There was a very detailed analysis of the cause of fatal accidents to police in another recent thread. I’ll track it down and post a link to it as an edit.
But the upshot of that analysis is that about one-third of police fatalities appear to be caused by interactions with “violators.”
The remaining two thirds are presumably a consequence of having a job that involves many, many hours in a moving motor vehicle. This is why being a truck driver is statistically more likely to get you killed than being a cop.
The data suggests that a taxi driver is more likely to be shot on the job than is a police officer.
EDIT: Here’s that link.
