IT SHOULD BE OBVIOUS, to anyone who cares about credibility and public trust, that an outside, independent investigation is needed any time a police officer might have somehow contributed to a wreck.

Unfortunately, the state law intended to make sure that happens wasn’t written very well, and it doesn’t clearly require outside reviews unless the police car is one of the colliding vehicles. Even more unfortunately, the result has been that police have largely handled investigations in-house when someone they’re chasing wrecks. One of the more egregious examples of this — which came this spring, and caused The State to do some digging and discover that this was the norm — ended in the death of an innocent bystander when an alleged check forger crashed while being chased through a residential neighborhood by a Forest Acres police officer. Forest Acres police investigated and concluded that the officer had acted properly.

This may be changing, though.

Earlier this month, the head of the state Highway Patrol sent out a memo declaring that the patrol would henceforth have someone else do the investigation anytime a chase involving a trooper ended in a collision. There is some dispute as to whether this had already been the patrol’s policy. Whatever the case, we’re glad this is the way things will be done henceforth.

Soon after, the board of the S.C. Sheriffs’ Association voted to ask state legislators to fix the law so it will be clear that police agencies shouldn’t handle their own investigations in such instances. We’re also glad to see this step.

We wish there were no need for such a law; we wish it were as obvious to the leaders of all of our state’s police agencies as it is to us that self-investigations are an invitation to abuse, and to public distrust of police. Apparently, this has not been the case. (Indeed, there’s nothing to guarantee that all of the sheriffs — much less municipal police departments — will voluntarily follow this new policy that their board just endorsed.) We hope that the Highway Patrol’s action, and the support of the Sheriffs’ Association, will prod the Legislature to make the law do what it was intended to do.