Ever been "in" a high speed car chase?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

No, not expecting anyone to post about their efforts to elude police, but instead, wondering if anyone else has been a “bystander” as a chase (or other police action) took place around you.

Monday evening, we were driving home to Chicago from Michigan. We were on 80/94, just before the Indiana/Illinois line. It is big (4-lanes?) heavily travelled expressway. Rush hour was tailing off, but there was quite a bit of traffic travelling 75 MPH. The kinda thing where there were cars in all 4 lanes, w/ maybe 3-5 lengths between them. Everybody was booking. Pretty standard big city expressway traffic.

I was in the lane 1 in from the left. All of a sudden a white SUV blew past me on the left. I pointed and said to my wife, “Check out that idiot” as he came up to the car in front of him in his lane, and abruptly swerved right across all 3 lanes, and onto an exit ramp. The kinda move where it looks like he is moving sideways.

The traffic may have slowed slightly - everyone taking their feet off the accelerators, but no slamming of brakes or anything. Then I noticed my rear mirror was filled with flashing lights. One whipped past me on the left, and another on the right - and both swerved off onto the exit. Then, in a flash, I was past the exit myself.

At that point, the exit parallels the expressway for a short distance, so I saw at least 3-4 other cop vehicles racing along on the exit. My wife said something like, “Everyone on this road must be shitting their pants.” I said, “Only the people behind us, because the cars 3 or so ahead of us had it take place in their rearview mirrors!”

Weird how fast it happened. After, I felt a sense of what it might be like to be a driver in one of the “other” cars in a movie’s car chase! :smiley: Wasn’t able to google anything about what it was about.

Anyone else experience something like that? Or be a “bystander” in some other ongoing police action?

2

Yes.

3

I haven’t. The closest I’ve come is a slow speed chase where I was sitting at a traffic light when a guy/older teen on a kids bike turned left in front of me followed by a cop with lights on.

4

Twice as a ride-along with cops: One in Johannesburg here’s the story on that one–I was the photographer, one someplace outside of Augsburg, Germany. But at around 140-150 mph at peak speed.

5

My mother was, very involuntarily. A car barreled down the highway just before the light changed and my mother crossed in her Volkswagen. That’s when the police car, which was chasing them without lights or siren, came by and struck her at high speed.
You don’t want to be in a Volkswagen Bug in an accident. The car was totaled.

My mother, fortunately, wasn’t hurt badly. But she still has a scar over one eye that’s mostly hidden by her eyebrow.

6

I use to live in a neighborhood that had one way in and out. The road in and out also had an off ramp from a state highway. The State Patrol and county sheriff like to direct those they were chasing into our neighborhood knowing they had no escape. In the 17 years I lived there, heard or saw at least 10 officer involved chases come to an end in the neighborhood.

7

Yes, and I won :slight_smile:

8

Yes. It was fairly exciting.

I actually got to say,** “Follow That Car!”.**

9

When I was 16 I worked out in a rock quarry outside of town. I had just gotten paid and I was trying to get to the bank before I went to football practice. At the time I was driving a 4 cylinder ford ranger but that had an upgraded sound system. I had my music blasting and my windows down and immediately I got stuck behind a semi. The truck was working through a series of S turns on a raised road over some lower strawberry fields. I saw an opportunity to pass the semi and took it. Just as I got to the front of the truck a police officer came around the corner going the opposite direction. As I drove past the cop I kept and eye on him in my rearview to see if he was going to bust me for passing the semi instead he turned onto the road back to the quarry.

Since he was gone, I got back to hustling to the bank. I was going about 15 over the speed limit ( I didn’t know it at the time that unposted roads in California default to 55 and I though it was 65 so I was going 70). I quickly came up on another car and so I passed them. After that I got behind a car going ~45 through a banked 90° turn with an inset field on the inside of the turn so I could see for a several miles through the turn so I dropped down into the on coming traffic lane and passed that car as well as a second that was 100 yards in front of him.

I was probably doing 90 at the end of the turn so since it was hard to get going that fast I decided to try and maintain my speed. About 5 miles later I got behind another car that was going slow so I popped out to pass him and discovered there were 4 more cars in front of him. I figured screw it and hammer the accelerator. By the time I got up to the front of the lead car we were starting to climb a hill and I was worried that I couldn’t see the on coming traffic but I also couldn’t drop back. The lead car slowed down and pulled over, I figured it was so that I wouldn’t die in a flaming wreck so I turned around to wave my thanks. There was the cop from earlier on my bumper running lights and sirens. I immediately pulled over.

I got arrested for speeding, reckless driving and evading arrest. Once I went to court that was reduced to speeding and I had to go to traffic school.

10

Yep.

11

I was inside a nursing home working the night shift. Close to midnight a house across the street was suddenly surrounded by cops. I don’t remember exactly all the details, but someone inside was strung out on meth or something, someone else had called the cops, and the tweaker threatened to kill the other person, creating essentially a hostage situation. By midnight there were dozens of cops around the house. One had came over to the nursing home and told us to lock the doors and stay inside. We did, but of course found the closest empty room, turned off the lights, and decided to watch what was going on—there was nothing better to do.

Suddenly there was dozens of voices yelling, flashlights swinging around, and then this cascade of gunfire. We hauled ass out of the room. From when the yelling first started to when the gunshots ended was probably less than three seconds, but it felt like minutes.

Turns out the tweaker had made a run for it to the nearest building: our facility. The cops opened fire on him. I recall afterward one of the officers came and talked to us and he mentioned that there had been something like 70 shots fired. The cops were mainly concerned that he would make it into the nursing home and hold all of us hostage. So they took him down.

At least one round hit a window and put a nice little hole in it. That was replaced within a day or two. But a year later there were still bullet holes in the siding of building that maintenance never bothered to patch.