CHICAGO | Seven million dollars could buy a lot of new teachers for Chicago Public Schools.

It also could contribute to affordable housing efforts or go toward hiring more police officers to patrol the city's most crime-ridden neighborhoods.

In actuality, it's how much money Chicago spent last year settling lawsuits for police car accidents.

According to records from the Department of Law, blockbuster settlements for two police pursuit accidents in 2001 and 2003 accounted for $6 million of that money.

Other lawsuits are classified as being in general for "motor vehicle accidents" or for things such as hitting pedestrians or causing accidents at intersections. Most of the accidents happened in 2005 and 2006.

"Too many police departments are chalking up these police accidents as part of the job," said Capt. Travis Yates, of the Tulsa Police Department, who is a certified law enforcement driving instructor and a leading advocate of national police pursuit policy reform. "We would never say that with a firearm accident."

Police pursuits kill an average of one person a day in the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Approximately one in three pursuits leads to a collision, injuring thousands a year, NHTSA statistics show.

Police departments are not required to track or report their police pursuit statistics, although, Yates said, he's found that many police departments do.

"A department that's not tracking pursuits is asking for trouble," he said. "If we're not tracking one of the most dangerous things we do, we're just asking for lawyers to line up and come after us."

Yates was not familiar with Chicago's policy but said: "They should have those numbers. Chicago is a professional department."

A Medill News Service request for police pursuit statistics didn't yield any records from the Police Department.

"I don't know if we catalog those, but it's not something we have readily available," said John Henry, news affairs officer.

Department of Law spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyle said she didn't know if the city's attorneys tracked police pursuit accidents, and she was not immediately able to find out.

Yates said departments that evaluate their police pursuit records -- looking at things such as average speeds, number of injuries and number of deaths -- are often able to improve their records when they offer annual driver training courses for officers.

"We can't blame the officers -- we've got to give them the proper training," he said.

A copy of the Chicago Police Department's vehicle pursuit policy provided by the department's news affairs office states that officers are required to pass an annual test showing they are familiar with the department's procedures for motor vehicle pursuits. It doesn't mention a driver training program.