Content area
Full text
High-speed police pursuits and the inherent risk of injury and death that can resuit constitute an important law enforcement and public safety issue. Police pursuits are dangerous. Available data indicate that the number of pursuits continues to increase, as well as the number of pursuit-related injuries and deaths. A traffic accident constitutes the most common terminating event in an urban pursuit,1 and most people agree that these pursuits should be controlled. Yet, researchers note a widespread lack of accurate data on the subject.
Officers face the basic dilemma associated with high-speed pursuits of fleeing suspects: Do the benefits of potential apprehension outweigh the risks of endangering the public and the police?2 Research indicates that too many restraints placed on the police regarding pursuits can put the public at risk.3 On the other hand, insufficient controls on police pursuit can result in needless accidents and injuries.
The Dangers of Pursuit
The interpretation of the term "pursuit-related crash" represents one common police practice that affects accuracy of reporting. Often, police officers or their agencies will make the determination that a crash occurred right after a pursuit was "terminated," hence the crash is not pursuit-related. Agencies immediately can determine if this occurred by replaying tapes of radio transmissions during the pursuit, even days after completing a comprehensive accident investigation or reconstruction. Either way, the process can be very subjective.
Some research indicates that police pursuits result in about 350 deaths per year and the number of pursuits increases each year.4 One organization estimates that about 2,500 persons die each year as a result of police pursuits and that another 55,000 are injured.5 Although some law enforcement sources argue that these estimates are exaggerated, they concede that the 350 figure may be too low.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that 314 people were killed during pursuits in 1998. Of this total, 2 were police officers and 198 were individuals being chased. The remaining 114 were either occupants of unrelated vehicles or pedestrians.6 The total was higher in each of the 4 previous years.
The lack of a mandatory reporting system hampers attempts by NHTSA to track pursuit fatalities and results in the collection of as little as one-half of the actual data.7 Typically, only 90 percent...