May 28, 2013 • 26 mins
Entire TV shows are dedicated to them and Americans love to watch a live one, but police chases aren't as routine as they seem. While police assert chases are important tools, critics say cops engage in chases too often and too easily.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Dude, do you hey? And welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh and Clark. There's Charles W. Chuke Bryant, who's
uh do you know? Someone on Twitter said that every
time Chuck Bryant giggles, a baby bunny is born. Yeah. Yeah,
(00:25):
and they mean it too. Wow. I love being responsible
for all that joy in the world. You're doing it, man.
So I guess you just opened the show with you
were being chased by a police car in Great Britain.
Just you did a British sorry. I guess it was
yeah to do that. In the United States we have
different sounding sorry. Well, in these days it's all kinds
(00:47):
of crazy, like beeps and whistles. It's like that's like
an American police cruiser today. Wow, listen is getting off
to the great start. Let's let's try to keep it
on the track, all right, on the U. E. D
O C track. Yeah, this is what this is in
our long running law enforcement series. You know, it's unequaled
(01:10):
by any other topic except for death. I think you know,
I think death might have it beat. Okay, maybe not,
though we'll find out, all right. I guess go count
them after this. Okay, Chuck, have you ever been in
a police chase? Um? Have you ever been the object
of pursuit in a police chase? Yeah? I was not driving.
(01:33):
I was in a car one time when my friend
decided to run from the cops. Wow, we lay it
on us. Well, you know, it was just one of
those things. We were in Athens and he made a
very bad decision and uh we got away with it.
No way. Yeah, we'll see. That's something that I find
extremely interesting because I didn't realize until reading this article that, um,
(01:56):
there are very few circumstances where a cop should feel
justified it or would be justified in chasing you. Right.
But that said, there are almost no laws whatsoever restricting
police chases. It's this weird gray area. And I actually
found there's activists online or saying, like say no to
(02:16):
police chases, like restrict police chases, like create laws against
police chases because these things are deadly and dangerous. Yeah.
I think what about a hundred and forty innocent civilians
were killed last year? Yeah three d About a person
a day on average dies from a police chase, and
about a third of those but yeah, last year a
hundred and forty or just innocent bystanders. Yeah, that I
(02:37):
mean that happened in Atlanta. That's happened in Atlanta a
couple of times recently. One time the trainer for the
Atlanta Braves his because he lost his wife to a
cop smashing into her. And um. Then again more recently
there was another case. I think it was a kid
or something, but it was like it was sort of
in the news lately. Yeah, And I mean you get
the impression that and cops died too, like high speed pursuit.
(03:01):
Is there high speed pursuing it. That's dangerous for everybody
involving in leaving the cop um, But you get the
impression that, like whatever the circumstances is just just not
pulling over for being for a for a cop trying
to pull you over is reason enough to get the
cops tackles raised enough to chase you. Yeah, right off
the bat, I think that would be any cops instinct,
(03:23):
is gun it not like, well, let me check into
his record and call my supervisor and see if they
allow this, which a lot of times is policy. Now
as we'll see, UM, there are procedures in place to
kind of try to tamp down that emotion of the
primary departmental policy. Basically though, like you said, not law right,
So well, let's let's talk about this. Um Okay. When
(03:45):
you go through the academy and you um get all
your training, your gun training, you're hanging out with tackleberry
and you learn how to make cool sounds like machine
gun says or like yeah huh yeah, um, you you
spend about a week probably a little less learning how
to drive the car. Yea. Sadly only about two of
(04:06):
those days are dedicated to high speed pursuit yeah, which
apparently is an improvement over zero days, which is how
it used to be. And like the forties and fifties. Yeah,
I guess they just said good luck. Right, you should
know how to drive fast, right. You know, if you're
an old country sheriff, you probably ran moonshine exactly, or
your cousin does at least. Um, but there there's a
lot to it. Um in Ed grab Banowski, the grabster
(04:29):
um points out that you know, in in a high
speed pursuit, UH, cops car can be just as deadly
as a cops gun, and they need to know how
to use it just as well. And just as accurately, um,
because not only do you not have to know how
to drive, you have to know how to drive fast
while you're also turning on the lights and the sirens
and like calling in something and like all that other
(04:50):
stuff has to be second nature to you so that
you can focus on the driving while using just a
minimal amount of your brain power on the other stuff.
So part of the car training is just that how
to run a police car stuff, because it's not like
every other car, right. And if you, um, if you
are being trained to to drive in high speeds in
(05:10):
pursuit of a suspect and they send you to Colorado,
you can be reasonably assured that you're gonna come back
among the better trained police in the country because the
Colorado State Police maintain a course, an Emergency Vehicles Operation
course that is the cream of the crop. Did you
see like the aerial view of it. Yeah, I mean
they cover all the scenarios like UM on ramps and
(05:34):
off ramps, um high speed turns, intersections. They've really got
all laid out there and put you in a scenario
where as close as you could get to like an
active street. Right. It's like there's skid plates where the
coefficient of friction is point one five compared Chuck to say,
I'm just staying this off top of my head, a
of coefficient of friction of like point nine five on
(05:55):
a dry highway. So that's slick. Yeah, that's slick. They
need to know how to not been out basically, Yeah,
and that's I think the exception is a really elaborate
course like this. I think a lot of local police
still use the parking lot and the cones back, which
is better than an orange cone. Then you put an
egg on it like a Brady Bunch. Yeah. That was
(06:19):
one of the greatest television shows of all time, The
Brady Bunch. Yeah. Absolutely, Um, So let's talk about pursuit equipment. Right,
Basically what we just said was police training. You get
a couple of days maybe if you're lucky, you get
a few days on like a really great course, maybe
out in Colorado. For the most part, it's like, you
know how to drive, just drive really fast. Here's your
(06:41):
Crown vic Yeah. That the Ford Crown Victoria's is the
most common police car, although they're using all sorts of
different cars today. When you drive around you'll see like
those Dodge Chargers and like the more souped up I know. Uh,
I think in l A the State Patrol had those
Mustangs like they really souped up sports cars. Um, apparently
(07:01):
they're getting away from Crown Victoria's because that model of
car had a big problem with it. Whereas if you
were rear ended in a high speed collision your car
blew up. Was that the pacer that did that? In
the seventies the Pinto the Ford Pinto again, Ford had
the opposite problem. If you if you um collided with
something on the front end, all I thought it was
(07:22):
the rear. I think it was the front. Well, let
me tell you this. I learned about it from the
movie Top Secret, where a Pinto like just barely hits
a tree and then it's front and blows up, and
then Ford ambulances for a while we're blown up to Yeah,
So forward with the with the police inceptor Crowned vic
Um created this, uh this chemical fire suppression system where
(07:46):
right when you're rear ended at a high enough impact,
forceful enough impact, this this fire suppression thing goes off.
So even if there's not a fire, there's not going
to be a fire anyway. Um, but apparently it's enough
that some people are like, yeah, we're gonna go with
the intrepid, right. Uh. You see a lot of Crown
Picks in Atlanta to like just regular people driving them.
(08:08):
It's like sort of a thing. Now. Yeah, it is
completely a little spotlight. Yeah, it's like, man, don't mess
with me like that out on the highway. So, um,
there are some differences of course, tween a police car.
If you think it's just a regular Crown Victoria, it
is not or whatever it is. Um, A lot of
times it does have more horsepower in the engine because
they need that kind of juice. Um. And they weigh
(08:29):
more obviously than your standard car because there's more guns
and things you're gonna have like metal reinforced seat backs
and things, so like you can't get stabbed in the
back from the back seat if you did, or shootings
or anything if you didn't do a good job of
checking for weapons. Um. What else, extra transmission coolers and
(08:51):
oil coolers. Yeah, because I mean like radiators. Like they
don't turn their car off ever, like that heat heat
builds up, so they have like oil coolers and transmission
fluid coolers figure alternators to supply more power up to
a hundred and thirty amps, if that means anything to you.
And then lights, well in vinyl seats thtow in the rear.
That's that's important. Yeah, You're never gonna find cloth interior
(09:14):
in the back of a police car because suspects are dirty.
They're dirty, and oftentimes they will poop and vomit and
bleed and just do whatever whatever bodily fluid they can
get out in that police car, they probably will, So
they want to make it uh easily. You just get
out the four nine and the paper towels and just
clean it right there. Um lights Apparently they used to
(09:37):
have them on the fenders and they said, you know what,
this is visible, but it's not as visible as if
it were on the roof. So they created with so
as the light bar, and which it was a little
more recent than I thought. It was the seventies that
these things made their debut. Yeah, and I thought back,
I was like, oh, yeah, you never see like cars
in the sixties or or even early seventies with that
(09:58):
light bar. So I was born and about the time
the Lifebard came along. Yeah, I think, uh, you know,
you remember seeing the single sirens sometimes or the double
blue Dirty Harry would put on and do like a
UI well something some were built in. But yeah, they
also had the undercover cars. That was one of the
great parts of any cop movie was when they got
out the siren and put it on the roof. Um.
(10:20):
And now you can get them at Spencer's Gifts. Summer
blue and summer uh, summer blue and summer red. Though
I've never known the distinction. I always thought ambulances were
red and cops were blue. But in different cities I've
seen cops have read. I think it depends on what
side of the force you're on. Oh really yeah, like
how your medic chlorine. So one thing they can do
(10:41):
to uh, to prevent the chase from happening altogether. You've
seen the old spike strip. They lay down these rubber
mats with spikes all across the road, or they have
them like uh, like an accordion. You just kind of
throw and hang on to one end. And that's the
quick version, and so that'll obviously disabled the fires. Um.
(11:02):
You can the good old fashioned roadblock that you see
in movies actually happens. They line up cars and except
in this version there's not a conveniently parked tow truck
ramp for the criminal to jump over everybody or bust through.
I guess well, you have to be careful setting those
up because it's normally going the criminals not going to
(11:23):
try to push through the car, but they might try
to go around. So you have to make sure that
if you set up this roadblock, it's it's not like
going to funnel them into somebody's house. I don't think
you do that in like a neighborhood. That would be
a good idea. You want to do it on a
country road. And then modern techniques, which I think if
they bring this stuff along, that's really where it's at,
like microwave technology to disable the electrical system of a car,
(11:47):
or shooting a laser high speed avoidance using laser technology
HALT system of course, but they left out a couple
of letters there. Oh yeah, it should be because toat
that HALT it's not an acronym if you're leaving out
words just to make it a cute word. All right, Um,
(12:08):
so they like a lay ocean last name if they
spelled it out correctly. So in that case, they're shooting
a laser to cut off your fuel supply. But here's
the rub. There is the vehicle that they're shooting it at.
Has it has this special microchip in it? Yeah? I
didn't look into that, did you. Is it like newer
vehicles all that's my guess is that they're going to
start putting these in all cars or something like they
make some deal with That would be fine with me.
(12:31):
I mean, it's better than pursuing somebody, absolutely, you know. Um.
And then of course you have air support, either in
the form of a police helicopter or like fifty news
helicopters if the police chase out in California, um, or
the World's Scariest Police Chase helicopter. Yeah, whoever those guys are.
I think they just get footage from news copters and
(12:51):
cop copters. You watch the shows I know I've talked about.
I've seen them before. Yeah, they're they're just so I
don't know. I followed. That's one of my guilty pleasures.
Do you watch this still? Yeah? I mean it's not
appointment television. I never know when or where they come on.
But if I'm flipping it around and I'll see a
police chase. I lived in l A. It's sort of
(13:13):
a thing. Yeah, and apparently California has some of the
most um police protective laws as far as pursuits go,
they happen a lot out there. Yeah, and like the
everybody just stops doing what they're doing and watches the
live coverage of it sort of. Do you remember the guy,
um who killed himself on live television after a police
pursuit and yeah, showed it on Fox. I guess I
(13:36):
saw that when it happened live. I remember very distinctly.
It was like not like a movie. No, you know,
like if you've ever seen someone shoot their head off
with a shotgun in real life, it's nothing like. It's
not some big dramatic movie thing. It's just sad. Yeah,
it really was. It was like he might have been
like making or gami or something like. It was just
(13:57):
that pedestrian, yeah, or it. It was just like he
just had the gun and he's pull it up and
shot himself and he hunches over and just falls. It
was It's weird. It was really weird to see. It
was very sad. And of course all the kids that
saw that, that's like it's terrible. Yeah. Um, So initially
if someone takes off like you were talking about. The
(14:18):
police officer that's on the scene has a decision to
make to pursue or not to pursue. Lots of policies,
one thing they want to do is run the tags.
Is it a stolen vehicle where they just in an
arm robbery or is it just somebody who has a
couple of traffic tickets out or nothing at all on
their record. Apparently the pursuit that enjoys the widest support
(14:42):
around the country is if it's a violent criminal, um,
somebody who poses an imminent threat to somebody else, somebody
who's just carried out a violent act and is escaping.
Like pretty much everybody says, chase that guy. Like if
you said the person has a couple of traffic tickets
or if they have nothing and they're the only reason
(15:04):
to chase them is that they didn't pull over for you,
that is not reason to pursue. And yet, of all pursuits,
and I believe two thousand eleven were for traffic violations, Yeah,
I mean, I know for the cops, has got to
be their instinct, like go get that person. They're fleeing
me for a good reason. Yeah, Like I get it,
but they're when people are interesting, people are dying, there
(15:27):
needs to be like some policy in place for sure.
And apparently, Chuck, ninety one four percent of chases were
for non violent crimes. I believe that. So, Um, if
the cops says, Okay, this guy's this car just came
back stolen, the guy just waved a gun, and it's
a very clear case that he should pursue them, there
are other things to consider, Uh, what's the what don't
(15:49):
get him? What's what's traffic? Like, what's the word? Are
the road conditions like rainy, is it dark? Neighborhood pedestrians everywhere?
You might want to just kind of slowly tail the guy. Well,
the one in Atlanta where they killed the trainer's wife,
I think it was a sort of a busy afternoon
in an urban areas, Like they shouldn't have been pursuing
anyone at this point. Do you know what they were
(16:11):
pursuing the person for? I don't remember. Um. And then
so if they decided to like go ahead and pursue,
then this this series of um procedures kind of come
into place, like they need to be radio and back
into headquarters immediately, right, And apparently they're every step of
(16:32):
the way, or they just kind of keep the whoever
they're talking to their supervisor posted on what's going on.
The supervisor's role is to keep a cool head because
they're not the one who the person isn't pulling over for,
so they're they're not mad. They don't want to correct heads,
you know. Um, So their their whole role is to
to say, you know what, like we we should You
(16:53):
just told me that there's some pedestrians around, this guy
is not a violent offender. You don't don't complete this pursuit,
or we have like we have chopper coverage, so back
off with the cars and we can still like follow
this car from above. Yeah, you know, like we're still
gonna get our guy. Don't you worry about it? Um.
(17:13):
One of my favorite things. If you watch the show Cops,
you are well versed with the pit maneuver police I'm
sorry pursuit intervention technique also called the tactical vehicle intervention,
and that is the famous move. If a cop has
you know, you'll hear them. They have to get clearance
for the pit maneuver. Even they'll call it in and say, hey,
(17:34):
I think I've got a chance for a pit, can
I take it? And they'll say if you feel like,
you know, the streets are clear enough and you know
you have to do it on a turn, you don't
just like run up beside someone and run them off
the road. It's it's when they enter a turn the
cop hits the gas and hits them on the left
rear bumper and just basically spins them out. And uh,
(17:57):
it's it works if done correctly, and they'll training. You know,
you get trained when you get the defensive driving on
the pit maneuver and they just spin out. You can't
come out of it, can't come out of it. Your
car spins. And that's generally on cops, at least when
the guys will jump out of the car the car
still rolling, and take off on foot. And then you
(18:18):
hear these cops, you know, with the their miked up,
so all you hear is like running in the dark
with all this gear on. You're like, man, what a
crappy job. But you know, check your heavy breathing just
reminded me of something. Is it that time? It's time
for a message break? All right? Heavy breathing? Indeed, So
(18:41):
you were talking about the wildest police chases that kind
of show that you like, I don't know who would
watch stuff like that. Well, Grabs Throw takes the task. Um,
those kind of shows for presenting a very um unbalanced
picture of police chases. They don't show the cops backing
off of pursuit becomes too dangerous. They don't show the
(19:02):
cops crashing into a innocent by standards car, right. Um.
They never say, well, this cop probably shouldn't have pursued
this person because this is a minor violation. Um. And
they they always kind of tend to present the police
in a favorable light. Yeah, And I think it's more
I don't know if they're out to make Oh maybe
(19:23):
they are. I just think it's better TV obviously, like
you wouldn't want to show and they're like, oh no,
let's just back off and get back to the that
for sure. Plus also they want to maintain a um,
the kind of relationship with cops police departments that where
they'll give them their footage. You know. Now, the shows
are good for the cops. I'm sure we hear I
don't know if you can hear those people. It sounds
(19:44):
like a police chase is going on outside right now.
I think it is this is this is really dramatic footage. Chuck,
um uh, do you remember the O J thing specifically?
Where were you then? How's in college? College? I remember too,
of course, so I don't. The chase wasn't I didn't
(20:05):
watch much of the chase. Remember the verdict? Yeah? I
remember the chase specifically because they It was during the
Knicks Rockets NBA playoffs and my buddy Justin is a
huge Knicks fan, and he was really upset and he
was just like, do you have to have it on
every channel? And I agreed with It's like, why you
know you're gonna preempt the basketball game. It's on a
(20:25):
hundred channels. I can't in the one person out there
that wants to watch the basketball game, but their ratings
would have gone through the roof. And that was a
low speech chase. That wasn't even that was just weird,
you know, well, love speech chases are very weird. I'm
a c It's just like, you know who I am.
I'm not gonna pull over. Yeah. So well, let's talk
(20:45):
about the legalities of it, right. There's, like we said,
there's pretty much no laws that restrict police chases. They
have the right to do that in all cases. Yeah. Um.
And as a matter of fact, they don't even have
to have their lights and sirens running to engage in pursuit. Yeah,
that's a fact. Um. The there are department procedures regarding
police chases though. But the thing is is, even if
(21:07):
a cop violates department procedure and continues of pursuit, they're
still not breaking any laws. So for example, in Washington,
d C. You can only pursue if the suspect has
engaged in a violent act or um, someone could be
seriously hurt if the suspect were allowed to escape. Um.
(21:29):
In Des Moines, Iowa, no more than three cars can
engage in pursuit. Yeah, that makes good sense. It's a
good rule, and you have to take into account a
m the time of day, road and weather conditions, the
nature of the offense, and the supervisor has to pursue,
has to approve the pursuit. And then in Florida, Orange County, Florida,
(21:51):
that's the Orlando area. Are they the ones that have
real restrictive policies. Yeah, And as a matter of fact,
they found that after in the year after they enacted
their restrictive pursuit policies um felonies in Orlando declined. Yeah,
what's up with that? I don't know, one of those
weird things. Uh. There is also something called sovereign immunity UM,
(22:12):
which is a government official is not liable for damages
that occur while they're doing their job. Um. Yeah, that's
like old time common law. Yeah, old school, but these
days there are a lot of muni valleys that have
overridden that law with with other laws. Um. And like
I think with the Georgia case, I think that cop
(22:34):
was fired and brought up on charges, and I think
they could even sue the police station. Yeah, with the
but not themselves in overwriting the sovereign immunity laws. Most
most departments or communities protect the cops individually but financially.
But the institution can still be sued. Right, but they're
(22:55):
not predicted criminally, Like, they can still be brought up
on charges, they just can't be sued, I think, because
I'm pretty sure this Braves guy, I think he went
upon trial. Well, but apparently if I'm wrong, then I'm
gonna eat crow. But in California, you're basically out of
luck if the cops mess up your storefront with their
cars during your pursuit. Yeah, they their laws very much
(23:16):
protect the cops for from that. Koul liability insurance would
help out though, you would hope. But I mean, then
your rates are gonna rise. What were you doing? Nothing?
You just happen to have a store in the wrong
place in l A. So that's a that's police chase.
Is you got anything else? I got nothing else. They
seem way more dangerous than I even thought, and I
thought they were pretty dangerous before. Yeah, don't support those
(23:38):
TV shows. People don't listen to me. Don't do as
he says, not as he does. Right. Uh, if you
want to learn more about police chases, you can type
those words into the search bar. How stuff works. And
since I said search part, what is it, Chuck? Is
it time for listener mail? It normally would be, but
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(24:01):
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(24:21):
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Welcome to Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Dude, do you hey? And welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh and Clark. There's Charles W. Chuke Bryant, who's
uh do you know? Someone on Twitter said that every
time Chuck Bryant giggles, a baby bunny is born. Yeah. Yeah,
(00:25):
and they mean it too. Wow. I love being responsible
for all that joy in the world. You're doing it, man.
So I guess you just opened the show with you
were being chased by a police car in Great Britain.
Just you did a British sorry. I guess it was
yeah to do that. In the United States we have
different sounding sorry. Well, in these days it's all kinds
(00:47):
of crazy, like beeps and whistles. It's like that's like
an American police cruiser today. Wow, listen is getting off
to the great start. Let's let's try to keep it
on the track, all right, on the U. E. D
O C track. Yeah, this is what this is in
our long running law enforcement series. You know, it's unequaled
(01:10):
by any other topic except for death. I think you know,
I think death might have it beat. Okay, maybe not,
though we'll find out, all right. I guess go count
them after this. Okay, Chuck, have you ever been in
a police chase? Um? Have you ever been the object
of pursuit in a police chase? Yeah? I was not driving.
(01:33):
I was in a car one time when my friend
decided to run from the cops. Wow, we lay it
on us. Well, you know, it was just one of
those things. We were in Athens and he made a
very bad decision and uh we got away with it.
No way. Yeah, we'll see. That's something that I find
extremely interesting because I didn't realize until reading this article that, um,
(01:56):
there are very few circumstances where a cop should feel
justified it or would be justified in chasing you. Right.
But that said, there are almost no laws whatsoever restricting
police chases. It's this weird gray area. And I actually
found there's activists online or saying, like say no to
(02:16):
police chases, like restrict police chases, like create laws against
police chases because these things are deadly and dangerous. Yeah.
I think what about a hundred and forty innocent civilians
were killed last year? Yeah three d About a person
a day on average dies from a police chase, and
about a third of those but yeah, last year a
hundred and forty or just innocent bystanders. Yeah, that I
(02:37):
mean that happened in Atlanta. That's happened in Atlanta a
couple of times recently. One time the trainer for the
Atlanta Braves his because he lost his wife to a
cop smashing into her. And um. Then again more recently
there was another case. I think it was a kid
or something, but it was like it was sort of
in the news lately. Yeah, And I mean you get
the impression that and cops died too, like high speed pursuit.
(03:01):
Is there high speed pursuing it. That's dangerous for everybody
involving in leaving the cop um, But you get the
impression that, like whatever the circumstances is just just not
pulling over for being for a for a cop trying
to pull you over is reason enough to get the
cops tackles raised enough to chase you. Yeah, right off
the bat, I think that would be any cops instinct,
(03:23):
is gun it not like, well, let me check into
his record and call my supervisor and see if they
allow this, which a lot of times is policy. Now
as we'll see, UM, there are procedures in place to
kind of try to tamp down that emotion of the
primary departmental policy. Basically though, like you said, not law right,
So well, let's let's talk about this. Um Okay. When
(03:45):
you go through the academy and you um get all
your training, your gun training, you're hanging out with tackleberry
and you learn how to make cool sounds like machine
gun says or like yeah huh yeah, um, you you
spend about a week probably a little less learning how
to drive the car. Yea. Sadly only about two of
(04:06):
those days are dedicated to high speed pursuit yeah, which
apparently is an improvement over zero days, which is how
it used to be. And like the forties and fifties. Yeah,
I guess they just said good luck. Right, you should
know how to drive fast, right. You know, if you're
an old country sheriff, you probably ran moonshine exactly, or
your cousin does at least. Um, but there there's a
lot to it. Um in Ed grab Banowski, the grabster
(04:29):
um points out that you know, in in a high
speed pursuit, UH, cops car can be just as deadly
as a cops gun, and they need to know how
to use it just as well. And just as accurately, um,
because not only do you not have to know how
to drive, you have to know how to drive fast
while you're also turning on the lights and the sirens
and like calling in something and like all that other
(04:50):
stuff has to be second nature to you so that
you can focus on the driving while using just a
minimal amount of your brain power on the other stuff.
So part of the car training is just that how
to run a police car stuff, because it's not like
every other car, right. And if you, um, if you
are being trained to to drive in high speeds in
(05:10):
pursuit of a suspect and they send you to Colorado,
you can be reasonably assured that you're gonna come back
among the better trained police in the country because the
Colorado State Police maintain a course, an Emergency Vehicles Operation
course that is the cream of the crop. Did you
see like the aerial view of it. Yeah, I mean
they cover all the scenarios like UM on ramps and
(05:34):
off ramps, um high speed turns, intersections. They've really got
all laid out there and put you in a scenario
where as close as you could get to like an
active street. Right. It's like there's skid plates where the
coefficient of friction is point one five compared Chuck to say,
I'm just staying this off top of my head, a
of coefficient of friction of like point nine five on
(05:55):
a dry highway. So that's slick. Yeah, that's slick. They
need to know how to not been out basically, Yeah,
and that's I think the exception is a really elaborate
course like this. I think a lot of local police
still use the parking lot and the cones back, which
is better than an orange cone. Then you put an
egg on it like a Brady Bunch. Yeah. That was
(06:19):
one of the greatest television shows of all time, The
Brady Bunch. Yeah. Absolutely, Um, So let's talk about pursuit equipment. Right,
Basically what we just said was police training. You get
a couple of days maybe if you're lucky, you get
a few days on like a really great course, maybe
out in Colorado. For the most part, it's like, you
know how to drive, just drive really fast. Here's your
(06:41):
Crown vic Yeah. That the Ford Crown Victoria's is the
most common police car, although they're using all sorts of
different cars today. When you drive around you'll see like
those Dodge Chargers and like the more souped up I know. Uh,
I think in l A the State Patrol had those
Mustangs like they really souped up sports cars. Um, apparently
(07:01):
they're getting away from Crown Victoria's because that model of
car had a big problem with it. Whereas if you
were rear ended in a high speed collision your car
blew up. Was that the pacer that did that? In
the seventies the Pinto the Ford Pinto again, Ford had
the opposite problem. If you if you um collided with
something on the front end, all I thought it was
(07:22):
the rear. I think it was the front. Well, let
me tell you this. I learned about it from the
movie Top Secret, where a Pinto like just barely hits
a tree and then it's front and blows up, and
then Ford ambulances for a while we're blown up to Yeah,
So forward with the with the police inceptor Crowned vic
Um created this, uh this chemical fire suppression system where
(07:46):
right when you're rear ended at a high enough impact,
forceful enough impact, this this fire suppression thing goes off.
So even if there's not a fire, there's not going
to be a fire anyway. Um, but apparently it's enough
that some people are like, yeah, we're gonna go with
the intrepid, right. Uh. You see a lot of Crown
Picks in Atlanta to like just regular people driving them.
(08:08):
It's like sort of a thing. Now. Yeah, it is
completely a little spotlight. Yeah, it's like, man, don't mess
with me like that out on the highway. So, um,
there are some differences of course, tween a police car.
If you think it's just a regular Crown Victoria, it
is not or whatever it is. Um, A lot of
times it does have more horsepower in the engine because
they need that kind of juice. Um. And they weigh
(08:29):
more obviously than your standard car because there's more guns
and things you're gonna have like metal reinforced seat backs
and things, so like you can't get stabbed in the
back from the back seat if you did, or shootings
or anything if you didn't do a good job of
checking for weapons. Um. What else, extra transmission coolers and
(08:51):
oil coolers. Yeah, because I mean like radiators. Like they
don't turn their car off ever, like that heat heat
builds up, so they have like oil coolers and transmission
fluid coolers figure alternators to supply more power up to
a hundred and thirty amps, if that means anything to you.
And then lights, well in vinyl seats thtow in the rear.
That's that's important. Yeah, You're never gonna find cloth interior
(09:14):
in the back of a police car because suspects are dirty.
They're dirty, and oftentimes they will poop and vomit and
bleed and just do whatever whatever bodily fluid they can
get out in that police car, they probably will, So
they want to make it uh easily. You just get
out the four nine and the paper towels and just
clean it right there. Um lights Apparently they used to
(09:37):
have them on the fenders and they said, you know what,
this is visible, but it's not as visible as if
it were on the roof. So they created with so
as the light bar, and which it was a little
more recent than I thought. It was the seventies that
these things made their debut. Yeah, and I thought back,
I was like, oh, yeah, you never see like cars
in the sixties or or even early seventies with that
(09:58):
light bar. So I was born and about the time
the Lifebard came along. Yeah, I think, uh, you know,
you remember seeing the single sirens sometimes or the double
blue Dirty Harry would put on and do like a
UI well something some were built in. But yeah, they
also had the undercover cars. That was one of the
great parts of any cop movie was when they got
out the siren and put it on the roof. Um.
(10:20):
And now you can get them at Spencer's Gifts. Summer
blue and summer uh, summer blue and summer red. Though
I've never known the distinction. I always thought ambulances were
red and cops were blue. But in different cities I've
seen cops have read. I think it depends on what
side of the force you're on. Oh really yeah, like
how your medic chlorine. So one thing they can do
(10:41):
to uh, to prevent the chase from happening altogether. You've
seen the old spike strip. They lay down these rubber
mats with spikes all across the road, or they have
them like uh, like an accordion. You just kind of
throw and hang on to one end. And that's the
quick version, and so that'll obviously disabled the fires. Um.
(11:02):
You can the good old fashioned roadblock that you see
in movies actually happens. They line up cars and except
in this version there's not a conveniently parked tow truck
ramp for the criminal to jump over everybody or bust through.
I guess well, you have to be careful setting those
up because it's normally going the criminals not going to
(11:23):
try to push through the car, but they might try
to go around. So you have to make sure that
if you set up this roadblock, it's it's not like
going to funnel them into somebody's house. I don't think
you do that in like a neighborhood. That would be
a good idea. You want to do it on a
country road. And then modern techniques, which I think if
they bring this stuff along, that's really where it's at,
like microwave technology to disable the electrical system of a car,
(11:47):
or shooting a laser high speed avoidance using laser technology
HALT system of course, but they left out a couple
of letters there. Oh yeah, it should be because toat
that HALT it's not an acronym if you're leaving out
words just to make it a cute word. All right, Um,
(12:08):
so they like a lay ocean last name if they
spelled it out correctly. So in that case, they're shooting
a laser to cut off your fuel supply. But here's
the rub. There is the vehicle that they're shooting it at.
Has it has this special microchip in it? Yeah? I
didn't look into that, did you. Is it like newer
vehicles all that's my guess is that they're going to
start putting these in all cars or something like they
make some deal with That would be fine with me.
(12:31):
I mean, it's better than pursuing somebody, absolutely, you know. Um.
And then of course you have air support, either in
the form of a police helicopter or like fifty news
helicopters if the police chase out in California, um, or
the World's Scariest Police Chase helicopter. Yeah, whoever those guys are.
I think they just get footage from news copters and
(12:51):
cop copters. You watch the shows I know I've talked about.
I've seen them before. Yeah, they're they're just so I
don't know. I followed. That's one of my guilty pleasures.
Do you watch this still? Yeah? I mean it's not
appointment television. I never know when or where they come on.
But if I'm flipping it around and I'll see a
police chase. I lived in l A. It's sort of
(13:13):
a thing. Yeah, and apparently California has some of the
most um police protective laws as far as pursuits go,
they happen a lot out there. Yeah, and like the
everybody just stops doing what they're doing and watches the
live coverage of it sort of. Do you remember the guy,
um who killed himself on live television after a police
pursuit and yeah, showed it on Fox. I guess I
(13:36):
saw that when it happened live. I remember very distinctly.
It was like not like a movie. No, you know,
like if you've ever seen someone shoot their head off
with a shotgun in real life, it's nothing like. It's
not some big dramatic movie thing. It's just sad. Yeah,
it really was. It was like he might have been
like making or gami or something like. It was just
(13:57):
that pedestrian, yeah, or it. It was just like he
just had the gun and he's pull it up and
shot himself and he hunches over and just falls. It
was It's weird. It was really weird to see. It
was very sad. And of course all the kids that
saw that, that's like it's terrible. Yeah. Um, So initially
if someone takes off like you were talking about. The
(14:18):
police officer that's on the scene has a decision to
make to pursue or not to pursue. Lots of policies,
one thing they want to do is run the tags.
Is it a stolen vehicle where they just in an
arm robbery or is it just somebody who has a
couple of traffic tickets out or nothing at all on
their record. Apparently the pursuit that enjoys the widest support
(14:42):
around the country is if it's a violent criminal, um,
somebody who poses an imminent threat to somebody else, somebody
who's just carried out a violent act and is escaping.
Like pretty much everybody says, chase that guy. Like if
you said the person has a couple of traffic tickets
or if they have nothing and they're the only reason
(15:04):
to chase them is that they didn't pull over for you,
that is not reason to pursue. And yet, of all pursuits,
and I believe two thousand eleven were for traffic violations, Yeah,
I mean, I know for the cops, has got to
be their instinct, like go get that person. They're fleeing
me for a good reason. Yeah, Like I get it,
but they're when people are interesting, people are dying, there
(15:27):
needs to be like some policy in place for sure.
And apparently, Chuck, ninety one four percent of chases were
for non violent crimes. I believe that. So, Um, if
the cops says, Okay, this guy's this car just came
back stolen, the guy just waved a gun, and it's
a very clear case that he should pursue them, there
are other things to consider, Uh, what's the what don't
(15:49):
get him? What's what's traffic? Like, what's the word? Are
the road conditions like rainy, is it dark? Neighborhood pedestrians everywhere?
You might want to just kind of slowly tail the guy. Well,
the one in Atlanta where they killed the trainer's wife,
I think it was a sort of a busy afternoon
in an urban areas, Like they shouldn't have been pursuing
anyone at this point. Do you know what they were
(16:11):
pursuing the person for? I don't remember. Um. And then
so if they decided to like go ahead and pursue,
then this this series of um procedures kind of come
into place, like they need to be radio and back
into headquarters immediately, right, And apparently they're every step of
(16:32):
the way, or they just kind of keep the whoever
they're talking to their supervisor posted on what's going on.
The supervisor's role is to keep a cool head because
they're not the one who the person isn't pulling over for,
so they're they're not mad. They don't want to correct heads,
you know. Um, So their their whole role is to
to say, you know what, like we we should You
(16:53):
just told me that there's some pedestrians around, this guy
is not a violent offender. You don't don't complete this pursuit,
or we have like we have chopper coverage, so back
off with the cars and we can still like follow
this car from above. Yeah, you know, like we're still
gonna get our guy. Don't you worry about it? Um.
(17:13):
One of my favorite things. If you watch the show Cops,
you are well versed with the pit maneuver police I'm
sorry pursuit intervention technique also called the tactical vehicle intervention,
and that is the famous move. If a cop has
you know, you'll hear them. They have to get clearance
for the pit maneuver. Even they'll call it in and say, hey,
(17:34):
I think I've got a chance for a pit, can
I take it? And they'll say if you feel like,
you know, the streets are clear enough and you know
you have to do it on a turn, you don't
just like run up beside someone and run them off
the road. It's it's when they enter a turn the
cop hits the gas and hits them on the left
rear bumper and just basically spins them out. And uh,
(17:57):
it's it works if done correctly, and they'll training. You know,
you get trained when you get the defensive driving on
the pit maneuver and they just spin out. You can't
come out of it, can't come out of it. Your
car spins. And that's generally on cops, at least when
the guys will jump out of the car the car
still rolling, and take off on foot. And then you
(18:18):
hear these cops, you know, with the their miked up,
so all you hear is like running in the dark
with all this gear on. You're like, man, what a
crappy job. But you know, check your heavy breathing just
reminded me of something. Is it that time? It's time
for a message break? All right? Heavy breathing? Indeed, So
(18:41):
you were talking about the wildest police chases that kind
of show that you like, I don't know who would
watch stuff like that. Well, Grabs Throw takes the task. Um,
those kind of shows for presenting a very um unbalanced
picture of police chases. They don't show the cops backing
off of pursuit becomes too dangerous. They don't show the
(19:02):
cops crashing into a innocent by standards car, right. Um.
They never say, well, this cop probably shouldn't have pursued
this person because this is a minor violation. Um. And
they they always kind of tend to present the police
in a favorable light. Yeah, And I think it's more
I don't know if they're out to make Oh maybe
(19:23):
they are. I just think it's better TV obviously, like
you wouldn't want to show and they're like, oh no,
let's just back off and get back to the that
for sure. Plus also they want to maintain a um,
the kind of relationship with cops police departments that where
they'll give them their footage. You know. Now, the shows
are good for the cops. I'm sure we hear I
don't know if you can hear those people. It sounds
(19:44):
like a police chase is going on outside right now.
I think it is this is this is really dramatic footage. Chuck,
um uh, do you remember the O J thing specifically?
Where were you then? How's in college? College? I remember too,
of course, so I don't. The chase wasn't I didn't
(20:05):
watch much of the chase. Remember the verdict? Yeah? I
remember the chase specifically because they It was during the
Knicks Rockets NBA playoffs and my buddy Justin is a
huge Knicks fan, and he was really upset and he
was just like, do you have to have it on
every channel? And I agreed with It's like, why you
know you're gonna preempt the basketball game. It's on a
(20:25):
hundred channels. I can't in the one person out there
that wants to watch the basketball game, but their ratings
would have gone through the roof. And that was a
low speech chase. That wasn't even that was just weird,
you know, well, love speech chases are very weird. I'm
a c It's just like, you know who I am.
I'm not gonna pull over. Yeah. So well, let's talk
(20:45):
about the legalities of it, right. There's, like we said,
there's pretty much no laws that restrict police chases. They
have the right to do that in all cases. Yeah. Um.
And as a matter of fact, they don't even have
to have their lights and sirens running to engage in pursuit. Yeah,
that's a fact. Um. The there are department procedures regarding
police chases though. But the thing is is, even if
(21:07):
a cop violates department procedure and continues of pursuit, they're
still not breaking any laws. So for example, in Washington,
d C. You can only pursue if the suspect has
engaged in a violent act or um, someone could be
seriously hurt if the suspect were allowed to escape. Um.
(21:29):
In Des Moines, Iowa, no more than three cars can
engage in pursuit. Yeah, that makes good sense. It's a
good rule, and you have to take into account a
m the time of day, road and weather conditions, the
nature of the offense, and the supervisor has to pursue,
has to approve the pursuit. And then in Florida, Orange County, Florida,
(21:51):
that's the Orlando area. Are they the ones that have
real restrictive policies. Yeah, And as a matter of fact,
they found that after in the year after they enacted
their restrictive pursuit policies um felonies in Orlando declined. Yeah,
what's up with that? I don't know, one of those
weird things. Uh. There is also something called sovereign immunity UM,
(22:12):
which is a government official is not liable for damages
that occur while they're doing their job. Um. Yeah, that's
like old time common law. Yeah, old school, but these
days there are a lot of muni valleys that have
overridden that law with with other laws. Um. And like
I think with the Georgia case, I think that cop
(22:34):
was fired and brought up on charges, and I think
they could even sue the police station. Yeah, with the
but not themselves in overwriting the sovereign immunity laws. Most
most departments or communities protect the cops individually but financially.
But the institution can still be sued. Right, but they're
(22:55):
not predicted criminally, Like, they can still be brought up
on charges, they just can't be sued, I think, because
I'm pretty sure this Braves guy, I think he went
upon trial. Well, but apparently if I'm wrong, then I'm
gonna eat crow. But in California, you're basically out of
luck if the cops mess up your storefront with their
cars during your pursuit. Yeah, they their laws very much
(23:16):
protect the cops for from that. Koul liability insurance would
help out though, you would hope. But I mean, then
your rates are gonna rise. What were you doing? Nothing?
You just happen to have a store in the wrong
place in l A. So that's a that's police chase.
Is you got anything else? I got nothing else. They
seem way more dangerous than I even thought, and I
thought they were pretty dangerous before. Yeah, don't support those
(23:38):
TV shows. People don't listen to me. Don't do as
he says, not as he does. Right. Uh, if you
want to learn more about police chases, you can type
those words into the search bar. How stuff works. And
since I said search part, what is it, Chuck? Is
it time for listener mail? It normally would be, but
I do not have a listener mail prepared. Instead, we
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(24:01):
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So we would invite people to do that, and I
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(24:21):
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(24:42):
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(25:03):
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(25:45):
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