High-speed police pursuits: dangers, dynamics, and risk reduction

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The, July, 2002 by John Hill

High-peed police pursuits and the inherent risk of injury and death that can result constitute an important law enforcement and public safety issue. Police pursuits are dangerous. Available data indicate that the number of pursuits continues to increase, as well as the number of pursuit-related injuries and deaths. A traffic accident constitutes the most common terminating event in an urban pursuit, 1 and most people agree that these pursuits should be controlled. Yet, researchers note a widespread lack.

Officers face the basic dilemma associated with high-speed pursuits of fleeing suspects: Do the benefits of potential apprehension outweigh the risks of endangering the public and the police? 2 Research indicates that too many restraints placed on the police regarding pursuits can put the public at risk. 03 In the other hand, insufficient controls on police pursuit can result in needless accidents and injuries.

The Dangers of Pursuit

The interpretation of the term "pursuit-related crash" represents one common police practice that affects accuracy of reporting. Often, police officers or their agencies will make the determination that a crash occurred right after a pursuit was "terminated," hence the crash is not pursuit-related. Agencies immediately can determine if this occurred by replaying tapes of radio transmissions during the pursuit, even days after completing a comprehensive accident investigation or reconstruction. Either way, the process can be very subjective.

Some research indicates that police pursuits result in about 350 deaths per year and the number of pursuits increases each year. (4) One organization estimates that about 2,500 persons die each year as a result of police pursuits and that another 55,000 are injured. (5) Although some law enforcement sources argue that these estimates are exaggerated, they concede that the 350 figure may be too low.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that 314 people were killed during pursuits in 1998. Of this total, 2 were police officers and 198 were individuals being chased. The remaining 114 were either occupants of unrelated vehicles or pedestrians. (6) The total was higher in each of the 4 previous years.

The lack of a mandatory reporting system hampers attempts by NHTSA to track pursuit fatalities and results in the collection of as little as one-half of the actual data. (7) Typically, only 90 percent of states report pursuit fatality data to NHTSA. By extrapolating the 5-year totals to include 100 percent reporting, calculations would show an average of 375 deaths per year. Even conservative estimates by various researchers recalculate the actual number of fatalities between 400 to 500 deaths per year.

Police pursuit records provide some frightening statistics. First, the majority of police pursuits involve a stop for a traffic violation. (8) Second, one person dies every day as a result of a police pursuit. (9) On average, from 1994 through 1998, one law enforcement officer was killed every 11 weeks in a pursuit, (10) and 1 percent of all U.S. law enforcement officers who died in the line-of-duty lost their lives in vehicle pursuits. (11) Innocent third parties who just happened to be in the way constitute 42 percent of persons killed or injured in police pursuits. (12) Further, I out of every 100 high-speed pursuits results in a fatality. (13)

Research indicates that pursuits become dangerous quite quickly. For example, 50 percent of all pursuit collisions occur in the first 2 minutes of the pursuit, and more than 70 percent of all collisions occur before the sixth minute of the pursuit. (14)

Although the public sympathizes with the law enforcement community's position on pursuits, they do not want to be placed in harm's way. Public support for pursuits decreases as the severity of the offense that led to the chase decreases. (15) One study found that 58 percent of people interviewed reported that police act correctly when they pursue a motorist who does not stop. (16) When asked if the police act correctly when the pursuit endangers public safety, support decreased by one-half to 29 percent. Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of respondents said that they felt police overreact sometimes or very often when pursuing motorists who do not stop. (17) To decrease the dangers associated with pursuit, agencies must increase training and ensure that they have clear pursuit policies.

Training and Policy

A lack of training can increase risks of pursuit-related injuries. Only recently has classroom instruction included training on vehicle pursuit tactics, policy, and liability. Previously, agencies taught pursuit-driving techniques behind the wheel without accompanying classroom training. Officers learned how to pursue but not when to pursue. Inadequate or inapplicable training often resulted, and officers rarely followed training in actual practice. Law enforcement must approach pursuit training similar to firearms training. For example, for every hour agencies spend on training officers how to shoot, they also spend several hours teaching when to shoot. (18)