I personally say they should be outlawed, too many people die during these chases. I think that there are a few states now that have it outlawed, isn’t there? What say you?
Police should follow at safe speeds and rely on aircraft to keep visual contact.
I’d want to see statistics on how many innocents have been killed as a direct result of police chases vs. the number of “rabbits” who have been caught without incident. Outlawing police chases means one has only to refuse to be pulled over by the police to avoid being detained.
I still think there is a use for it, but we should use it with discression. We should be looking for technological answers to replace it. Perhaps a EMP device to disable the car, or a tracking devise that can be somehow attached to the car, along with areal methods where the ground based patrol can hand off the pursuit to a helicopter or even a unmanned craft.
I agree, and that is a big problem. One of my cow-orkers had her car stolen, and the theives drove around in it for a couple of weeks. The car was spotted several times but when the cops tried to pull them over, they just sped up and the cops let them go. This sets a dangerous precedent. Want to steal a car? Drive drunk? Kindap someone? No worries. Just don’t stop for the cops. The crazier you drive the better. “better let em go! He’s gonna kill someone!”
I think the punishment for running from the police in a vehicle should include attempted murder charges automatically. then perhaps people who are so stupid that they think they could get away in the first place might actually you know THINK before they run. I mean who wants to spend 20 years in jail for trying to avoid a speeding ticket.
I do agree they are dangerous, but part of that danger comes from the police’s unwillingness to just end the chase as soon as possible. I understand they are concerned about injuring people in the car but personally I think they should drop that concern the second other lives become endangered.
Critical1, I agree regarding the charges, but people running from police in a high-speed chase aren’t thinking rationally about how they might be charged.
To answer the OP, the answer is not a total ban, for the reason that Sunrazor mentioned. Instead, the “rules of engagement” should err on the side of maximum safety; the rules should be constantly reviewed and updated, all chases should be monitored by a senior officer not involved in the chase, and aerial surveillance should be heavily relied upon to supplement ground chases, where available. A blanket ban will work as well as “zero tolerance”. How can we, sitting behind the safety of our keyboards, determine if chasing a rabbiting drunk driver is safer than backing off and letting him continue to drive. Not every jurisdiction is L.A.; they can’t all throw helicopters into the air, and call upon dozens of other cars to help contain and stop a chase.
…stupid me
It’s not? You mean you don’t get wall-to-wall coverage of every traffic stop gone wrong?! What do you do for entertainment?
But, seriously, more metro areas should invest as heavily in copters as LA does. They make a lot of policing so much easier and safer.
Perhaps, but I’m not a fan when they are so close that they sound like they are about to land on my roof. At least all the traffic choppers tend to fly higher.
I agree. But not even that. I don’t want a speeding ticket, littering, a seat belt ticket, or a tail light out ticket. Just floor it, watch the cop back off, go home and if questioned, complain about how the damned neighbor kids were driving your car recklessly last night. You are such a nice guy that you give the whole neighborhood permission to use your car and leave the keys on top of the left front tire. Promise to give them a stern lecture.
Nope, they shouldn’t be outlawed.
They should be left to the discretion of law enforcement and policies should lean towards what is reasonable, and the decision taken should be the one that affords society the greatest level of safety from a given situation.
For example if we know that some mass murderer, serial killer, soon-to-be suicide bomber or et cetera is speeding away from the police to avoid capture and continue to kill people–that’s probably a case where you need to pull out just about all the stops to apprehend the person. A Ted Bundy shouldn’t be allowed to drive off.
How frequently do cops pull serial killers over? It’s so rare as to be barely worth thinking about–but it does happen.
The more common threat I can think of is a drunk driver. I have no statistics on hand but I’d be willing to bet someone a beer that more people are killed every year by drunk drivers than they are because of high speed police chases. Police really do need to do whatever they can to get a drunk driver off the road ASAP.
Okay, but to take it to the next step. If a drunk driver is dangerous, then how much more dangerous is he if a cop follows him in high speed pursuit?
I mean, he’s dangerous at regular speeds, blindly trying to limp home, but push him to 100mph?
If you read my last post, I’m playing devil’s advocate, but there are some good points to the “no chase” thing…
Driving Code is dangerous.
Period.
This is why law enforcement have training in driving code.
The truth is that people get seriously injured from emergency vehicles driving code, be it in pursuit or not. Be it a police car, ambulance or fire engine.
This does not mean that they do not drive code when life or property is in serious danger.
The same really goes for pursuits. No bad guys are going to be caught by the police yelling “STOP!” as the bad guys whiz by.
One thing to keep in mind- most people being pursued by cops are felons. Not just dumbasses trying to avoid a ticket. 99% of people pulled over… pull over. The rest have very good reasons for not- they will end up in jail should they do so. (Be they drunk, driving a stolen car in possession of drugs or whatever).
That said, the officers really need to show their best judgement not to pursue into busy or crowded roads or in dangerous traffic or road conditions. (Slick or Icy roads for instance).
Not every law enforcement agency can afford planes. Here in Portland (Oregon’s biggest city- mind you) we have one plane. It’s not even a chopper, it’s a small airplane. And it’s not available on call to the officers.
Yeah, I don’t know how many times LAPD choppers have woken me up in the middle of the night.
Didn’t LAPD outrule high-speed chases for routine traffic stops? An elderly couple got killed by one in the Fairfax, I think.
Maybe what should be outlawed is stupid movies with high-speed chases. They’re probably what encourage idiots to try to escape in the first place.
Has anyone in the real world actually escaped in a high speed-chase? (And I mean, not by abandoning the can and running into a crowded shopping mall. Just by driving.)
I have to wonder, too. A drunk driver in a high-speed chase is a nightmare. If they can get enough information to eventually track down the driver, it might be better to catch him later.
Problem is that the case will then fail in court. And a drunk driver is extremely dangerous. The question that can’t be answered is whether the danger is greater if chased, or if getting the drunk driver off the road is the more prudent option.
That said, engaging in a high speed chase over a stolen car may not be wise. Engaging in a high speed chase after a known armed and violent criminal, however, may be the right choice. Law enforcement agencies should be prudent, but there should be no blanket ban.
guizot, thankfully I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve had police choppers buzzing rooftops nearby, day or night, over the past dozen years. I think the biggest problem is that when the NYPD gets in the air, they tend to linger in a location, usually searching for someone on foot rather than chasing speeding cars.
I think this solution presupposes an availability of police aircraft that just isn’t the norm for all areas of the country.
I see this has been addressed already - but I think it bears repeating, anyways. Limiting it to solely major metropolitan areas does mitigate my criticism, but that leaves us with what to do with those cases when someone rabbits from the police in West Bumbletown?
I think less aggressive chases are often a good idea, but I don’t want to unilaterally ban the high speed chase. As others have posted, it’s tantamount to inviting more people to try to run from the police.
This is the sort of topic that I really think requires statistical analysis before deciding on a course of action.
I’d want to see the probabilities of the following high speed chase outcomes:
-Catch a Felon (person committed a crime and ran to avoid police)
-Catch a Miscreant (person committed a minor crime and ran to avoid police)
-Catch a Nobody (person ran for no apparent reason, only crime is running)
-Lose the Runner
I’d also like to know how often there is collateral damage:
-No Damage
-Damage property
-Hurt the runner
-Hurt a policeman
-Hurt a bystander
These are rated from best outcome to worst outcome. I’m cool with high speed chases that have more stuff at the top than the bottom of these lists. However, if reality is that most of the time you catch minor criminals or dimwits who ran for no reason, I’m less enthusiastic.
tell me how you can differentiate between the two *before * the unsub(s) are apprehended?
you can’t.
Make a law that say’s “Cops are not to pursue into high traffic areas or schools zones” and that is where these folks will head - criminals care not for the law or the folks hurt in their flaunting of it.
Coordinate with traffic control to clear and BLOCK paths of escape - coordinate with ‘blocker trucks’ on the highways - find ways to more affectively shut down the chase - those are the ways to solve the problem - along with more penalties that get enforced the minute you decide to run… but those that run usually don’t care about the penalties - or thier incapable (too drunk to know) - which I don’t see as an excuse either.