Right: A police car, wrecked during a recent pursuit. In this case, although a motorist not involved in the chase was injured, the police driver was not hurt. However, in the past hundred years, more NSW police have died in car chases than have been killed by gunshot wounds.
Arguments supporting a ban on high speed police pursuits
1. High speed police pursuits have resulted in an unacceptable number of deaths
It has been claimed that police pursuits are causing unacceptable risks in all Australian states. Civil Liberties Australia has supplied the following statistics.
On average, more than two people die (and 70 are injured) every year in Queensland in car chases where police are involved. In that state, there is approximately one police chase a day, with one in four resulting in a crash. In the ten years 2000 - 2009, 22 people died and 689 people were injured during or following a police pursuit in Queensland.
In the ACT, with a population of just over 300,000, over the past five years the average has been one death a year. There are about two car chases a week, according to the Cameron Report of July 2007, and they last 4 minutes 13 seconds each, on average.
In New South Wales, police engage in car chases about 2000 times a year. Since 1994, more than 60 people have died at a rate of about four a year for that state.
At one stage in Victoria, before its chase policy was revised, 24 people had died in 16 incidents across 26 months from July 2001 to September 2003.
It has been claimed that police pursuits actually cause casualties and deaths. The Queensland coroner, Michael Barnes, has stated in relation to cases he has looked at that it was the decision of police to pursue that caused most of the chased drivers to flee at high speed.
In eight of the ten cases the coroner has recently investigated, the pursued vehicle was being driven in a normal, safe manner when an attempt was made to intercept it. In each case, the driver then sped off and the police followed. A death or deaths occurred as a result of the manner in which the pursued vehicle was driven.
In 2003, Dr Paul Mazerolle, the research director of Queensland's Crime and Misconduct Commission, stated, 'The numbers from our data shows that roughly 30 per cent of the people are intoxicated and so that really leads to the issue of do we want intoxicated drivers being chased by the police? Perhaps the only thing more dangerous than a drunk driver on a road is a drunk driver being pursued by the police.'
It has also been noted that high speed pursuits place the lives of police at risk. In the twentieth century, cars killed 99 New South W ales police officers. Gunshot wounds killed 49.
According to a 2003 study from Queensland's Crime and Misconduct Commission 1 in 10 of the state's high speed pursuits ends with someone injured or dead, which is more than the number killed or injured by police firearms in Australia.
2. Police pursuits are often not justified in terms of the public good
It has been claimed that police pursuits are high risk operations which are often undertaken for inadequate reasons. According to this line of argument, it is inappropriate to risk lives in order to apprehend those who have committed relatively minor offences and who, were they not being pursued, would not pose a significant risk to public safety. Thus, it is argued, traffic offences and joy-ride car thefts should not generally lead to high speed pursuits. However, critics of police pursuit practices claim that it is for just such relatively minor offences that many high speed chases occur.
In New South Wales, 49 people were killed between 1990 and 2003 either during or immediately after a police pursuit. Eight of those killed were innocent bystanders. John Cadogan, of the drivers' advice Internet site Caradvice, has claimed that the remaining 41 were on the run, 'mostly chased after simple traffic offences, often young drivers who make a single bad decision under extreme pressure'.
Mr Cadogan went on to claim, 'There were 2086 police pursuits in NSW during 2005/2006, the latest year in which the NSW Police's Annual Report made pursuit statistics public. That's 40 each week on average; more than six a day. Six per cent of these chaotic, unpredictable events ends in a crash, and only nine per cent are initiated because the driver is suspected of a criminal offence [involving injury to persons]. The overwhelming majority - 78 per cent - kick off because of a suspected traffic offence or stolen vehicle.'
It has further been claimed that police should be able to apprehend those who have committed traffic offences at their homes, rather than pursuing them immediately after the event. John Cadogan has stated, 'The alternative to pursuit is, in the case of traffic matters, obviously, for police to take the a note of the offending vehicle's number plate... and follow up by knocking on the door later - especially in these days of in-car Highway Patrol video. This, you'd think, would make real sense for minor traffic offences.'
3. High speed pursuits are an inefficient means of trying to apprehend offenders
It has been claimed that high speed pursuits are not an effective means of apprehending a suspect as a majority of those pursued either escape or the case to catch them is called off.
John Cadogan, of the drivers' advice Internet site Caradvice, has asked in relation to New South Wales pursuit statistics, 'What happens to those who flee? Thirty-seven per cent get away with it because the police terminate the pursuit or the pursuing driver discontinues the pursuit...in 18 per cent of pursuits the fleeing driver out-runs the cops. In 13 per cent of pursuits the driver stops, but the occupants of the offending vehicle then abscond on foot.' This would appear to mean that in more than fifty percent of chases the suspect manages to escape.
It has further been claimed that the guidelines put in place to protect the public effectively encourage absconders to drive dangerously in order to have the police call off the pursuit. John Cadogan has noted, 'Recidivist offenders and hardened criminals, many with outstanding warrants, use the [New South Wales] Safe Driving Policy to their advantage. Pursuits are automatically terminated, it says, when the risk exceeds the need to apprehend the offender immediately. Officers I have interviewed say crooks in the know get the headlights off at night and drive on the wrong side at more than double the speed limit, or drive through red lights at dangerous speeds, forcing police to terminate the pursuit. They also head for known police radio blackspots.'
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4. Police are inadequately trained to conduct pursuits
Critics have argued that the training given is not sufficient to prepare police recruits for the demands of 'urgent duty driving'.
Commenting on the training given New South Wales police officers, John Cadogan, of the drivers' advice Internet site Caradvice, has claimed, 'A senior officer reported on ABC radio that Gold-classified NSW Police licence holders (the top qualification) receive just five hours' of pursuit-specific practical training at the Goulburn (NSW) Police Academy. Once passed, that's it. There is no ongoing qualification benchmark test. (Yet, incomprehensibly, every officer must pass an annual handgun refresher.)'
Similar claims have been in relation to the training received by Victorian police officers. The Fitzroy Legal Centre in a report, prepared in 1991 stated, 'Driver training for police, recruited at 18 years of age, currently consists of a two week (ten day) driving course comprising several days lectures, some low speed driving at the Attwood driving track and skid pan, several days driving in the suburbs, and one day at Calder raceway doing mock pursuits and learning evasive action skills. ' The report concluded, 'This practical training actually encourages use of high speed.'
5. High speed pursuits can give a habit-inducing 'thrill' to police and those the pursue
The following comments come from a former member of the New South Wales police. They were published anonymously in The Sydney Morning Herald on November 13, 2004.
'A police chase was one of the most incredible experiences I have had, and the closest I have come to dying. I know police who spend their lives trying to get into pursuits because it is such an adrenaline boost.
Pursuits are an intricate part of the predominantly male culture of young police, particularly in inner-city areas and the highway patrol. They invariably become a pissing competition between the police and the crooks to see who is a better driver. When that dangerous mix of testosterone and adrenaline kicks in, all reason goes out the window.
I know of a detectives' office which had "pursuit tapes" in all their cars. They would put them into the tape deck immediately after starting a pursuit. These tapes were recordings of heavy metal and other high energy music, which I guess they felt added to the experience of the pursuit...
The radio operator keeps asking you questions and you have to answer them as calmly as possible. They are trying to judge whether you are in control and thus able to conduct the chase in a safe and reasoned manner. Somehow, a calm came over me and I was able to give the information to the radio operator without panic in my voice.
They constantly ask you for speeds, but it is a well-known technique to either grossly underestimate the speeds or give them when you are turning corners (and hence going slower).
However, I quickly realised that the driver had "tunnel vision" or "missile lock", in that he was focused on the stolen car and nothing else...'
Referring to some of those who joy-ride and flee the police, this officer said, 'The driver and passenger of the stolen car got out and ran, but were caught shortly after.
The driver was 14 and the passenger 18. I sat with both of them in the cells back at the police station and we shared our own experiences of the chase. They told me that they had both been in hundreds of chases and it was clear that they baited police into chasing them because the adrenaline rush that came with it was like a drug.'