If they were legal here, I couldn't even imagine doing a PIT maneuver or something similar with the Impala I am assigned now......
Jeff
Jeff
Jeff White said:This is someone's pipe dream. Please provide a link to pending legislation or even a proposal by someone in the govt.?
Ediited to add: The last motorist assist that I did that was generated by ONSTAR gave us a location four miles from where the car actually was. I'd hardly trust that technology to turn off the car in front of me.
Jeff
RecoilRob said:Once a high percentage of cars on the road have Onstar capability, the pursuing Officer has only to make a call....."please stop the car in front of me" and, with the help of GPS tracking, in a few seconds it can be done.
RecoilRob said:Also, remember that many modern engines will run a LONG TIME without any coolant. The computer will switch off injectors so the cylinder pumps only air to cool itself and this scheme is cycled through the engine maintaining a safe operating temp. Sure, you are down on power but the engine will not overheat enough to stop.
GregGry said:I have a video of a honda civic (late 80s early 90s model) that ran for more the 12 minutes at almost full throttle (if not full throttle) with 0 engine coolant. It was throwing sparks out of the exhaust for many minutes. It takes a lote more then 5 minutes for most eninges to sieze up from lack of coolant, which is why shooting a hole in the radiator isn't that effective.
Father Knows Best said:Stopping it in 12 minutes is better than not stopping it at all. I have yet to see anyone suggest a more reliable and quicker way of stopping a moving vehicle with a firearm.
Father Knows Best said:We don't disagree. My initial point was that it is almost impossible to stop a high speed chase with a firearm. I said that the most likely outcome of shooting a bunch of rounds into the engine compartment would be the eventual seizing of the engine due to loss of coolant. I didn't say it would be quick, or a good idea. I said it more to explain why police DON'T try to stop chases with firearms.
Shooting out the tires is another bad idea. They are very hard to hit on a moving vehicle. If you miss, there is a high likelihood of ricochets, and you usually have to be concerned about bystanders. Even if you hit, you run the risk -- as you point out -- that the driver will lose control. That's typically bad. The ideal stop of a chase is to disable the vehicles engine but leave the driver with brakes and steering, because that way he will generally come to a stop without hitting innocent bystanders. If you shoot out his tires, he may well continue to try and run (we've all seen it on T.V.), but the lack of brakes and effective steering will cause him to collide with something. If that something is a bystander, you have a bad result.
The bottom line is that the best thing to do in most high speed chases is NOT to shoot at the vehicle (or the driver). A car is a heck of a powerful weapon -- 4,000+ pounds of steel and glass moving at 60-100 mph carries a LOT of energy and can do a LOT of damage. The way to stop it is to wait until the chase gets to an area without immediate danger to bystanders (rural road, for example) and then either use standard techniques to force a spin or use a pre-positioned stop strip to blow out his tires in an area where he is unlikely to lose control suddenly and strike a bystander.
LAPD Pursues High-Tech End to High-Speed Chases
By Richard Winton, Times Staff Writer
Question: "Chief, you said Los Angeles is the car chase capital of the world. What makes it that way?"
Answer: "There are a lot of nuts here."
With that street-cop psychology, Chief William J. Bratton unveiled Thursday a new and decidedly strange weapon in the LAPD's effort to halt high-speed pursuits.
It is an air-propelled miniature dart equipped with a global positioning device. Once fired from a patrol car, it sticks to a fleeing motorist's vehicle and emits a radio signal to police.
Bratton hailed the dart as "the big new idea" and said that if the pilot program was successful, Los Angeles' seemingly daily TV fix of police chases could be a thing of the past.
"Instead of us pushing them doing 70 or 80 miles an hour … this device allows us not to have to pursue after the car," Bratton said. "It allows us to start vectoring where the car is. Even if they bail out of the car, we'll have pretty much instantaneously information where they are."
U.S. Department of Justice officials, Bratton said, suggested that the StarChase system, the brainchild of a Virginia company, be tested in Los Angeles. A small number of patrol cars will be equipped with the compressed air launchers, which fire the miniature GPS receiver in a sticky compound resembling a golf ball, for four to six months as a trial.
There were more than 600 pursuits in Los Angeles and more than 100,000 nationwide last year. Critics have long questioned the wisdom of police pursuits because they can endanger bystanders and officers.
Los Angeles' love-hate relationship with police chases goes back at least to O.J. Simpson's slow-speed pursuit across Southern California freeways in 1994.
LAPD chases — as well as pursuits by other agencies — often end violently. Last year, an LAPD officer fatally shot a 13-year-old boy, who was driving a stolen car, at the end of a pursuit. This week, a pursuit in Chino ended with a San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy firing at the passenger of the car in a controversial incident caught on videotape.
With such things as license-plate reading SMART police cars and facial-recognition cameras, the LAPD is trying to become a testing ground for innovative police technology, Bratton said.
The LAPD may even consider using technology that would disable a vehicle's electronics.