home because of all of these teens killed in car crashes, it’s this:

You’ve got to tell your kids that they, too, can die in a car crash, says Jones. She wants parents to know that they have a right to control where, when and with whom their children are going.

“The blood,” she says, “does not go away.”