| ▲ | shoddydoordesk 16 hours ago |
| There are high speed police chases (100mph+) in Los Angeles — no exaggeration — on an almost daily basis. Air support is the primary defense tool for law enforcement. It's so bad that the local TV stations have their own choppers and a dedicated on-screen UI tailored for the chases with GPS-based tracking and speed. If you're lucky you can catch one of the many YouTube live streams. Here's one from....two days ago: https://www.youtube.com/live/uGiJU-FlpdE |
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| ▲ | BadBadJellyBean 15 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Then why do you have so many car chases? That seems like an odd problem. There must be a reason. |
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| ▲ | ponector 9 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | American police just like it. They start chase for any reason, even for a broken tail lamp. Also not a simple chaise, but one where they intentionally provoke a car crash, often with fatal results for innocent people. | |
| ▲ | Zigurd 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Same reason that nearly every police response in the US is an armed response. Same reason police kill more Americans than terrorists do. US police culture is toxic and deadly. Several cities tightly restrict high-speed chases. That should be the norm. | | |
| ▲ | adriand 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | My home town of Hamilton, Ontario (population 560k) recently made the news because a guy stole a bus, with passengers onboard, and started driving it through the city. It was newsworthy because he also dropped people off at their stops, and even rejected someone who tried to board with an expired bus pass. But what stood out for me in addition to all that was the police response. They quietly followed the bus, intentionally not using sirens to avoid “spooking” the guy. They waited for the right moment, boarded the bus and arrested him peacefully and without incident. I recognize my little city is not like LA (which I’ve visited twice) - the types of crimes, the types of criminals and the prevalence of weapons are far different, although we also have our share of gun violence and murder. But we have also not militarized our police, and there’s very much a police culture of service to the community. Here, when a cop uses their weapon, it’s seen as a failure. This was a situation handled properly, and it made me proud. | |
| ▲ | Philip-J-Fry 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Exactly, unless someone is in imminent danger there's basically no reason to do a high speed chase. Get the plate, track it on the thousands of ANPR cameras that exist, look up the owner and just knock on their door later on. Like 99% of high speed chases only end when the culprit crashes their car, and often that's into someone else's car risking harm to innocent civilians. | |
| ▲ | boringg 19 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | That may be - it should be noted that criminals in the US are also much more violent and brazen then most of the rest of the planet. If your criminal population is packing heat the response tends to be much more aggressive. Its a bit cat and mouse. | | |
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| ▲ | squidgyhead 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Because they have so many car chases on the news. So people get the idea that car chases are a solution that people use to get out of trouble. Seems like a vicious cycle, fed by the terrible news media. | |
| ▲ | themafia 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Population density. In other countries they have a lot of motorcycle chases, and a lot more motorcycle based crime, but it's a crime of opportunity, which is created by highly dense and interwoven urban cores. | | |
| ▲ | cenamus 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | European cities are small? You don't hear about many chases in Berlin/Paris/London, do you? | | |
| ▲ | themafia 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Berlin and Los Angeles _city_ both have 3.8 million residents. The greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area has 18 million residents. The greater Berlin Metropolitan area has 6 million residents. It's not only dense but the scale is far larger than most European cities. Only Asian and South American cities outclass the insanity that is LA. Until you've been there it's hard to appreciate the scope of it. | | |
| ▲ | marcinzm 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | The Greater LA areas has 34k square miles of area. Germany, the whole country, has 128k square miles. In other words, the LA area alone is a quarter the size of all of Germany. | | |
| ▲ | themafia 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | A huge chunk of that is national parks and deserts. It's not all inhabited. Only about 25% is classified as urban with the overwhelming majority of that being concentrated in Los Angeles and it's surrounding cities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Los_Angeles#Urban_area... This isn't a size measuring contest. I think Europeans forget how _young_ America is. That's the only unique part of this country. Give us a few thousand years and we'll be on par. |
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| ▲ | jdibs 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | cenamus 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Oh come on. If you wanna say Muslims (all those "dirty foreigners"), then spit it the fuck out. Also completely off topic that comment. |
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| ▲ | ripberge 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I have only been to Germany once, but my assessment was that we have a very different population here. | | |
| ▲ | BadBadJellyBean 15 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Possible but it seems like the chases are not even a US problem but more a "certain places" problem. I genuinely wonder what the cause of this behavior is. | | |
| ▲ | 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | dylan604 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I genuinely wonder what the cause of this behavior is. Seriously? It's from people not wanting to be arrested and go to jail. If they get away, perfect. If they don't, well, they were going to jail anyways. Now they have a cool story to tell while in jail. These are not people getting pulled over because they rolled a stop sign. These are people doing dirt, know it, and are willing to try something to avoid getting caught. It's really not complicated | | |
| ▲ | zimpenfish 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > These are not people getting pulled over because they rolled a stop sign. Although if you watched "Last Week Tonight" recently (S12 E28, 2025-11-02), Mr Oliver's long segment is about police chases and IIRC he covered more than a couple of cases where people were, in fact, being pulled over / chased for trivial matters which then lead to crashes, deaths, etc. | | |
| ▲ | closeparen 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | These are trivial matters in that the penalties are minor, not that they are optional. | | |
| ▲ | dns_snek 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Of course they're not optional, but you shouldn't be starting a high speed pursuit over a seat belt violation, or for someone going 5 over the speed limit. Principle of proportionality should apply, you shouldn't be risking the lives of the public over anything but the most serious offences where them getting away poses a greater threat to the public than potentially killing a bystander. | | |
| ▲ | yreg 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It goes the other way as well. It is dumb to run away from police when they stop you for minor infraction and face a very high chance of getting caught and getting into a major problem. At least I would hope that the penalties for running away are very serious. The police officers don't know why you are running away and can reasonably expect that there is something wrong other than an unbuckled seat belt -> a kidnapped person, tons of drugs in the trunk, a wanted murderer driving, etc. Well at least in my country where chases are rare. I understand in US it is difficult since people are more eager to run away. | | |
| ▲ | idle_zealot an hour ago | parent [-] | | > It goes the other way as well. It is dumb to run away from police when they stop you for minor infraction and face a very high chance of getting caught and getting into a major problem Right, people are dumb. You can't just throw your hands in the air and declare a problem unsolvable because people are dumb and keep acting against their best interest; you acknowledge that fact and change tact accordingly. If it turns out that trying to pull people over for minor infractions causes 1% of those incidents to turn into violent chases then you should stop pulling people over for minor infractions and figure out a safer way to ticket them. At the very least you shouldn't chase after them in your car and add another dangerous vehicle to the road. It reflects a mindset of "get and punish the bad guys" being prioritized over "improve safety of your community," which pretty much sums up the culture problem with American police and criminal justice in general. |
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| ▲ | speakfreely 44 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > you shouldn't be starting a high speed pursuit over a seat belt violation, or for someone going 5 over the speed limit. That's the thing: normal people don't. Violent criminals, people with active arrest warrants, and people carrying highly illegal/dangerous things in their vehicles are the types that run from traffic stops. |
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| ▲ | samdoesnothing 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think they're asking why there's such a large population of people willing to commit crimes and then get into high speed chases. | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The cause of the behavior (as phrased when asked) is not wanting to go to jail. Asking why people are in situations where they are committing crimes that could land them in jail is a totally different question. Typically, poverty. Also common, addiction. | | |
| ▲ | closeparen 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Stealing cars (often at gunpoint) and driving them recklessly is an entertainment activity for young men with poor impulse control and little regard for human life. This kind of person makes decisions of comparable quality elsewhere in life that are probably incompatible with being middle class. | |
| ▲ | bigfatkitten 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Typically, poverty. Also common, addiction. The latter is often a result of the former. People self-medicating to escape misery. | |
| ▲ | lukan 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | "Asking why people are in situations where they are committing crimes that could land them in jail is a totally different question. Typically, poverty. Also common, addiction." Can't we just blame GTA? | |
| ▲ | wredcoll 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Except that people around the world generally don't want to go to prison, so why do americans have more high speed chases? (assuming they do in fact have more per capita/car...) | | |
| ▲ | c420 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm going to guess... because we can? Police here are willing to chase for almost anything in most jurisdictions. I bet there are restrictions on what constitutes a chasable offense in the rest of the world. | | | |
| ▲ | 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | seemaze 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Lots of high capacity vehicular infra in LA.. I imagine most places just have ‘chases’. | |
| ▲ | georgeecollins 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Or..
https://youtu.be/RvV3nn_de2k?si=7bXkaIri1_o95Ofs | |
| ▲ | zimpenfish 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > so why do americans have more high speed chases? Off the top of my head: 1) US cops are more likely to harass, maim, kill you than most other places (whether you've crimed or not); 2) US legal system seems a little hinky when it comes to certain people; 3) "three strikes" (not sure if that's countrywide or state-level? pretty sure it's still around tho'?) can mean life for three trivial crimes; 4) car-centric country - lots of them and everywhere is designed for cars[0]. [0] Imagine a car chase around London[1] or some other wackily streeted city. [1] No, the godawful nonsense Hollywood comes up with does not count. | | |
| ▲ | Rebelgecko 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | California's 3 strikes law only applies to "serious" felonies. The list is pretty reasonable IMO. No one is getting life in prison for littering or insurance fraud It's basically a list of violent crimes, the only one that seems out of pocket is selling PCP, meth, or cocaine to childre, which is bad but could arguably be less bad than the others on the list | | |
| ▲ | aerostable_slug 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Raping an unconscious person is not on the list of violent felonies. Neither is domestic violence with traumatic injury, assault with a deadly weapon, or felony battery with serious bodily injury. It takes a lot to earn strikes in California. | |
| ▲ | zimpenfish 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > California's 3 strikes law only applies to "serious" felonies. But not all states are California. > No one is getting life in prison for littering or insurance fraud William James Rummel begs to differ[0] - fraudulent use of a credit card ($80), forged check ($28.36), failure to return payment for non-performed work ($120.75) and voila, life sentence (albeit later reduced to time served on procedural grounds.) [0] also references "Graham v. West Virginia, a 1912 case which involved an individual convicted of three separate counts of horse thievery total[l]ing $235" which ended up in a life sentence. In summary, some states may have sensible 3 strike laws, some may not. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rummel_v._Estelle |
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| ▲ | Aurornis 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The population in big US cities is very heterogeneous. There isn’t one single culture. In a city with large population, it only takes a few people willing to commit crimes to make the news. |
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| ▲ | stickfigure 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | https://www.google.com/search?q=florida+man |
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| ▲ | 9cb14c1ec0 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There is this perception that if you drive fast and recklessly enough the police will quickly stop following you. It's a get-out-of-jail-free card in popular perception. | |
| ▲ | twelvedogs 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | police will chase in the US for really any reason, kinda dumb when they have your plates they can just mail you a fine john oliver did a whole thing on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8ygQ2wEwJw | | |
| ▲ | AnthonyMouse 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > kinda dumb when they have your plates they can just mail you a fine Except that the person trying to get away knows that too, so if all they're doing is buying themselves a bigger fine, why are they doing it? The answer to that could be because they stole the car, or because there's a body in the back, in which case mailing them a fine doesn't work. | | |
| ▲ | idle_zealot an hour ago | parent [-] | | > The answer to that could be because they stole the car, or because there's a body in the back, in which case mailing them a fine doesn't work. Except it's almost never that. The answer is that people are stupid and impulsive. |
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| ▲ | themafia 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | "I wasn't driving at the time. Someone took my car." There is generally no crime for owning a vehicle used in a crime. The violation belongs to the _driver_ and to no one else. Burden of proof can be extreme in US courts. | | |
| ▲ | dns_snek 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | You don't need to be chasing them on the road. Attach a GPS tracker to the car and follow it with drone, collect surveillance footage and arrest them once they come to a stop. | | |
| ▲ | themafia 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | They do have GPS dart launchers and other systems. They're fairly unreliable. It's difficult for the lead driver in a chase to deploy accurately and cars are typically dirty enough to make most adhesives ineffective particularly when deployed at highway speeds. A hoodie is enough to defeat the drone surveillance, and regardless of what facial recognition technology you use, a jury still has to buy the output of that system. For drones with less than a 6 foot wingspan that don't require a runway you've got maybe 30 minutes of flight time at a top speed of 30 miles per hour. So unless you know where they're going already you're not going to be able to effectively deploy it in the time necessary to capture them and you can't loiter long enough to track them with infrared. The helicopter is an insurance policy. When you have a bunch of marked units doing twice the speed limit on a long enough chase they're going to hit something. Those crashes are devastating and lead to eye watering settlement amounts. The helicopter can safely chase most vehicles at almost any speed and the risk of them crashing with any civilian or even civilian property is effectively zero. |
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| ▲ | domoregood 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | True, but chases involving stolen vehicles (a non-trivial percentage of all chases) means that mailing a fine to the registered owner wouldn't be a universal solution. | |
| ▲ | mschuster91 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > kinda dumb when they have your plates they can just mail you a fine thing is, in Germany and many other European countries there's a mandate to register your place of residence with the authorities in a timely manner (i.e. 2 weeks after moving in). Americans and Brits don't have that, so "mail them a fine" is most likely going to result in the letter not arriving where it should. | | |
| ▲ | inferiorhuman 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I can't speak to the UK but in California there are various rules around updating vehicle registration when you move. Enforcement is pretty lax unless you drive something with exceptionally high registration fees. There's strong wording about updating voter registration when you move, but I doubt there's much in the way of actual law. If there is it's basically never enforced as far as I can tell. |
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| ▲ | almosthere 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Practice for GTA6 | | | |
| ▲ | rasz 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 28 seasons of Alarm for Cobra 11 tell me Germany is riddled with criminals running from Polizei on the Autobahn. |
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| ▲ | asdff 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They get away from time to time from the airship. Two in one week this past august and I don't think they ever caught the suspects. One drove under an overpass and fled on foot, the other entered LAX airspace which requires waiting on clearance from ATC and got away somehow after that. I don't know why they don't just shoot a magnetic dart at the car with a gps tracker on it. |
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| ▲ | Aurornis 16 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I don't know why they don't just shoot a magnetic dart at the car with a gps tracker on it. Hitting a car going 100mph with a magnetic dart that and getting it to hit on a metal part, not a window or trim, and specially a steel panel, is not easy at all. | | |
| ▲ | mapt 15 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There's a lot more aluminum than steel on car exteriors these days. | | |
| ▲ | hollerith 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | This got me curious so I went out on the street and held a magnet to the front passenger door of the first 6 parked cars I came across. The magnet stuck to 4 of them. The ones it did not stick to are a Nissan Rogue and a Jeep Sahara 4xe. | | |
| ▲ | brian-armstrong 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | Decided to scratch up some peoples' clear coats for a little science experiment? | | |
| ▲ | hollerith 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Could I have damaged the cars even though I saw no signs of damage? It would be nice if someone else with knowledge would chime in here. If this damages cars, then I want to know, so I can stop doing it in the future. | | |
| ▲ | Aurornis 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Unfortunately, yes. Dropping a magnet onto a car and pulling it off, especially if not recently cleaned, will damage the paint to some degree. Maybe not enough for an average person to notice, but you really shouldn’t do this to other people’s cars. Some people will get snide about anyone who cares about their car’s paint, but as someone who once bought a car I had to save a long time for and spent a lot of time with car care products I would be very sad if I saw you drop a magnet on to it and then pull it off without a second thought. Please don’t. | | |
| ▲ | AnthonyMouse 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Also, the paint on cars isn't just cosmetic. It's what keeps the metal from getting wet and then rusting. |
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| ▲ | tom_ 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It won't really matter all that much, but it will have done more than 0 damage to the paintwork (since metal is hard and paint is soft). Worth noting that drivers are touchy and emotional, and can't be trusted not to murder you over perceived slights, so it's safest to stick to doing nothing. Stuff something under the windscreen wipers if you really must, and even that is risky. | |
| ▲ | nandomrumber 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A flexible fridge magnet is probably fine. Seems like everyone here is assuming you used a 40lb neodymium magnet you dropped in the dirt first. I like to assume the best in people. | |
| ▲ | brian-armstrong 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | As long as the car is dirty, then contact with it can damage the top coat. This is a lot more true if you need to drag or scrape the magnet to remove it. | |
| ▲ | bradlys 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Unless the cars are perfectly washed and clayed, even running a clean finger over a car is likely to introduce scratches. I just wouldn’t ever touch someone’s car. You can look up people even trying to detail their cars to make them cleaner and end up leaving “love marks.” It doesn’t matter how soft the thing you’re using is. It’s because the car has contaminants on it and by rubbing anything on the car, those contaminants end up scratching everything. It’s like when you’re at the beach and you’re trying to remove sand off your skin. You’re probably not aggressively rubbing it off or using much pressure but it still hurts. It’s the same with cars, it’s just that the rocks aren’t as visible to you. They will leave swirls and scratches though… which become noticeable. I’ve had people just lean against my car when it wasn’t completely clean and completely ruin the paint requiring an entire 5 stage detail. | | |
| ▲ | prmoustache 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Cars spend a significant amount of time outside and they depreciate so quickly it just doesn't matter. One shouldn't expect a paint to stay perfect the same way we expect our skin to wear and age over the years. I don't even know what a 5 stage detail means but I can safely say you are overreacting. A car is just a tool and a rando putting a fridge magnet or leaning against your car once in a while is just completely negligible compared to the amount of shit a paint is exposed to when driving it. Sand and dirt do not ask for your permission either. | |
| ▲ | wredcoll 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > I’ve had people just lean against my car when it wasn’t completely clean and completely ruin the paint requiring an entire 5 stage detail Assuming this is true, it seems like something has gone badly wrong somewhere in this process. Why can't cars have paint that survives being "leaned on" | | |
| ▲ | clnhlzmn 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think the person you replied to probably just has a different definition of "completely ruined" than you or I. | | |
| ▲ | prmoustache 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah we are talking pathological territory here. Car paints need less love than their owners need therapy if they have to "detail" their car every time a cat jump on the hood to enjoy the warmth. | |
| ▲ | bradlys 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Visible marks from over 20ft away. You tell me. |
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| ▲ | dns_snek 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If we're taking it this far then driving on the highway is like sandblasting the paint with dust and you do that without even thinking about it. |
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| ▲ | s5300 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | bahmboo 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There is a thing called the grappler now. Seems like a reasonable tool: https://policebumper.com/ | |
| ▲ | asdff 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | OK, one with a big glob of bubblegum on it then. | | | |
| ▲ | BoorishBears 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They already have darts for this that use adhesives to stick to any part of the vehicle and shoot out from the pursuing vehicles |
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| ▲ | Balgair 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Now this assumes that the LAPD/LASD/whomever actually cares to catch the suspect! In my (limited) experience with them, you could incinerate a full bus and they'd not blink an eye, but if you block the intersection at one of the many rush hours, that's a capital offense! | |
| ▲ | efnx 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It would have to be a very special dart. Cars are mostly aluminum and foam. A piercing dart would be dangerous and a magnet would really work. | | |
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| ▲ | chrisweekly 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I wonder how much of the high-speed chase "scene" is actually fuelled by all the hoopla. (TV broadcasts of soccer/football matches tend not to show streakers on the field for this reason) |
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| ▲ | jjwiseman 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | In 2003, "Los Angeles Mayor Jim Hahn, along with Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, the California Highway Patrol, the Los Angeles Police Chiefs’ Association and the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners sent a letter Feb. 26 to news directors of television stations asking them to consider reducing the amount of police car chase coverage they broadcast." Officials asserted in their letter that live continuous coverage
causes dangerous police chases to be looked upon as entertainment,
and encourages suspects to flee in pursuit of instant fame.
“Dangerous suspects are acquiring instant celebrity status when they
recklessly evade police over our streets and highways. This form of
notoriety is life threatening and should not occur,” said Los Angeles
County Sheriff Lee Baca in the press release.
"There have been instances where drivers look out windows and wave. Many
[suspects] have made it abundantly clear that they’re enjoying the whole
thing,” said Julie Wong, director of communications for the mayor’s
office.
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| ▲ | dilippkumar 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > There are high speed police chases (100mph+) in Los Angeles — no exaggeration — on an almost daily basis. How is anyone driving at that speeds in LA traffic? |
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| ▲ | dylan604 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | Like an asshole. We've all seen them, even if not in a chase. It may not be 100mph+ the whole time, but when there's open air, they'll get there. |
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| ▲ | JLO64 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Personally I prefer Fox 11's coverage of these chases. The guy they have up there is fun to listen to and always sprinkles in comparisons to past chases. |
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| ▲ | dudeinjapan 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This YouTube video is missing a Kavinsky soundtrack. |
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| ▲ | stefan_ 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I mean in most other places people have simply realized that unless there is an immediate risk to life, the only thing high speed police chases do is create that very risk. Nicely contrasts with all the news about the omnipresent license plate scanners - it's just pointless, don't take the risk, arrest them at your leisure. |
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| ▲ | TravisLS 15 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Worth noting that many people who run from the police also have fake or stolen plates. | | |
| ▲ | mrtksn 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That shouldn't matter, after all, even if the plate is legit, you can't just find a person's location from the database. They usually have some legal address or something, not live location. So unless there's an immediate danger, there is no reason for chasing people and create dangerous situations. You can just follow them around from the severance cameras and catch them once they are no longer on the move. Even if you don't have disability for one reason or another, it still doesn't make much sense to engage in high-speed driving around people minding their own business. | |
| ▲ | stefan_ 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't get this gotcha. The license plate scanner associates a plate with a location and time, it doesn't care for who drives it. In a chase, you know the plate, you don't know the location. Seems perfect? | | |
| ▲ | nradov 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Perfect how? The license plate scanner can only tell that a particular plate number was in a particular place at a particular time. It doesn't know if the plate was fake or stolen, or who was driving the vehicle, or if there was contraband in the vehicle. Stopping fleeing vehicles is one of the most effective ways to catch people with outstanding arrest warrants and get illegal weapons off the streets. | | |
| ▲ | lukan 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think the idea is, if you know where the car is and where it is going, you don't need to chase it openly on high traffic areas with high risk of accidents. You use restraint and take them at a safer place. (surely won't work all the time) |
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| ▲ | sokoloff 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In many cases, the driver is not associated with the plates, with the car and/or plates being stolen. | |
| ▲ | shoddydoordesk 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | So your proposal is to just let the criminals run away? And that somehow won't embolden them further? "Once this baby hits 88mph, we're home free!" Air support is used to coordinate with law enforcement up ahead to deploy spikes to end the chase. You are just repeating empty political talking points that simply don't work in the real world. | | |
| ▲ | mapt 15 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Basically, letting them run away and then setting up a raid at their house the next morning is safer for everyone. If you can follow them from altitude well enough to do that, you reduce risk dramatically relative to either interception or chase. > They could learn a few things from the Georgia State Patrol, the undisputed world champions of the PIT. Why not just open up on them with antitank weaponry? PIT maneuvers are extraordinarily dangerous, especially at high speeds. | | |
| ▲ | shoddydoordesk 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | Buddy, most of these are stolen cars. Do you think they are driving them home and parking it in the driveway? If you are eluding the cops at 100mph you are a danger to the public, they are not going to let you go home. >Why not just open up on them with antitank weaponry? I've heard cops say something similar on body cam footage. | | |
| ▲ | zrobotics 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | "If you are eluding the cops at 100mph you are a danger to the public, they are not going to let you go home." I'm not sure that the cops pursuing people at those speeds is doing anything besides making the situation more dangerous. Police in the US are grossly undertrained, I wouldn't trust them to actually be competent at what is very technical and difficult driving. One would think that basic firearm safety would be the bare minimum, since we pay them to carry a gun. However, I have had to vacate a shooting range 3 times due to police showing up and being unsafe with firearms. I have had this happen in 3 different ranges, where off-duty cops have shown up and proceeded to ignore basic safety rules like not flagging people with guns. I'm not dumb enough to try to give a cop a safety lecture, so I've always packed up my stuff and left. However, if they aren't even given enough training to not figure out to point their guns downrange instead of at the firing line, they aren't trained well enough to trust with something technical and difficult like a pit maneuver. One of these times was at a CA range, they were socal cops. Training standards for police in the US are woefully low, most cops aren't able to hit the broad side of a barn given ideal circumstances. They agitate about how dangerous their job is, but they don't train like it is. They fire a few rounds a year and have absolutely horrendous marksmanship standards. Don't get fooled, your average cop has roughly zero idea on firearms safety or even how to use the darn things. | |
| ▲ | prmoustache 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > If you are eluding the cops at 100mph you are a danger to the public, they are not going to let you go home. They would not even try to reach those speed if they weren't chased. A criminal who thinks he escaped the police will try to not attract attention. They would just follow the normal flow of the traffic and you can follow their path thanks to the millions of cameras and the helicopter mentionned earlier. We are not in the 70's anymore. You can follow them from a distance they can't spot you so you can lock the road if they turn back and dispatch police force form in various exit points of an highway without starting an high speed chase. High speed chase is about cops endangering the public for the thrill and adrenaline really. They do that because they like it, not because they need it to arrest criminals. | |
| ▲ | netsharc 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If they're eluding cops at 100mph and being a danger to the public, it's because they're being chased by cops... But well, it's America, having the risk of a stray cop bullet hitting you because just like car chases, shootous are inevitable, makes it safer! | |
| ▲ | 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | bildung 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's probably reasonable to take a step back here and ask: Why is this not a universal problem? It's not as if every juristication outside the US simply lets criminals run away. | |
| ▲ | 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | bluedino 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A lot of departments terminate chases very early | | |
| ▲ | shoddydoordesk 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | They could learn a few things from the Georgia State Patrol, the undisputed world champions of the PIT. |
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| ▲ | wredcoll 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Why are you countering his political talking points with your own? | |
| ▲ | twelvedogs 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | just like so many things that work in every country but the US apparently |
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| ▲ | dylan604 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | John Oliver recently did a segment on police chases https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVFXUkFx5Y8 |
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