SLEEPY HOLLOW -- On Jan. 7, a village squad car that had parked to assist a vehicle in a ditch was struck by an oncoming car at Sleepy Hollow Road and Beau Brummel Drive.

Three days later, another Sleepy Hollow officer driving back to the station lost control of his squad car and slid off of the road, striking a light pole.

Last month, a third Sleepy Hollow officer responding to the scene of an accident became a victim himself when his car was T-boned by an on oncoming car at Randall Road and Technology Drive.

No one was hurt in any of the accidents, but for a police department that patrols about 40 miles of road, three cop car-involved accidents in 10 months stands out.

"My first knee-jerk reaction was to see if there was an internal problem that needed to be addressed," Chief Jim Montalbano said. "But after going over these (accident) reports, it does not appear to be anything but the exposure these guys get."

Although the village is small, with a population of less than 4,000, Sleepy Hollow's four marked squad cars and one unmarked vehicle rack up a total of just more than 100,000 miles on the road each year, Montalbano said. In an area in ever-increasing traffic counts, accidents are bound to happen.

"We get four (thousand) to 7,000 cars a day on Sleepy Hollow Road," Montalbano said. "On Boncosky, Randall and 31, people travel at an incredibly high speed in spite of the density."

Cop car-involved collisions cost the department more than $15,000 in repairs this year, and although Sleepy Hollow police can patrol with one less car, "it puts an undue hardship on the other cars," Montalbano said.

The longtime police chief can only remember two other major squad car accidents in his more than 25 years with the department.

One occurred in February 2006 when a man from Beecher drove across four lanes of traffic on Route 72 near the Jewel Osco and smashed into the side of a squad car, nearly totaling it.

The only other serious accident occurred in 1979 and involved the chief himself when he was just a patrolman.

"A huge deer came at me, like this," he said spreading his hands like large antlers in front of his face. The deer smashed into the front of Montalbano's squad car, smashing the front end.

"I was scared to death," he added.

To make matters worse, an oncoming car hit the deer as it bounced off of Montalbano's vehicle and a third car, driven by a drunk driver, came barrelling down the road a minute later, adding more damage to Montalbano's car by sideswiping it.