Some savvy criminals use the strict pursuit guidelines to their advantage by switching off headlights, deliberately crossing to the wrong side of the road, running red lights and travelling at more than twice the speed limit. In each case police must call off the chase.
The car chase I was in went much faster than double the speed limit. It was an 80km zone and we were going at least 200km/hr. We went onto the wrong side of the road a lot too. Although the guy wasn't driving "recklessly" I don't think, so maybe that is more important to them. I still think the police car should have called off the chase. Especially since when he got caught, they didn't even take his keys from him.
In the article they say that they can't ban people from driving for too long (10 or 20 years), because they just ignore it. But that seems silly. You can enforce it if you want to. You can put people in prison who drive without a licence. I guess then you have a much higher prison population, and it screws up the drivers' lives even more. But crashing into other cars at 220km/hr tends to mess up those people's lives as well.
I would like it if there were more speed cameras. And if the cameras had big Spiderman Car-Catcher Web Nets™ attached to them, that could be launched at speeding cars. Or you could just increase fines. Anyone with a fast car (unless it's stolen) has a good job. Can't the government just take money out of their pay? There's probably some civil rights argument against that. And I suppose civil rights are kind of important.
wow, I read the car chase story…. heavy duty! its funny what things come to mind when you’re in a crazy situation like that
james / 12:28am / 22 January 2004
It was pretty nutty. I think I remember it as someone else’s story. Or a computer game or something. It reminded me of Wonderland a bit as well. You’re body doesn’t experience those sorts of g-forces very often.
Ryan / 8:07pm / 4 February 2004