If you continue with dangerous car chases, the consequences are severe. If you don't, criminals go free. Either option forces a tradeoff. WHAT DO WE DO HERE?!
The cops in my area were recently curtailed in their ability to chase non-violent suspects. They threw a fit and refuse to chase violent suspects in protest. If they really cared about their own safety (like they say when they want more weapons) then they would applaud this new law.
Many countries have lots of cameras on the roads so besides identifying the plates they are able to identify the driver to some extend which makes it less enticing to run. Charge with additional obstruction to justice when caught this way and with enough word of mouth the idea of running will go away. Maybe it is happening in the US because of training and the hero mentality that the criminal must be guilty of something more if they run away.
It seems like the obvious answer is to invest in tech and training which allows police to bring chases to an end sooner, which both reduces the risks posed to the public by the high speed driving, and also deals with the consequences we'd otherwise face by incentivising criminals to flee traffic stops.
Document the infraction. If the offender does not stop, the owner of the vehicle gets an extra ticket when it's mailed to them. Police cars might need a different color light. Green means, traffic infraction, you have 30 seconds to pull over. If you don't, the cop will turn the lights off and leave you alone, but your ticket will be much more expensive. Also, you are assumed guilty if you don't pull over to discuss with the officer. You are not allowed to present evidence in court. You might not even get a hearing in court.
@@JasonOshinko It's not a threat, its explaining the consequences of a potential action. For example if I tell my son "Don't jump off that cliff or you'll find yourself dead" that's not a threat That'd advice
My dad could have easily died in a crash like this. He was driving home at night after a wonderful day when he stopped a high speed police chase when the suspects ran a red light and crashed directly into the side of my dad's car. They hit directly behind where he was sitting, and his car did two 360's and crashed into a guard rail. My dad was EXTREMELY lucky; he walked away with minor injuries. The officer doing the chase thought there was no way my dad survived the crash when he witnessed it. Even more lucky than my dad was my mom, brother, and I. This crash happened the day I was born. My dad was driving home from the hospital while my mom and I remained there overnight. My mom could have easily became a widow that day, and I would have never had a dad or a little brother that was born two years later. My entire life would have been different... And if my mom and I didn't stay in the hospital that night... Well, it's hard to say if we would have been in the same place at the same time... But if I was in the car during that crash... I would have died. The impact was were I would have been sitting.
I have a crazy story. I was on I-10 doing the speed limit, it was windy and dusty but visibility was still fine. A cop got in front of me to pull someone over ahead of me, and motioned with his hand for me to pull over, I thought he was motioning to the other driver so I kept going as they both went up the offramp. As the cop neared the top of the offramp he swerved off the side of the tall and steep embankment(must have been a 40' drop) crashing through a bunch of bushes and struggling to maintain control and went fishtailing into the freeway, nearly hitting a vehicle traveling at freeway speed, then after regaining control he proceeds to pull me over for going a speed that wasn't "reasonable and prudent" even though there was no danger in going that speed at that time. The dude was out of his mind with adrenaline by the time he got to my window. I didn't argue... I'm thinking to myself, "no, what you did was not reasonable and prudent." What he did was truly insane, I'm not doing it justice with my description.
I have noticed on channels like Code Blue Cam that breaking a pursuit is pretty common now. They'll chase them so long as they stay within about 10mph of the posted limit on highways or 5mph of posted in populated areas. Once it goes beyond that, they back off, kill the lights and just keep an eye out for the vehicle, the person who was driving it (if known) and the registered owner(s); hoping to catch them when they are outside of the vehicle.
Exactly. This video blows it way out of proportion IMO. Also, most of the statistics shown include lots of unrelated things; They aren't just pursuit related. Primarily, the leading cause of LEO deaths being "Vehicle Accidents" is portrayed here as all being pursuits. That statistic, actually, is primarily made up of officers parked on the side of the road and getting rear-ended, or just regular crashes like other people have. One of my friends got into a wreck on duty because a guy blew a red light while he was driving entirely normal, just patrolling. He wasn't severely injured or anything, but had he died he would be part of that "Vehicle Accidents" statistic as well. That's the most obvious one I picked out, but I'm sure if you did a bit of proper digging you'd find similar things with other points made.
@@sammym6239"If you go digging I'm sure you're find similar things with other points made". Please do elaborate because I think you're totally full of shit. I'l trust the facts VSauce presented as stated.
In Canada we had a police officer visit my primary school for a Q&A his answer to "have you been in any car chases" was basically "lol no we don't do that, it makes no sense. It's way too dangerous. We just track the suspect and arrest them later".
@@hamnchee he didn't say who it was too dangerous for, if you watch the video it's too dangerous for everyone, literally everyone including people unrelated to the chase entirely
We do do car chases in Canada, but they are far less common and only happen when we are trying to stop them from doing something worse or suspect them of being guilty of something worse that we can't prove without catching them (like having a trunk full of drugs or something). So, they are much rarer. To call them week like @Visda58 accuses... that's just ignorant. Our cops receive WAAAAAAAY better training than US cops. Who are basically given a gun and trained to treat everyone like a empty bottle on a fence.
@@Draidis Yeah this was basically the long answer of what the officer said. Car chases are only for when the suspect themselves causes more public danger than a car chase would. Which is a very large amount of danger
just so you know: this is a US thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in other countries police won't chase people violating traffic rules because, as long as you have the licence plate, the criminal can be identified and arrested afterwards
in the US, people drive cars that aren't theirs. Like their boyfriend/girlfriend's car or a friend is lending you a car, etc. This is why you cant just arrest the registered owner. Vehicle ownership is much lower in other countries compared to America due to urbanization.
@@megazombiekiller9000 you say this as if car loaning isn't a thing outside of the US lmao. even then, it's still useful? the police already uses license plates to nail other offenses like skipping toll booths, there's no real reason why evading a speeding ticket would be any different. if the vehicle was borrowed and the cops have a single braincell rattling around in their empty heads (which is admittedly a high bar for them), then confronting the vehicle owner is a good way to figure out the confusion. suddenly you have contacts with a citizen who knows the suspect intimately enough to loan a car. seems like a win-win to me.
@Earthplayer so right after your two year check you replace the plate. Cops can't check the sticker if they don't stop you. They also can't send you straight to jail for a fake plate if they don't find out its a fake plate until a month later when the driver you send a ticket to says he was in a different state so it can't be his car.
I had a police chase go through my yard last year. The state cops knocked on my door and notified me of the property damage. It was just some tire treads through the grass. Neighbor's lawn decoration was much more seriously affected though. I felt bad. It's funny to look back, since it didn't even wake me up, but imagine if that vehicle went through to the house or something. Would've been a shit way to wake up.
here in Brazil this would be impossible because all the houses are made of masonry and just like the walls have concrete that would make the vehicles turn into scrap metal. but even so, a resident was killed by a truck that lost its brakes on a steep descent and plowed into his home like a bulldozer.
My cousin was killed in a car chase that involved the police chasing the guy down the wrong side of the highway. The cops should have stopped (expecially because the guy's crime was that he was driving without a license and had stolen his grandfather's car) and I have no idea how they didn't see a crash coming. She died immediately in the head on collision with the runner, and her best friend who was in the passenger seat is paralyzed for the rest of her life. We miss you Christie!
vsauce with michael makes you think in a silly, fun, educational way that lets you learn surprisingly complex topics easily, but vsauce with kevin has by far done the most in changing how I actually view how the world works
I see Kevin as vsauce in caps lock, everything he says always sounds like he's angry at reality and now you, the viewer, have to listen to his rant Meanwhile Jake is like the really smart stoner friend who goes off on unimportant tangents that make way too much sense
I was in the middle of a police chase once. Mom was driving me to school, and we were parked at a red light. A madman zooms by us and crashes into a lamp post, and not a minute after he got out of the car and started running, two cops going faster than him zoom by either side of my moms car. Almost took out her mirrors. If any of these cars had hit us, we'd both be dead.
They implemented No-Chase laws here in Philadelphia for people on unregistered dirt bikes and quads on the roads as it was such a dangerous lose-lose for both sides (and the public). There was a huge culture here for it, though I have seen it subside a bit over the past few years.
I moved outside of the DC/baltimore area a few years ago so I don't know if it's still happening, but those ATV/Enduro gangs were insane. They would clog up streets in the tens to HUNDREDS sometimes, and just randomly assault and rob people by surrounding their cars at least a few times a month. It was absolutely terrifying.
@@elanv why don't the citizens defend themselves? if they're literally that thick and engaged in violent felonies, shouldn't they be easy to assault with firearms? what is the 2nd amendment for?
@@WhiskeyNixon I've seen videos of those mass biker floods. Problem is, a lot of the dudes who ride also carry. And when it's 3-4 guys with guns and another 10 with bare hands and blunt objects, what's 1 guy with a pistol going to realistically do?
@@WhiskeyNixon Unlikely to be able to carry in Philly, Baltimore, and especially DC. Most don't carry due to the unlikeliness of conflict and the huge hassle of possessing a firearm legally in the area.
@@RichardBaranell yeah, the Juice was the first thing came that came to mind for me. It was a low speed chase and I remember watching it live in tv and it was surreal.
This would be a great better solution. Kind of a "best of both worlds" method. Does the speed way down but still allows for justice and the prevention of further crime. I've seen cases of gps trackers used as well.
Ideally this would be how its done in the USA and some bigger cities do this but we have a much more decentralized population. A police helicopter makes sense if you're a city with hundreds of thousands of people. It doesn't work if you're a town of 40,000 and you're not near a big city. Perhaps someday drones will be the norm.
I was almost killed in a high speed police chase last week. They were going over 100mph in a 35 chasing a little Mazda or something. They flew into the wrong lane of traffic to avoid a line of cars giving me only a split second to slam on my brakes as they almost hit me as they swerve. I was making a right turn and it all happened so fast and unpredictably.
When I was a kid, my dad owned a nice movie theatre. Everybody in town knew him. When Smokey and the Bandit played (it was also shot in the area), he would stand outside the theatre thanking everyone for coming and caution the young guys who might be a little pumped from seeing the Bandit have so much high speed fun to drive their date home safely.
A 23-year-old cop on a chase recently killed a 60-something guy by running his car off a bridge in my hometown. Also have a friend whose grandfather was killed as the result of a police chase. People just going about their lives shouldn't be put in those situations. It terrifies me.
So focus on stopping crime, not encouraging it by handcuffing cops. Encouraging crime isn't the solution to helping people who are just going about their lives.
@@MikeKayK Please explain how banning car chases is "handcuffing cops". It's saving lives, which is the main point of law enforcement. Chasing someone who is on a murder spree is one thing, otherwise there is no excuse to put peoples lives in danger.
@@dustman96 It's HANDCUFFING cops because you're not allowing them to even attempt to arrest someone just because they are running away. And you're sending the message to all criminals, including violent robbers, rapists and murderers that they need not fear the cops anymore because all they have to do is hit the gas.
@@MikeKayK It's almost certain they are going to get caught anyway, one way or another. The likelihood of them committing another serious crime in that time frame is negligible. We are sending a message that the cops respect peoples well being, and building respect for the cops, which lowers the likelihood of people running or otherwise harming or disrespecting police.
I’m confused you are showing statistics of something like minor traffic offenses making it seem like that is all they are guilty of but these individuals aren’t fleeing because they’re worried of receiving such offense. They often are wanted, have illegal firearms and drugs. What are the statistics of the individuals who flee and end up with felony charges aside from directly the chase itself? Large drug seizures happen all the time as a result of minor traffic offenses
Weird timing; I just started watching police chases on YT last week. For whatever reason there are a large number of them that occur in Arkansas. Also, just had a police chase that ended less than a mile from my house. I've been driving by the oil stain in the road where the driver drove over a raised sidewalk area and broke open their oil pan. He killed a 72 year old pedestrian right at the beginning of the chase.
@@MikeKayK Actually, that isn't at all what he said. Did you watch the whole video? Re: Blame - 11:16 "when the driver chooses to slam on the gas to escape consequences" It is, ultimately, an unanswerable question; would the driver have killed the lady if he wasn't trying to flee? Would his actions have harmed others before the authorities caught up with him by other means? No one knows for sure. Fact: until the police involvement, at that time, it was only a welfare check. The point of the video, to me, it seemed, was a statistical analysis for possibly re-evaluating our policies on police pursuits of apparent non-dangerous offenders. No system is perfect; they all require ongoing analysis and redesign. The police in the US are far from handcuffed; unless you consider the constitution to be excessively liberating. Something that may or may not be related; the US has one of the highest incarceration rates of all nations... and, I believe, the highest rate among developed nations.
@@spnyp33 You're right, I guess it depends where you live. In democrat cities, police are villains, criminals are heroes, and victims are told to accept their fate. Absolutely no need to chase in NYC because even if caught, they'll be back out on the street by sunrise. Crime keeps going up? Who'd have thought?! By all means, announce to ALL criminals across the country that all they have to do to is hit the gas.
The problem is that most of the time when a criminal flees over a minor traffic violation, it's because there is a much more serious violation that the officer will discover if the criminal were to pull over. Showing up at their house the next week does no good when the evidence is long gone.
Clearly he's never watched any of those videos. The cops may be initiating the stop due to something minor, but they generally flee because they're guilty of much more severe offenses. He makes it sound like cops are the instigators of a high speed chase due to a tail light and the person doing the actual running has zero culpability.
if you flee from a stop sign that should immediately 100% of the times give a search warrant on all cars, houses and properties of all family members of the owner.
Well I'll argue that car chases in movies can sometimes be for a legitimate reason, since most of the time the character in pursuit is actually posing a threat to human lives and not just trying to flee for minor traffic rule breaking.
The obvious question: Are they really running for the traffic violation, or are they running because the traffic violation leads to them getting caught with or doing something much worse?
@@sir6037probably made in order to act as if it was a case of police brutality, as if the police were being totally unreasonable and picking unjust fights with the civilians.
@hattielankford4775 so that point of the video is "the blame is when the cop car flashes their lights on and the driver chooses to slam on the gas. " With the end of the gta5 part and and followed by the cop is just doing their job.What am I missing?
Is that even relevant? Of course most people who flee have a reason to want to avoid cops beyond the traffic violation. I don't see how that even remotely makes a high speed chase any more justifiable. Unless there is reason to believe the suspect is imminently going to cause more harm then a high speed chase would, it is not justified. Period.
Wow when is this going to end we need to wipe the police force highway patrol sheriffs all law enforcement and come up with a way better and more safe system that actually care about the people
So if you flee the police you should always be charged with wreckless endangerment. Pretty weird to look at this problem the way you do, what reason does someone have to flee, risking all these lives over just a busted tail light?
Quick question, if the only punishment is to be a fine, why run? I posit it is possible that many stopped for minor offenses are likely responsible for much worse crimes.
Survival. The odds of a cop killing you for absolutely no reason are extremely high in the United States. I've never been pulled over but I would definitely try to flee than take my chances on not being killed by the police.
@@LincolnRon Show some stats. Though the belief that that's the case *is* an issue and it's the media that's to blame for that. I've been pulled over several times and the only consequence has been a lighter wallet.
Police can say "I witnessed you driving the car". Dash or bodycam footage could show you driving the car. Traffic cameras can show you driving the car. Your neighbours security cameras could show you were driving the car. Your mobile devices could show you were in the same place as your car when it failed to stop for police. Your friends or family members could say you were driving the car when questioned by police. Sure it's not as fool proof as catching someone in the act, but it's not like this sort of thing doesn't happen all the time already - person flees and escapes then denies it was them driving. They usually are caught and convicted because there is a ton of evidence they are lying and that they were the driver. It's not like this is a crime one usually plans out, it's a series of snap decisions made in a panic and the odds you'll make them all well enough to escape consequences for your actions are small.
I would love to see a video breaking down more stats about police departments. A few months back my car was broke into and my AirPods were stolen! Luckily, you can track AirPods using your iPhone. I called the police to help me retrieve my stolen headphones, but when they showed up they said there was “Nothing they could do” without giving any explanation as to why. Later that week I was driving down a new road that was JUST built in my neighborhood, there was a Speed Limit sign visible when you were driving north down the street, but they hadn’t installed the 25 MPH for Southbound drivers yet. Unfortunately the road was quite wide and not necessarily residential so I was going around 40. I was pulled over and told “it doesn’t matter that I couldn’t have possibly known what the speed limit was” and got a ticket anyways. It seems like lately the main job for the police is to collect $$ from ridiculous traffic stops on innocent people while not helping solve real crime like theft and vandalism.
Well that's what the "people" seem to be lobbying for. Neutering the police and having them fine the good citizens while leaving actual criminals alone.
In most places the unmarked speed limit in a residential area is 25 mph. You weren't "innocent", you just didn't realize how you were breaking the law.
@@derekroberts1693 Define "a residential area". Because in most of the USA there are frequently houses along roads where the posted speed limit is 30, 35, 40, even 50 in rare cases where there are multiple lanes. Driveways emptying directly onto a divided avenue where the posted speed limit is 50. I drive on it every day on my way to work.
There is an additional thing that causes police to want to nab the driver now, not just rely on the vehicle. In many jurisdictions, they need to be able to positively identify the driver - not just who owns the vehicle. So if they only have a view of the license plate/rear of the vehicle, the driver can pretty easily got the charges dropped.
Risk death of you or innocent people for a broken tail light? If I were the officer, I'd just go to the registered keeper of the vehicle and tell them their tail light is broken and issue them a warning, with the requirement for turning up at the local police office showing the issue had been repaired.
@@ericbsmith42 Vehicular fleeing is a felony in most jurisdictions. And depending on the level of recklessness while fleeing, it can even rise to a deadly threat justifying deadly force as a response.
Great video as always. In their defence car chases in films are never over minor driving offences... Perhaps that'll be the next Fast and Furious film.
There's a big oversight in this. We need data on how much more likely people will flee when they know police wont chase them. That could have even more dangerous consequences.
Obviously much more likely. He completely brainfarts on the fact that people run even after a "moving violation" because they don't want the cops to see that they're impaired, have warrants for major crimes, etc. He wants to handcuff the cops and give incentive for criminals to commit more crime because they know they can just run and they won't be chased. Brilliant.
I live in Washington State here in the US. We passed a law restricting police chases because of how much more unsafe they are compared to the positive effects. Immediately, the right wingers, and especially the cops were up in arms against the new law. Every time they had a chance, the cops would say in the news how their hands were tied or that this happened because they couldn't chase anyone, despite not being true, they were just restricted to certain crimes & they knew the person in the car committed) It got to the point where cops would even not chase during those times when it was allowed and they would just cry in the news that they didn't chase because of the new law & they didn't want to get in trouble. (Obvious BS). Despite the new law saving as many lives as projected, they managed to get enough people to fall for their constant crying in the press and be afraid of their fear causing lies to get it repealed a year later. Now they can chase again and deaths have went right back to where they were.
If police cannot pursue you, why register your vehicle or even put a license plate on it? When they try to pull you over just speed up, and if that is the thought when police come up behind you on some other call with their lights and siren going just speed up even though they were going to a DV call. Also if you can just flee from police why obey any traffic law, the police cannot pursue you if you don't stop and have no way of finding you if you don't have a license plate. It is a catch-22 with pursuits but most of the people fleeing have some other reason aside from the traffic stop to flee, being outstanding warrants or illegal items in the vehicle which was not addressed in this video. My point is that only criminals flee, by nature of them fleeing, so regardless of what numbers say the police should still be allowed to pursue.
I think people usually run from a minor traffic violation because they are afraid of getting in trouble for something worse. i.e. they have drugs in the car, have been drinking, have a warrant, body in the trunk, etc. That's why they get chased.
They start due to a traffic violation but a vast majority of the indivudals who run have a larger issue at hand. I do feel that some places are way out of hand with these chases. We have invented new devices such as trackers or grabbers that instantly stop cars yet we dont use them... Why!!
I once had a cop teacher, and he said how one of the things he liked avoiding the most is car chases, just about every story that involved with a car chase was a disaster.
A chase realistically only ends in two ways: The suspect willingly / unwilling stops and goes on on foot (boxed in, mechanical failure) Or A wreck. The chase is almost never worth whatever you’re trying to apprehend the suspect over.
A good one-sided argument. The obvious argument (that almost everyone agrees on) for police chases is that if you run, then you get chased and the consequences are worse for you. If the police don't chase, then average people will run. Making your argument like it's insane to think otherwise is dumb
In Italy (where I live) and in virtually all of Europe, Police *do not chase* cars for *any* reason. They just take note of the plate number, they follow them using the now ubiquitous surveillance camera and they set up roadblocks. That is *all*. Moreover, they *do not* use firearms on the street (with the single exception of self-defense).
one statistic that I was curious. of the chases which started because of a minor infraction, how many were people fleeing because they had done some more serious thing? not saying that justifies the risk of a high-speed chase by any means.
There can be complicating factors. People might have illicit substances (itself a minor infraction), be on parole or have exaggerated beliefs about the risk of being stopped thanks to media hysteria. It's a discussion with complications and nuance and this video has done it a disservice by being very one-sided.
Bro cops don’t chase in Sarasota County. They snap your license and visit your house and work place to arrest you if the violation merits it. Or mail you a ticket with points violations.
How is an impaired driver a minor traffic offense? Did you look at the statistics on impaired driving fatalities? I also invite you to check out the reckless driver in Charlotte, Nc last year that CMPD refused to chase because they follow a strict no chase policy like the one you are advocating. The driver of thay vehicle freely tormented and endangered the public repeatedly that day because of the policy. The wicked still flee when none pursueth.
Statistics you say.... Data is old but according to the NIH ("How Drunk are U.S. Drivers?"), in 1992-1993 there were 2.3 trillion miles driven in the US. (Edit: ACTUALLY, I forgot something. According to NHTSA, there were 2.3 trillion miles driven in 1993 ALONE. So when I double the fatality rate below for 2 years, it actually should be half that. So the number of miles driven will be doubled before a fatality. Too lazy to redo the math, but keep in mind below, the risk of impaired driving is less than what I state below). Of the 2.3 trillion miles driven, 17.9 BILLION miles were driven by drivers with a BAC over 0.08. In 1992+1993, there were about 80,000 total fatalities (40k per year) from traffic accidents according to NHTSA. If every single fatality was caused 100% by impairment (obv they aren't - impairment is only involved in about 26% of fatal accidents nowadays), then an impaired driver can drive 223,750 miles WHILE IMPAIRED before causing a fatal car accident. That is many lifetimes. For example, if a person drives 5 miles to the bar and 5 miles back, on friday and saturday, every single week, it would take 211 years of doing this before they would be statistically likely to cause a fatal accident. Also, nowadays, there are about 1.5 million DUI arrests per year. Thats about 11,000 miles driven while impaired to be arrested based on 1993 miles driven numbers. Today, we drive far more miles per year. Based on old stats (which makes this a very conservative estimate) if a person only drives 20 miles per week impaired like our example above, it would take 11 years of routinely driving drunk to get caught. (edit again: this is a correct calculation not affected by my first disclaimer. How the NIH study is worded is weird and it makes it easy to mix these things up. I messed up by accident before, then I got it right by accident here.) Now there are obvious things here. 0.08 is very low honestly. This is what inflates both the miles driven and fatality count statistics. Here is the fun part of the NIH stats. Of the 17.9 billion miles I referenced earlier, 1.9 billion are people between 0.08 and 0.1. 16 billion are people 0.1 and over. Anyways, someone who is 0.2 is definitely an immediate danger if operating a vehicle. Someone who 0.1 apparently is not. We need more granularity in the data. 0.1 and above is not good enough. We need 0.08-0.1, 0.1-0.19, and 0.2 and above, at least. And the thing here is, what is the relative risk involved? It's kind of a judgment call on the cop's part. Someone who is bouncing off the curb and running red lights is clearly a hazard who needs to be stopped immediately. Someone who is 0.1 and maybe weaving a bit in their lane can go another 223,749 miles before they kill someone. Meanwhile, a police pursuit has a 30% chance of causing serious injury or property damage. Honestly, I don't know the answer. But I will say that the hazard of impaired driving based on our current definition is way overstated. I always roll my eyes when someone says, "they were double the legal limit!" So they could operate a vehicle for about 200k miles without serious incident. WOW. SO DANGEROUS.
a relative of my family was put in critical condition from the suspect choosing to hit him instead of the spike strip from a car chase he got away and still cannot find him tracking these suspects must be nearly perfect for these to work.
I guess the counter argument could be that if everyone knew cops wouldn’t chase you, would that dramatically increase the amount of reckless driving therefore increasing vehicle related deaths?
I don't see how that would happen, it's not like people would escape the consequences of reckless driving - just because the police don't pull you over at the time you committed the crime doesn't mean they can't say show up at your house and arrest you for what you did. It may make it a bit more difficult to catch car thieves, but apart from that it should be fairly trivial for the police to track down a person after they flee from a traffic stop.
6:29 , i don't understand why the cops do not go in front of the car and block its access, and surround it with other cars, in this way the chased car cannot go anywhere and harm any more civilians, instead, they stay behind the car even if is going 1 m/h.
Depending on the suspect they can be armed or perform a dangerous maneuver like ramming the front vehicle, crossing traffic to get around, shooting at the officer (or public if armed in a high density area) or encourage the suspect to slow down and take a turn into another street or parking lot at a relatively high speed. It’s good in theory but not great in practicality
I avoid being injured or killed and endangering the lives of law enforcement officers in potentially deadly chase scenarios by - and stay with me, this is where it gets complicated - not fleeing from the police. Potential and completely self-inflicted problem averted, with no effort at all. It really is the easiest thing I do, and I have been known to both blink AND fart, sometimes simultaneously.
Tell that to the families of the thousands of completely innocent bystanders who have died in these high speed pursuits when things go wrong. It's not just the people being chased or the police who are at risk during these chases - it's everybody. I had neighbours when I was a kid where both their parents died after a car smashed through the living room of their house attempting to flee from police. Like it or not there are completely innocent people to consider here, even if you couldn't care less about the life of the person who decided to flee.
I like how you mention that the chases start with a minor infraction, but fail to mention that most of these people flee because of warrants or other crimes they are currently committing while also doing the minor infraction. IE, a person going 55 in a 45 will initiate a car chase because he doesn't want the police finding the 40 kilos of heroin in his trunk...
When I first heard that our local police were going to abandon high-speed chases a number of years ago, I thought that was crazy. But then I realized that these chases posed a greater risk to human life than the suspects they were pursuing.
That's like everyone first argument before dedicating another 5 seconds to figure out why it's not valid, and im just repeating the video; Someone that got away from the cops for a misdemeanor is WAAAAAY less dangerouse than 2+ vehicles speeding and trying to pull trick, unless the suspect has a minigun and has obvious intentions of a worst conclusion than a car chase
@@baribari1000 how do you track someone who doesn't have plates if you can't chase them? gl looking through every BMW or Nissan Altima in the state to see if you got the right person
This video ignores so many factors. 1. How many people run from the cops because they have warrants? 2. What will that person do between the time they are let go and when they are eventually found again? 3. What is the danger of apprehending someone at their home or another location vs in a car chase? It might be less but it's not zero danger. 4. If people know they can run from the cops without immediate consequences how much more often will they do this? Consider the impact on varied shoplifting enforcement as a possible predictor. 5. A very large number of "traffic stops" are actually drug interdiction stops on popular drug smuggling routes or based on other identifying factors. Letting these cars go would result in those crimes not being punished and all of the harm caused by the drugs that were not confiscated. That's just what came to mind I'm sure there are other issues.
@@theAstarrr Just this video. We need tech to immediately disable their vehicle if they start running. That's the solution. Not more policies that handcuff cops and prevent them from enforcing the laws, and not more policies that allow arrested career criminals to be back in the street by sunrise. Emboldening criminals to commit MORE crime is NOT the solution to save lives.
@@MikeKayK ah yes, lets say they implement this literally tomorrow, and every car sold after today has this shut down chip in it. What are the odds of a someone running from the cops in a car with a shut down chip?
If we didn't chase, the amount of people fleeing would be insane. Just saying don't chase won't work as easy as you say. Look at Arkansas and the way they deal with people who flee. You know when you run in Arkansas, they are gonna wreck you. What you can't measure is the amount of people who don't run, bc they know what will happen if they do. Bc you can't measure that part, it's not easy to judge their policy. There needs to be some policy changes, and there is room for compromise, but you can't just end chases or crime will go up. The first time someone the police let go and then they go on to kill someone, is when the outrage and backlash will happen.
I'm a little disappointed in your obvious lack of questioning and research here and going straight to the implication that cops just shouldn't be engaging in these chases cause it's not worth it. Why do you think so many people pulled over for very minor offenses are running off? It's not that they want to avoid a $20 fine. It's because they are wanted criminals. Cops just happen by chance to pull over a wanted felon for a minor violation, the criminal knows the cop will most likely pull who they are up in their system or find that their fake name draws suspicion, so they pull over and wait for the cop to get out and then they peel off, ensuing the chase. So while the chase technically started from a minor violation, you'll find if you read the individual incidents that most of the time the suspects are at-large, wanted felons. So the "is it worth it?" Question changes. Should cops still cease chases and track them later? Sure. If the plates are real and that's actually their car registered to them. Which is also usually not the case in these situations cause you know, wanted felon. I'm not saying there might be something better we could do, but it's kind of a necessary risk at this point at the fault of the CRIMINALS. If the police didn't chase then they might never get another chance to catch that dangerous felon. The only alternative that has worked is if you have a helicopter in the sky tracking, or enough patrol units around that they can track the route of the fleeing suspect as he passes by.
Fireman's rule or not, When a criminal does not pull over and speeds off and someone dies in the chaos, they are criminally responsible under felony murder. Injury probably goes that way too.
3:49 this averages 338 deaths a year. Now compare this to the amount of times car chases have saved lives. To put this in perspective, you have a 0.00008% chance of being killed as a result of a car chase (assuming you could be a criminal or bystander, also assuming you live until 80). This is 1 in 1.25 million odds (in the US)
@@SpektralJo Stopping a single large drug trafficking shipment of fentanyl is likely to save many more lives than all those lost in a year of police chases. If the criminals who traffic fentanyl knew they could have evaded arrest by simply running, but due to policies allowing chases they pulled over instead, it would be quite easy to argue that having a chase policy saved a large number of lives indeed. And similar logic works for black market firearms traffickers as well.
I don't know where you get the idea that no one seems to care. Most agencies have implemented pursuit policies to reduce the number of chases - at least in my state. There are very few approved reasons to pursue, according to our policy, and even then, the chase typically gets terminated a few minutes in.
My buddy is a station commander for a state trooper detachment and he has more or less forbade his troopers from getting into high speed chases, and has said he will outright refuse to defend them if they kill or injure someone or damage property in the process. The whole high speed chase thing is such a tricky situation. On one hand, you don't want to let someone go who is wanted for some heinous crime, but on the other hand you don't want to risk public safety chasing someone who has nothing to lose and will run at all costs. Then there is the adrenaline factor and the urge to chase, even in situations where the person you are pursuing committed a minor violation, which should never happen but does. So I don't know what a good answer is. Chasing is dangerous, but yet on the other having a zero chase policy will just encourage more offenders to run. Seriously what do you do in these situations? Glad I am not a cop and don't have to make that decision.
if the criminal escapes the car chase or if the police let them go, the police may know who owns the car, but there's no evidence that that person was actually the driver right? I think that would make it difficult for the ticket to hold up in court but if any lawyers or judges are here please explain better how that would work out
Exactly. This video got me angry because I know it is coming from a good place but he spent 13 minutes telling us about the reasons not to give chase and condescendingly told us "the solution" without giving ANY thought about that solution.
Care chases are kind of like modern day gladiatorial fights. The carnage and destruction are the point, because people can't get enough smashy-smashy. But I REALLY think this is one "sport" best left in fiction.
I am so glad there is finally a really great and informative video about this important topic to spread awareness! I’ve had the same thoughts about this issue many times before, and he’s right that the answer really is right in front of us. Not engaging in a chase lets the situation deescalate and cops can simply catch them later. You can’t bring back the lost lives.
@7:45. Considering police already have qualified immunity, working relationships with prosecutors, inherent trust and respect over your average citizen in courts by judges and juries, and more power than nearly anyone else in society on the street level, this fireman’s rule seems like a fair trade off legislatively
What planet are you on? Cops are being prosecuted left and right. Juries are more likely to be sympathetic to the criminals, qualified immunity only applies if no law was broken and has nothing to do with criminal offenses. Also in the USA, the 4th and 5th amendment limit the power of the authroites in addition to the bill of rights.
The problem is that if you stop police chases, criminals know they have a higher likelyhook of getting away with crime if they are able to get in a car. It can have a snowball effect to where you end up with more crime.
Maybe with the advent of drones and automatic lisence plate regustry you can just turn the screws systematically without any chase. Just by suffocating the suspect out of options with strategically placed police all around.
I went on a road trip around America last year, and for the first time I saw a car drive away from a cop. Right in the middle of town a cop pulled over a car and then 5 seconds later, the car zoomed off and the cop chased after them. They must’ve been going over 70mph in the middle of town. And their engines roared for a solid minute off into the distance. Car chases are very exciting 😅
I was a victim in a police chase crash. The cops started chasing a guy for a minor traffic violation, and he wouldn't stop because he was smoking weed and had a prior record. They ended up chasing him over 10 miles to my end of town and he t-boned me at the bottom of a highway ramp as I was driving under the overpass (I had the green light). 120mph, he flipped my car 3 times. When I was heavily sedated with fentanyl in the ER with a broken hip, the cops had me sign a waiver saying they weren't liable for my injuries even though they initiated the chase and he wouldn't have been driving 120mph if they hadn't chased him. I remember signing but I don't remember having any awareness of what I was signing. Very frustrating considering how much it cost me out of pocket.
This simple solution has many problems. Most of the time the fleeing driver has not been identified, and using the registration information isn’t strong enough to hold up in court. When pursuits are terminated, the fleeing driver is almost never held accountable. Also, when criminals know they don’t have to stop for police they are more likely to flee. This is why departments who used to have a no chase policy reeled back on those restrictions. In reality most departments are adopting pursuit policies that are similar to what the video suggests. Saying nobody cares in wrong.
@@tafazzi-on-discord Yeah, you'd need a constitutional amendment for that or something. You typically need evidence that people have committed the crimes they're accused of. It's kind-of the whole foundation of law.
@@chaos.corner the evidence is that the car they own didn't stop at the police's orders. That's evidence for a crime, the owner either helps to identify who's responsible or they get the consequences for that crime.
@@tafazzi-on-discord Yeah, that's not going to happen outside your head or in some country without a common law style justice system. A law like that wouldn't last 5 minutes in the US.
I'm glad some people are talking about this at least. My grandma died from a police chase before I got to meet her. Never liked cops since I was a kid because of it.
My dad almost died from a chase. He wasn’t even a criminal or officer just a bystander. The odds of him living to the end of that week were about 1 in 350. He is alive with literally no signs of it other than surgery scars. Insanely lucky
Even though I think you're right and all departments should implement no-chase policies, I think there is something important missing. Even though most chases start off for something minor like a traffic violation, the person fleeing usually has something to hide or a deeper reason to flee. A regular Joe is not going to flee for a stop sign or speeding ticket. But someone on parole who doesn't want to go back to jail, or someone who has meth in the car, might, for example.
Many people might just be terrified of cops for very good reasons. We can't have judge dread cops running around assuming your guilty until proven innocent.
@@22burnsieso you rather them to just keep doing what they want without consequences? See people like you that are soft on criminals is the reason why they are so many criminals out doing what they want.
At the end of the day the question is fairly simple - is it more risk to society to allow the person to flee, or more risk to engage in a high speed chase to catch them immediately? And I simply have a hard time believing that more people would die if you let the parolee on drugs flee and then tried to arrest him later at his house than if you engaged in a high speed car chase to catch them right away.
helicopters dont usually crash into pedestrians/cars/get in life ending car accidents so I would say thats a good thing! american police are vastly, massively overfunded, and typically have multiple helicopters usually- but also outfit their vehicles to make them more deadly in a chase. they choose to endanger lives instead of using better methods. Police copters also dont have to follow roads so can more easily track the vehicle, and can travel at up to 150 mph and work well to follow fleeing suspects. So funding and abilty arent the problem, american police are messed up man
If the suspect flees a routine traffic stop, it would in some cases indicate a more serious crime is being committed. I don't think the conclusion in this video is the answer.
I think he makes a good point about the criminals already being in the system though. There are definitely better ways to handle the situation if you know where they live lol
@@DefaultMii What if they stole/kidnapped someone and they run away. Put them somewhere in between catching them again. How would the authorities ever know what to look for?
Say what you will, but I was in a police chase that went through three police barricades and several civilian cars. I was abducted by some guy off his meds. The cops finally disabled the vehicle and ripped us out of the suv and turned me away so I wouldn't see them beating the snot out of the guy 😂 I definitely understand some of these chases. I still get a bit of PTSD when a cop pulls up behind me and turn on his lights. Not that I am scared of them, but there is an involuntary response where my blood pressure spikes and I get massive adrenaline dump. Lol. Trying to explain to the officer why I look so nervous and my hands are shaking handing over my paperwork. 😅
How do the conclusions of this video relate to your video titled "Crime Stats Are A Lie"? Is it the case that the statistics about violent crime are unreliable, but traffic violation and car chase data are reliable? How is that? Does the data come from somewhere other than law enforcement agencies?
Its about spin. They can misrepresent violent crime statistics because that all happens behind closed doors, but chases get a lot of attention and happen out in the public so they can't spin them so much. In the US you can get in an argument with your wife, and be arrested for domestic violence.
Because we can see the cars do it. Police chases are things very easily catalogued because... police are monitored when they do such things. Do you think regular people are monitored as much as cop chases? It's really not remotely the same
I like how the data mentions only what initiated the stops, but not why they actually flee. The solution is simply to not flee, and have no reason to flee.
Police in the northeast a few years ago made it clear that they would not respond to calls about shoplifting under $2,500. You want to know what happened next? Shoplifting skyrocketed, and communities collapsed. I think we could draw parallels to this situation.
But you aren't making an argument about why police chases are an effective deterrent to minor traffic violations. He wasn't saying that they should stop punishing and arresting criminals completely, just that high speed chases are a dangerous and inefficient method of catching criminals. Kevin already more than proved that these chases are dangerous and that the people involved aren't an active threat. Why put anyone's life on the line over a fine when they could just hunt the person down later instead?
@@brody3166They're not a deterrent for minor traffic violations. They are a deterrent from fleeing the police in a vehicle. The consequences of minor traffic violations are the deterrent for minor traffic violations.
@@brody3166They can't positively identify the driver until the driver is apprehended, otherwise there is plenty of reasonable doubt that the owner of the car was not the driver.
I knew someone who does street racing late at night. Usually it just means accelerating with another car from 50-120ish on a mostly open highway. I’ve heard of people crashing sometimes but rarely, and never fatalities. I live in Denver and I’ve seen lots of really misleading news reports that paint the issue as a danger to all society that must be stopped immediately. Some police districts have in the past taken the extreme action, and I have personally seen cops harassing people in parking lots just enjoying cars. What I’ve heard is that anyone pulled over for a contest of speed will get arrested with tons of extra charges slapped on. Because of that a lot of the guys won’t pull over.
Just moved away from a city that had a “no pursuit” policy. The city NEEDED police intervention due to a very high crime rate and constant robberies and vehicle theft. Hearing about or seeing a car with parts taken from it was common. I personally had my car broken into 4 times in a few years. Police could never chase due to thieves not posing as a threat to human life. The criminals played the system
Exactly, people think we can just stop enforcing the law to end violence and will get more violence in the end. They do not understand deterrence, that chases that end badly discourage lawbreaking for many...
One must keep in mind the unintended consequences if you ban these pursuits. It will likely create even more unsafe situations as people try to get to a vehicle to start a pursuit so they are not followed. Instead there should be clear guidelines and metrics which the police use to determine if a chase should be aborted, or find alternatives to chasing them in a vehicle, such as cameras, drones, helicopters. There are very likely better options, but consider the unintended consequences very seriously.
Careful you might derail the fuxk the police mindset they're spreading. We already lot violent criminals go based of color. Now they want to just not enforce laws period because they aren't violent enough offenses...
I had a close run-in with death the other day when a fleeing vehicle sped past me as I was crossing the street. A brigade of police followed in pursuit. I didn't even register it until the car turned around and sped back in the opposite direction.
Part of the issue is that if everyone KNOWS the police policy is to not pursue, then everyone would just flee. Think about the game theory aspect: if 100% of the time you get no consequences for fleeing, who would pull over? Non-pursuit cannot be a policy. The real question is in what circumstances should the pursuit be called off? Speeds over 80? When the pursuit moves towards neighborhood streets? In the dark? The interesting part is that once police policy for non-pursuit is known by criminals, they will learn to create those exact situations to avoid apprehension. Oh, game theory, you squirrely and psychopathic yet somehow logical beast. ;P
what? no... many countries have this policy as its safer ... who cares if someone flees... you have their plates... here in Canada cops follow you and if you go over the speed limit they end it as its not worth putting peoples lives and cops lives at risk
@@emko333 if the person fleeing is a drunk driver who ends up driving onto a sidewalk and killing a family after the police decided not to stop him, people might care. If the drug dealer who sold your kid an overdose managed to evade police a week earlier due to no-chase policies, you might also care. It's not a zero sum game. If people are being pulled over for street racing or reckless driving, or driving drunk etc, there's no reason to expect them to suddenly start being safe while evading arrest. People still get ran over in countries with no chase policies.
If you continue with dangerous car chases, the consequences are severe. If you don't, criminals go free. Either option forces a tradeoff. WHAT DO WE DO HERE?!
I belive they got number plate scanners. If nothing looks dangerous, let him go.
The cops in my area were recently curtailed in their ability to chase non-violent suspects. They threw a fit and refuse to chase violent suspects in protest. If they really cared about their own safety (like they say when they want more weapons) then they would applaud this new law.
Many countries have lots of cameras on the roads so besides identifying the plates they are able to identify the driver to some extend which makes it less enticing to run. Charge with additional obstruction to justice when caught this way and with enough word of mouth the idea of running will go away.
Maybe it is happening in the US because of training and the hero mentality that the criminal must be guilty of something more if they run away.
It seems like the obvious answer is to invest in tech and training which allows police to bring chases to an end sooner, which both reduces the risks posed to the public by the high speed driving, and also deals with the consequences we'd otherwise face by incentivising criminals to flee traffic stops.
Document the infraction.
If the offender does not stop, the owner of the vehicle gets an extra ticket when it's mailed to them.
Police cars might need a different color light. Green means, traffic infraction, you have 30 seconds to pull over. If you don't, the cop will turn the lights off and leave you alone, but your ticket will be much more expensive.
Also, you are assumed guilty if you don't pull over to discuss with the officer. You are not allowed to present evidence in court. You might not even get a hearing in court.
lesson from my grandma "If you get in trouble with the cops don't run. I'd rather pick you up from the station than from the morgue"
mine would also have added "don't be afraid of what cops could do to you, be afraid of what I will"
Yeah and then you don't run, they think your phone is a gun and you still end up in the morgue.
@@matteofabbris7877 I think crime rates would be lower everywhere if we all had family members that treated us like that.
"The world would be a better place if parents threatened their child with death" isn't the flex you think it is.
@@JasonOshinko
It's not a threat, its explaining the consequences of a potential action.
For example if I tell my son "Don't jump off that cliff or you'll find yourself dead" that's not a threat
That'd advice
My dad could have easily died in a crash like this. He was driving home at night after a wonderful day when he stopped a high speed police chase when the suspects ran a red light and crashed directly into the side of my dad's car. They hit directly behind where he was sitting, and his car did two 360's and crashed into a guard rail. My dad was EXTREMELY lucky; he walked away with minor injuries. The officer doing the chase thought there was no way my dad survived the crash when he witnessed it. Even more lucky than my dad was my mom, brother, and I. This crash happened the day I was born. My dad was driving home from the hospital while my mom and I remained there overnight. My mom could have easily became a widow that day, and I would have never had a dad or a little brother that was born two years later. My entire life would have been different... And if my mom and I didn't stay in the hospital that night... Well, it's hard to say if we would have been in the same place at the same time... But if I was in the car during that crash... I would have died. The impact was were I would have been sitting.
Or the delay from putting you in your seat could've also saved your life ?
I just ruined a good story, but i am glad you're alright.
@@FirstLast-xt9ig ah man you didn’t ruin it
@@FirstLast-xt9ig 🤡
i'm happy you're all ok bro
damn this gave me chills
I have a crazy story. I was on I-10 doing the speed limit, it was windy and dusty but visibility was still fine. A cop got in front of me to pull someone over ahead of me, and motioned with his hand for me to pull over, I thought he was motioning to the other driver so I kept going as they both went up the offramp. As the cop neared the top of the offramp he swerved off the side of the tall and steep embankment(must have been a 40' drop) crashing through a bunch of bushes and struggling to maintain control and went fishtailing into the freeway, nearly hitting a vehicle traveling at freeway speed, then after regaining control he proceeds to pull me over for going a speed that wasn't "reasonable and prudent" even though there was no danger in going that speed at that time. The dude was out of his mind with adrenaline by the time he got to my window. I didn't argue... I'm thinking to myself, "no, what you did was not reasonable and prudent."
What he did was truly insane, I'm not doing it justice with my description.
american cops are not police officers, they are reckless children playing rambo
Cops put themselves above the law and blame everyone else when something goes wrong
It’s so unbelievable that I don’t think you could make it up 😂
Thank God you didn't argue. This cop would've been crazy enough to shoot you for, "resisting arrest".
Just a thought, meth use is common in America, police forces not exempt
I have noticed on channels like Code Blue Cam that breaking a pursuit is pretty common now. They'll chase them so long as they stay within about 10mph of the posted limit on highways or 5mph of posted in populated areas. Once it goes beyond that, they back off, kill the lights and just keep an eye out for the vehicle, the person who was driving it (if known) and the registered owner(s); hoping to catch them when they are outside of the vehicle.
Exactly. This video blows it way out of proportion IMO. Also, most of the statistics shown include lots of unrelated things; They aren't just pursuit related. Primarily, the leading cause of LEO deaths being "Vehicle Accidents" is portrayed here as all being pursuits. That statistic, actually, is primarily made up of officers parked on the side of the road and getting rear-ended, or just regular crashes like other people have. One of my friends got into a wreck on duty because a guy blew a red light while he was driving entirely normal, just patrolling. He wasn't severely injured or anything, but had he died he would be part of that "Vehicle Accidents" statistic as well. That's the most obvious one I picked out, but I'm sure if you did a bit of proper digging you'd find similar things with other points made.
@@sammym6239"If you go digging I'm sure you're find similar things with other points made". Please do elaborate because I think you're totally full of shit. I'l trust the facts VSauce presented as stated.
In Canada we had a police officer visit my primary school for a Q&A his answer to "have you been in any car chases" was basically "lol no we don't do that, it makes no sense. It's way too dangerous. We just track the suspect and arrest them later".
They're weak
@@hamnchee he didn't say who it was too dangerous for, if you watch the video it's too dangerous for everyone, literally everyone including people unrelated to the chase entirely
We do do car chases in Canada, but they are far less common and only happen when we are trying to stop them from doing something worse or suspect them of being guilty of something worse that we can't prove without catching them (like having a trunk full of drugs or something). So, they are much rarer. To call them week like @Visda58 accuses... that's just ignorant. Our cops receive WAAAAAAAY better training than US cops. Who are basically given a gun and trained to treat everyone like a empty bottle on a fence.
@@Draidis Yeah this was basically the long answer of what the officer said. Car chases are only for when the suspect themselves causes more public danger than a car chase would. Which is a very large amount of danger
@@hamncheeat least 5hey are not …very slow learners…like most of the 🇺🇸 here in the comments present themselves…
just so you know: this is a US thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in other countries police won't chase people violating traffic rules because, as long as you have the licence plate, the criminal can be identified and arrested afterwards
in the US, people drive cars that aren't theirs. Like their boyfriend/girlfriend's car or a friend is lending you a car, etc. This is why you cant just arrest the registered owner. Vehicle ownership is much lower in other countries compared to America due to urbanization.
@Earthplayer but they can clone plates pretty easily
@@megazombiekiller9000 you say this as if car loaning isn't a thing outside of the US lmao.
even then, it's still useful? the police already uses license plates to nail other offenses like skipping toll booths, there's no real reason why evading a speeding ticket would be any different.
if the vehicle was borrowed and the cops have a single braincell rattling around in their empty heads (which is admittedly a high bar for them), then confronting the vehicle owner is a good way to figure out the confusion. suddenly you have contacts with a citizen who knows the suspect intimately enough to loan a car. seems like a win-win to me.
@Earthplayer so right after your two year check you replace the plate. Cops can't check the sticker if they don't stop you. They also can't send you straight to jail for a fake plate if they don't find out its a fake plate until a month later when the driver you send a ticket to says he was in a different state so it can't be his car.
a lot of the flashiest problems are just a US thing it happens when you live in an entirely vacuous capital culture
I had a police chase go through my yard last year.
The state cops knocked on my door and notified me of the property damage. It was just some tire treads through the grass.
Neighbor's lawn decoration was much more seriously affected though. I felt bad.
It's funny to look back, since it didn't even wake me up, but imagine if that vehicle went through to the house or something. Would've been a shit way to wake up.
here in Brazil this would be impossible because all the houses are made of masonry and just like the walls have concrete that would make the vehicles turn into scrap metal. but even so, a resident was killed by a truck that lost its brakes on a steep descent and plowed into his home like a bulldozer.
Sounds great if you were fine in a hypothetical. Getting to sue cops quite the rare treat😊
Or never wake up to?
My cousin was killed in a car chase that involved the police chasing the guy down the wrong side of the highway. The cops should have stopped (expecially because the guy's crime was that he was driving without a license and had stolen his grandfather's car) and I have no idea how they didn't see a crash coming.
She died immediately in the head on collision with the runner, and her best friend who was in the passenger seat is paralyzed for the rest of her life. We miss you Christie!
Holy shit that is aweful. my condolences and best wishes to the paralyzed person.
Protect and serve.
I wonder which of those that was.
vsauce with michael makes you think in a silly, fun, educational way that lets you learn surprisingly complex topics easily, but vsauce with kevin has by far done the most in changing how I actually view how the world works
Jake's stuff is existential 'what if', Kevin's stuff is empirical 'what is', Michael's stuff is compelling 'here is'
Vsauce is truly a gem of an enterprise.
@@SPAMMAN123456789damn it. Now I can't unthink VSauce.
Your main assumption is that these deaths would not have occurred without the chase. This is a false assumption.
I see Kevin as vsauce in caps lock, everything he says always sounds like he's angry at reality and now you, the viewer, have to listen to his rant
Meanwhile Jake is like the really smart stoner friend who goes off on unimportant tangents that make way too much sense
I was in the middle of a police chase once. Mom was driving me to school, and we were parked at a red light. A madman zooms by us and crashes into a lamp post, and not a minute after he got out of the car and started running, two cops going faster than him zoom by either side of my moms car. Almost took out her mirrors. If any of these cars had hit us, we'd both be dead.
They implemented No-Chase laws here in Philadelphia for people on unregistered dirt bikes and quads on the roads as it was such a dangerous lose-lose for both sides (and the public). There was a huge culture here for it, though I have seen it subside a bit over the past few years.
I moved outside of the DC/baltimore area a few years ago so I don't know if it's still happening, but those ATV/Enduro gangs were insane. They would clog up streets in the tens to HUNDREDS sometimes, and just randomly assault and rob people by surrounding their cars at least a few times a month. It was absolutely terrifying.
@@elanv Seems like the sort of folks you'd want the police to enforce the laws against, doesn't it?
@@elanv why don't the citizens defend themselves? if they're literally that thick and engaged in violent felonies, shouldn't they be easy to assault with firearms? what is the 2nd amendment for?
@@WhiskeyNixon I've seen videos of those mass biker floods. Problem is, a lot of the dudes who ride also carry. And when it's 3-4 guys with guns and another 10 with bare hands and blunt objects, what's 1 guy with a pistol going to realistically do?
@@WhiskeyNixon Unlikely to be able to carry in Philly, Baltimore, and especially DC. Most don't carry due to the unlikeliness of conflict and the huge hassle of possessing a firearm legally in the area.
Man, imagine a 25 mph car chase. Someone could sketch the whole thing before it passes by.
To be fair, I'd like to see you try to run 25mph and keep up with it
to be fair the safety of cars from that era was completely nonexistant
Wasn't that a lot of the OJ chase? Idk it was a long time ago but I swore it was "a low speed chase".
And still there were injuries
@@RichardBaranell yeah, the Juice was the first thing came that came to mind for me. It was a low speed chase and I remember watching it live in tv and it was surreal.
In the UK usually they dispatch a police helicopter and as soon as they have a visual the cars back off.
many american cities do similar too
not all tho and it's not universal (and smaller cities commonly don't have helicopters)
This would be a great better solution. Kind of a "best of both worlds" method. Does the speed way down but still allows for justice and the prevention of further crime. I've seen cases of gps trackers used as well.
Ideally this would be how its done in the USA and some bigger cities do this but we have a much more decentralized population. A police helicopter makes sense if you're a city with hundreds of thousands of people. It doesn't work if you're a town of 40,000 and you're not near a big city. Perhaps someday drones will be the norm.
The USA does this with drones in many cities, but the USA is much, much larger, so it's not practical in most cases
So in other words, you get a level 3 wanted star right off the bat?
I was almost killed in a high speed police chase last week. They were going over 100mph in a 35 chasing a little Mazda or something. They flew into the wrong lane of traffic to avoid a line of cars giving me only a split second to slam on my brakes as they almost hit me as they swerve. I was making a right turn and it all happened so fast and unpredictably.
When I was a kid, my dad owned a nice movie theatre. Everybody in town knew him. When Smokey and the Bandit played (it was also shot in the area), he would stand outside the theatre thanking everyone for coming and caution the young guys who might be a little pumped from seeing the Bandit have so much high speed fun to drive their date home safely.
A 23-year-old cop on a chase recently killed a 60-something guy by running his car off a bridge in my hometown. Also have a friend whose grandfather was killed as the result of a police chase. People just going about their lives shouldn't be put in those situations. It terrifies me.
So focus on stopping crime, not encouraging it by handcuffing cops. Encouraging crime isn't the solution to helping people who are just going about their lives.
@@MikeKayK Please explain how banning car chases is "handcuffing cops". It's saving lives, which is the main point of law enforcement. Chasing someone who is on a murder spree is one thing, otherwise there is no excuse to put peoples lives in danger.
@@dustman96 It's HANDCUFFING cops because you're not allowing them to even attempt to arrest someone just because they are running away. And you're sending the message to all criminals, including violent robbers, rapists and murderers that they need not fear the cops anymore because all they have to do is hit the gas.
@@MikeKayK It's almost certain they are going to get caught anyway, one way or another. The likelihood of them committing another serious crime in that time frame is negligible. We are sending a message that the cops respect peoples well being, and building respect for the cops, which lowers the likelihood of people running or otherwise harming or disrespecting police.
@@dustman96 look up the moped wars in London. Operation Venice.
I’m confused you are showing statistics of something like minor traffic offenses making it seem like that is all they are guilty of but these individuals aren’t fleeing because they’re worried of receiving such offense. They often are wanted, have illegal firearms and drugs. What are the statistics of the individuals who flee and end up with felony charges aside from directly the chase itself? Large drug seizures happen all the time as a result of minor traffic offenses
Weird timing; I just started watching police chases on YT last week. For whatever reason there are a large number of them that occur in Arkansas.
Also, just had a police chase that ended less than a mile from my house. I've been driving by the oil stain in the road where the driver drove over a raised sidewalk area and broke open their oil pan. He killed a 72 year old pedestrian right at the beginning of the chase.
Kevin would have you believe that it was the cop chasing him who killed the pedestrian. Let's handcuff the cops even more.
@@MikeKayK Yes, because the likelihood of the pedestrian being struck rapidly approaches near-zero when you don't initiate a chase in the first place.
@@MikeKayK Actually, that isn't at all what he said. Did you watch the whole video?
Re: Blame - 11:16 "when the driver chooses to slam on the gas to escape consequences"
It is, ultimately, an unanswerable question; would the driver have killed the lady if he wasn't trying to flee? Would his actions have harmed others before the authorities caught up with him by other means? No one knows for sure. Fact: until the police involvement, at that time, it was only a welfare check.
The point of the video, to me, it seemed, was a statistical analysis for possibly re-evaluating our policies on police pursuits of apparent non-dangerous offenders. No system is perfect; they all require ongoing analysis and redesign.
The police in the US are far from handcuffed; unless you consider the constitution to be excessively liberating.
Something that may or may not be related; the US has one of the highest incarceration rates of all nations... and, I believe, the highest rate among developed nations.
@@spnyp33 You're right, I guess it depends where you live. In democrat cities, police are villains, criminals are heroes, and victims are told to accept their fate. Absolutely no need to chase in NYC because even if caught, they'll be back out on the street by sunrise. Crime keeps going up? Who'd have thought?! By all means, announce to ALL criminals across the country that all they have to do to is hit the gas.
@@MikeKayK people's lives aren't worth tax dollars or traffic laws
The problem is that most of the time when a criminal flees over a minor traffic violation, it's because there is a much more serious violation that the officer will discover if the criminal were to pull over. Showing up at their house the next week does no good when the evidence is long gone.
I feel like this is glossed over way too easily or conveniently
Clearly he's never watched any of those videos. The cops may be initiating the stop due to something minor, but they generally flee because they're guilty of much more severe offenses. He makes it sound like cops are the instigators of a high speed chase due to a tail light and the person doing the actual running has zero culpability.
if you flee from a stop sign that should immediately 100% of the times give a search warrant on all cars, houses and properties of all family members of the owner.
Lesson from my dad: you can have the fastest car in the world but you’ll never outrun a police radio.
*BET*
* Getting into Delorean *
youtube channels of people outrunning the cops seemingly as a hobby seem to disagree
Blacked-out chargers at night: *What good is a radio, if they can’t see you?*
@@MrOiram46 if you dont have lights on then they cant see you but you cant see the road properly
if you have lights on they can still track you
Car chases in movies haven't been the same since I really thought about this.
Well I'll argue that car chases in movies can sometimes be for a legitimate reason, since most of the time the character in pursuit is actually posing a threat to human lives and not just trying to flee for minor traffic rule breaking.
The obvious question: Are they really running for the traffic violation, or are they running because the traffic violation leads to them getting caught with or doing something much worse?
An extremely simple point that was clearly just purposefully ignored in the whole video
@@sir6037probably made in order to act as if it was a case of police brutality, as if the police were being totally unreasonable and picking unjust fights with the civilians.
@hattielankford4775 what exactly does that time stamp prove? Did you think nobody would check?
@hattielankford4775 so that point of the video is "the blame is when the cop car flashes their lights on and the driver chooses to slam on the gas. " With the end of the gta5 part and and followed by the cop is just doing their job.What am I missing?
Is that even relevant? Of course most people who flee have a reason to want to avoid cops beyond the traffic violation. I don't see how that even remotely makes a high speed chase any more justifiable. Unless there is reason to believe the suspect is imminently going to cause more harm then a high speed chase would, it is not justified. Period.
Wow when is this going to end we need to wipe the police force highway patrol sheriffs all law enforcement and come up with a way better and more safe system that actually care about the people
So if you flee the police you should always be charged with wreckless endangerment. Pretty weird to look at this problem the way you do, what reason does someone have to flee, risking all these lives over just a busted tail light?
Quick question, if the only punishment is to be a fine, why run? I posit it is possible that many stopped for minor offenses are likely responsible for much worse crimes.
Survival. The odds of a cop killing you for absolutely no reason are extremely high in the United States. I've never been pulled over but I would definitely try to flee than take my chances on not being killed by the police.
@@LincolnRon idiotic delusion
@@LincolnRon Show some stats. Though the belief that that's the case *is* an issue and it's the media that's to blame for that. I've been pulled over several times and the only consequence has been a lighter wallet.
Considering one of the listed offenses is DUI...
look up “acorn cop”
Dude arrested a man, put him in cuffs, in the patrol car, then an acorn fell on the car and the two officers mag dumped it
If you wait to get them later, how do you legally prove they were driving at the time of that chase? Seems like a big hole in the suggested solution
Police can say "I witnessed you driving the car". Dash or bodycam footage could show you driving the car. Traffic cameras can show you driving the car. Your neighbours security cameras could show you were driving the car. Your mobile devices could show you were in the same place as your car when it failed to stop for police. Your friends or family members could say you were driving the car when questioned by police. Sure it's not as fool proof as catching someone in the act, but it's not like this sort of thing doesn't happen all the time already - person flees and escapes then denies it was them driving. They usually are caught and convicted because there is a ton of evidence they are lying and that they were the driver. It's not like this is a crime one usually plans out, it's a series of snap decisions made in a panic and the odds you'll make them all well enough to escape consequences for your actions are small.
I would love to see a video breaking down more stats about police departments.
A few months back my car was broke into and my AirPods were stolen! Luckily, you can track AirPods using your iPhone. I called the police to help me retrieve my stolen headphones, but when they showed up they said there was “Nothing they could do” without giving any explanation as to why.
Later that week I was driving down a new road that was JUST built in my neighborhood, there was a Speed Limit sign visible when you were driving north down the street, but they hadn’t installed the 25 MPH for Southbound drivers yet. Unfortunately the road was quite wide and not necessarily residential so I was going around 40. I was pulled over and told “it doesn’t matter that I couldn’t have possibly known what the speed limit was” and got a ticket anyways.
It seems like lately the main job for the police is to collect $$ from ridiculous traffic stops on innocent people while not helping solve real crime like theft and vandalism.
For like half the price of the ticket, you can get a lawyer to have it dismissed for you. And it will be off your record.
Well that's what the "people" seem to be lobbying for. Neutering the police and having them fine the good citizens while leaving actual criminals alone.
In most places the unmarked speed limit in a residential area is 25 mph. You weren't "innocent", you just didn't realize how you were breaking the law.
@@derekroberts1693 Define "a residential area". Because in most of the USA there are frequently houses along roads where the posted speed limit is 30, 35, 40, even 50 in rare cases where there are multiple lanes. Driveways emptying directly onto a divided avenue where the posted speed limit is 50. I drive on it every day on my way to work.
@@Yonkage-ik5qb those are posted. They are saying unposted. FL is 30mph unless posted otherwise.
9:10 This is not a solution. The driver has to be identified to assign charges.
DUI is not a traffic violation, it is a crime in every state in the US.
There is an additional thing that causes police to want to nab the driver now, not just rely on the vehicle. In many jurisdictions, they need to be able to positively identify the driver - not just who owns the vehicle. So if they only have a view of the license plate/rear of the vehicle, the driver can pretty easily got the charges dropped.
Unless the original charges are a violent felony it's not worth the risk. So what if some guy gets off on a broken tail light and speeding?
@@ericbsmith42 exactly. Let it go. Focus on real crime.
Risk death of you or innocent people for a broken tail light? If I were the officer, I'd just go to the registered keeper of the vehicle and tell them their tail light is broken and issue them a warning, with the requirement for turning up at the local police office showing the issue had been repaired.
@@ericbsmith42 Vehicular fleeing is a felony in most jurisdictions. And depending on the level of recklessness while fleeing, it can even rise to a deadly threat justifying deadly force as a response.
@@theKashConnoisseur so you want cops shooting at speeding suspects in the middle of traffic? Bro.
Great video as always. In their defence car chases in films are never over minor driving offences... Perhaps that'll be the next Fast and Furious film.
@@Muhahahahaz
😂
There's a big oversight in this. We need data on how much more likely people will flee when they know police wont chase them. That could have even more dangerous consequences.
Obviously much more likely. He completely brainfarts on the fact that people run even after a "moving violation" because they don't want the cops to see that they're impaired, have warrants for major crimes, etc. He wants to handcuff the cops and give incentive for criminals to commit more crime because they know they can just run and they won't be chased. Brilliant.
You have the data from other countries
I live in Washington State here in the US. We passed a law restricting police chases because of how much more unsafe they are compared to the positive effects. Immediately, the right wingers, and especially the cops were up in arms against the new law. Every time they had a chance, the cops would say in the news how their hands were tied or that this happened because they couldn't chase anyone, despite not being true, they were just restricted to certain crimes & they knew the person in the car committed) It got to the point where cops would even not chase during those times when it was allowed and they would just cry in the news that they didn't chase because of the new law & they didn't want to get in trouble. (Obvious BS). Despite the new law saving as many lives as projected, they managed to get enough people to fall for their constant crying in the press and be afraid of their fear causing lies to get it repealed a year later. Now they can chase again and deaths have went right back to where they were.
If police cannot pursue you, why register your vehicle or even put a license plate on it? When they try to pull you over just speed up, and if that is the thought when police come up behind you on some other call with their lights and siren going just speed up even though they were going to a DV call. Also if you can just flee from police why obey any traffic law, the police cannot pursue you if you don't stop and have no way of finding you if you don't have a license plate. It is a catch-22 with pursuits but most of the people fleeing have some other reason aside from the traffic stop to flee, being outstanding warrants or illegal items in the vehicle which was not addressed in this video. My point is that only criminals flee, by nature of them fleeing, so regardless of what numbers say the police should still be allowed to pursue.
I think people usually run from a minor traffic violation because they are afraid of getting in trouble for something worse.
i.e. they have drugs in the car, have been drinking, have a warrant, body in the trunk, etc. That's why they get chased.
They start due to a traffic violation but a vast majority of the indivudals who run have a larger issue at hand. I do feel that some places are way out of hand with these chases. We have invented new devices such as trackers or grabbers that instantly stop cars yet we dont use them... Why!!
I once had a cop teacher, and he said how one of the things he liked avoiding the most is car chases, just about every story that involved with a car chase was a disaster.
A chase realistically only ends in two ways:
The suspect willingly / unwilling stops and goes on on foot (boxed in, mechanical failure)
Or
A wreck.
The chase is almost never worth whatever you’re trying to apprehend the suspect over.
A good one-sided argument. The obvious argument (that almost everyone agrees on) for police chases is that if you run, then you get chased and the consequences are worse for you. If the police don't chase, then average people will run. Making your argument like it's insane to think otherwise is dumb
In Italy (where I live) and in virtually all of Europe, Police *do not chase* cars for *any* reason. They just take note of the plate number, they follow them using the now ubiquitous surveillance camera and they set up roadblocks. That is *all*. Moreover, they *do not* use firearms on the street (with the single exception of self-defense).
But how can you check that the driver was car owner? What if he wasn't? How to choose suspect if not catch him?
Math, guessing and records
Edit: and for the US it's racism too
It's almost like licence plates are easily removed and swapped!
@@theKashConnoisseur someone committing a minor offence is unlikely to try that hard
@@Anteatereatingants but you can't tell the difference unless they stop. Minor offence and murderer on false plates will both run.
@@guy- cry me a river
Are there any studies in states that have implemented this that show whether or not more vehicles flee knowing they won’t be chased?
one statistic that I was curious. of the chases which started because of a minor infraction, how many were people fleeing because they had done some more serious thing? not saying that justifies the risk of a high-speed chase by any means.
There can be complicating factors. People might have illicit substances (itself a minor infraction), be on parole or have exaggerated beliefs about the risk of being stopped thanks to media hysteria. It's a discussion with complications and nuance and this video has done it a disservice by being very one-sided.
Bro cops don’t chase in Sarasota County. They snap your license and visit your house and work place to arrest you if the violation merits it. Or mail you a ticket with points violations.
So crime skyrockets because people can just run and there's nothing that anybody can do about it but at least people aren't dying in chases.
How is an impaired driver a minor traffic offense? Did you look at the statistics on impaired driving fatalities? I also invite you to check out the reckless driver in Charlotte, Nc last year that CMPD refused to chase because they follow a strict no chase policy like the one you are advocating. The driver of thay vehicle freely tormented and endangered the public repeatedly that day because of the policy. The wicked still flee when none pursueth.
Statistics you say....
Data is old but according to the NIH ("How Drunk are U.S. Drivers?"), in 1992-1993 there were 2.3 trillion miles driven in the US. (Edit: ACTUALLY, I forgot something. According to NHTSA, there were 2.3 trillion miles driven in 1993 ALONE. So when I double the fatality rate below for 2 years, it actually should be half that. So the number of miles driven will be doubled before a fatality. Too lazy to redo the math, but keep in mind below, the risk of impaired driving is less than what I state below).
Of the 2.3 trillion miles driven, 17.9 BILLION miles were driven by drivers with a BAC over 0.08.
In 1992+1993, there were about 80,000 total fatalities (40k per year) from traffic accidents according to NHTSA.
If every single fatality was caused 100% by impairment (obv they aren't - impairment is only involved in about 26% of fatal accidents nowadays), then an impaired driver can drive 223,750 miles WHILE IMPAIRED before causing a fatal car accident. That is many lifetimes. For example, if a person drives 5 miles to the bar and 5 miles back, on friday and saturday, every single week, it would take 211 years of doing this before they would be statistically likely to cause a fatal accident.
Also, nowadays, there are about 1.5 million DUI arrests per year. Thats about 11,000 miles driven while impaired to be arrested based on 1993 miles driven numbers. Today, we drive far more miles per year. Based on old stats (which makes this a very conservative estimate) if a person only drives 20 miles per week impaired like our example above, it would take 11 years of routinely driving drunk to get caught. (edit again: this is a correct calculation not affected by my first disclaimer. How the NIH study is worded is weird and it makes it easy to mix these things up. I messed up by accident before, then I got it right by accident here.)
Now there are obvious things here.
0.08 is very low honestly. This is what inflates both the miles driven and fatality count statistics.
Here is the fun part of the NIH stats. Of the 17.9 billion miles I referenced earlier, 1.9 billion are people between 0.08 and 0.1. 16 billion are people 0.1 and over.
Anyways, someone who is 0.2 is definitely an immediate danger if operating a vehicle. Someone who 0.1 apparently is not. We need more granularity in the data. 0.1 and above is not good enough. We need 0.08-0.1, 0.1-0.19, and 0.2 and above, at least.
And the thing here is, what is the relative risk involved? It's kind of a judgment call on the cop's part. Someone who is bouncing off the curb and running red lights is clearly a hazard who needs to be stopped immediately.
Someone who is 0.1 and maybe weaving a bit in their lane can go another 223,749 miles before they kill someone. Meanwhile, a police pursuit has a 30% chance of causing serious injury or property damage.
Honestly, I don't know the answer. But I will say that the hazard of impaired driving based on our current definition is way overstated. I always roll my eyes when someone says, "they were double the legal limit!" So they could operate a vehicle for about 200k miles without serious incident. WOW. SO DANGEROUS.
a relative of my family was put in critical condition from the suspect choosing to hit him instead of the spike strip from a car chase he got away and still cannot find him tracking these suspects must be nearly perfect for these to work.
I guess the counter argument could be that if everyone knew cops wouldn’t chase you, would that dramatically increase the amount of reckless driving therefore increasing vehicle related deaths?
I don't see how that would happen, it's not like people would escape the consequences of reckless driving - just because the police don't pull you over at the time you committed the crime doesn't mean they can't say show up at your house and arrest you for what you did. It may make it a bit more difficult to catch car thieves, but apart from that it should be fairly trivial for the police to track down a person after they flee from a traffic stop.
6:29 , i don't understand why the cops do not go in front of the car and block its access, and surround it with other cars, in this way the chased car cannot go anywhere and harm any more civilians, instead, they stay behind the car even if is going 1 m/h.
Depending on the suspect they can be armed or perform a dangerous maneuver like ramming the front vehicle, crossing traffic to get around, shooting at the officer (or public if armed in a high density area) or encourage the suspect to slow down and take a turn into another street or parking lot at a relatively high speed. It’s good in theory but not great in practicality
The problem is that the chase is being done on the ground, USAF should be called in and destroy the target from above.
I avoid being injured or killed and endangering the lives of law enforcement officers in potentially deadly chase scenarios by - and stay with me, this is where it gets complicated - not fleeing from the police.
Potential and completely self-inflicted problem averted, with no effort at all.
It really is the easiest thing I do, and I have been known to both blink AND fart, sometimes simultaneously.
Tell that to the families of the thousands of completely innocent bystanders who have died in these high speed pursuits when things go wrong. It's not just the people being chased or the police who are at risk during these chases - it's everybody. I had neighbours when I was a kid where both their parents died after a car smashed through the living room of their house attempting to flee from police. Like it or not there are completely innocent people to consider here, even if you couldn't care less about the life of the person who decided to flee.
Car chases are the kind of thing that are enjoyable at a distance but terrifying up close.
As soon as i opened this video i thought, "ooohh, Charlie would love this one" and then you go and say it yourself 😆
I like how you mention that the chases start with a minor infraction, but fail to mention that most of these people flee because of warrants or other crimes they are currently committing while also doing the minor infraction. IE, a person going 55 in a 45 will initiate a car chase because he doesn't want the police finding the 40 kilos of heroin in his trunk...
By not pursuing those who flee, you only encourage flight.
When I first heard that our local police were going to abandon high-speed chases a number of years ago, I thought that was crazy. But then I realized that these chases posed a greater risk to human life than the suspects they were pursuing.
One could argue that when someone flees the police in a simple traffic stop he immediately becomes a danger to the public.
That's like everyone first argument before dedicating another 5 seconds to figure out why it's not valid, and im just repeating the video; Someone that got away from the cops for a misdemeanor is WAAAAAY less dangerouse than 2+ vehicles speeding and trying to pull trick, unless the suspect has a minigun and has obvious intentions of a worst conclusion than a car chase
@@1lukarioz wouldn't this kind of rule incentivize people to run if that's all they have to do to not face consequences?
@@waggish4999 Yeah, but they can read your plate & come after you later.
@@waggish4999 No. They take note of license plate and car model, so they can easily track you.
@@baribari1000 how do you track someone who doesn't have plates if you can't chase them? gl looking through every BMW or Nissan Altima in the state to see if you got the right person
I'm glad Vsauce2 still uploads pretty frequently. I miss V1 :(
Thanks for the 'Real Word Science' again.
you mean corndogwillie?
I think you oversimplified this one. Chasing criminals are good way to stop them.
This video ignores so many factors. 1. How many people run from the cops because they have warrants? 2. What will that person do between the time they are let go and when they are eventually found again? 3. What is the danger of apprehending someone at their home or another location vs in a car chase? It might be less but it's not zero danger. 4. If people know they can run from the cops without immediate consequences how much more often will they do this? Consider the impact on varied shoplifting enforcement as a possible predictor. 5. A very large number of "traffic stops" are actually drug interdiction stops on popular drug smuggling routes or based on other identifying factors. Letting these cars go would result in those crimes not being punished and all of the harm caused by the drugs that were not confiscated. That's just what came to mind I'm sure there are other issues.
Watching car chases with Charlie is my guilty pleasure
Thank you so much for bringing back VSauce Mind Blow!! Everything you've put out is a must-watch. 🤘✌️
Most things. Not this nonsense, though.
@@theAstarrr Just this video. We need tech to immediately disable their vehicle if they start running. That's the solution. Not more policies that handcuff cops and prevent them from enforcing the laws, and not more policies that allow arrested career criminals to be back in the street by sunrise. Emboldening criminals to commit MORE crime is NOT the solution to save lives.
@@MikeKayK ah yes, lets say they implement this literally tomorrow, and every car sold after today has this shut down chip in it. What are the odds of a someone running from the cops in a car with a shut down chip?
Where I live we stopped car chases starting by not chasing anyone. Works every time.
Where I live we stopped homelessness by giving everyone a house.
If we didn't chase, the amount of people fleeing would be insane. Just saying don't chase won't work as easy as you say. Look at Arkansas and the way they deal with people who flee. You know when you run in Arkansas, they are gonna wreck you. What you can't measure is the amount of people who don't run, bc they know what will happen if they do. Bc you can't measure that part, it's not easy to judge their policy.
There needs to be some policy changes, and there is room for compromise, but you can't just end chases or crime will go up. The first time someone the police let go and then they go on to kill someone, is when the outrage and backlash will happen.
I'm a little disappointed in your obvious lack of questioning and research here and going straight to the implication that cops just shouldn't be engaging in these chases cause it's not worth it. Why do you think so many people pulled over for very minor offenses are running off? It's not that they want to avoid a $20 fine. It's because they are wanted criminals. Cops just happen by chance to pull over a wanted felon for a minor violation, the criminal knows the cop will most likely pull who they are up in their system or find that their fake name draws suspicion, so they pull over and wait for the cop to get out and then they peel off, ensuing the chase. So while the chase technically started from a minor violation, you'll find if you read the individual incidents that most of the time the suspects are at-large, wanted felons. So the "is it worth it?" Question changes. Should cops still cease chases and track them later? Sure. If the plates are real and that's actually their car registered to them. Which is also usually not the case in these situations cause you know, wanted felon. I'm not saying there might be something better we could do, but it's kind of a necessary risk at this point at the fault of the CRIMINALS. If the police didn't chase then they might never get another chance to catch that dangerous felon. The only alternative that has worked is if you have a helicopter in the sky tracking, or enough patrol units around that they can track the route of the fleeing suspect as he passes by.
Fireman's rule or not, When a criminal does not pull over and speeds off and someone dies in the chaos, they are criminally responsible under felony murder. Injury probably goes that way too.
3:49 this averages 338 deaths a year. Now compare this to the amount of times car chases have saved lives. To put this in perspective, you have a 0.00008% chance of being killed as a result of a car chase (assuming you could be a criminal or bystander, also assuming you live until 80). This is 1 in 1.25 million odds (in the US)
Do you have the data on how how many lives it saves?
@@SpektralJo Stopping a single large drug trafficking shipment of fentanyl is likely to save many more lives than all those lost in a year of police chases. If the criminals who traffic fentanyl knew they could have evaded arrest by simply running, but due to policies allowing chases they pulled over instead, it would be quite easy to argue that having a chase policy saved a large number of lives indeed. And similar logic works for black market firearms traffickers as well.
Great video! My guy still didn’t even touch in the financial cost of these chases.
I don't know where you get the idea that no one seems to care. Most agencies have implemented pursuit policies to reduce the number of chases - at least in my state. There are very few approved reasons to pursue, according to our policy, and even then, the chase typically gets terminated a few minutes in.
My buddy is a station commander for a state trooper detachment and he has more or less forbade his troopers from getting into high speed chases, and has said he will outright refuse to defend them if they kill or injure someone or damage property in the process. The whole high speed chase thing is such a tricky situation. On one hand, you don't want to let someone go who is wanted for some heinous crime, but on the other hand you don't want to risk public safety chasing someone who has nothing to lose and will run at all costs. Then there is the adrenaline factor and the urge to chase, even in situations where the person you are pursuing committed a minor violation, which should never happen but does. So I don't know what a good answer is. Chasing is dangerous, but yet on the other having a zero chase policy will just encourage more offenders to run. Seriously what do you do in these situations? Glad I am not a cop and don't have to make that decision.
There's other times to catch them
if the criminal escapes the car chase or if the police let them go, the police may know who owns the car, but there's no evidence that that person was actually the driver right? I think that would make it difficult for the ticket to hold up in court but if any lawyers or judges are here please explain better how that would work out
Exactly. This video got me angry because I know it is coming from a good place but he spent 13 minutes telling us about the reasons not to give chase and condescendingly told us "the solution" without giving ANY thought about that solution.
@@claytoncourtney1309 The "simple" solution. To which I counter with the simple law of unintended consequences.
Care chases are kind of like modern day gladiatorial fights. The carnage and destruction are the point, because people can't get enough smashy-smashy. But I REALLY think this is one "sport" best left in fiction.
Not a chariot race?
@@nahometesfay1112 Well okay, i guess that's another good example.
I am so glad there is finally a really great and informative video about this important topic to spread awareness! I’ve had the same thoughts about this issue many times before, and he’s right that the answer really is right in front of us. Not engaging in a chase lets the situation deescalate and cops can simply catch them later. You can’t bring back the lost lives.
Simply catch who later?
Lol
In Canada its the opposite and drunks get away all the time later killing people. There's a balance somewhere
@@MikeKayK alligator.
Cops have never been good at deescalation. What the hell else are they going to do with their guns?
@7:45. Considering police already have qualified immunity, working relationships with prosecutors, inherent trust and respect over your average citizen in courts by judges and juries, and more power than nearly anyone else in society on the street level, this fireman’s rule seems like a fair trade off legislatively
What planet are you on? Cops are being prosecuted left and right. Juries are more likely to be sympathetic to the criminals, qualified immunity only applies if no law was broken and has nothing to do with criminal offenses. Also in the USA, the 4th and 5th amendment limit the power of the authroites in addition to the bill of rights.
>that moment when you forget that humans enjoyed watching gladiator fighting
The problem is that if you stop police chases, criminals know they have a higher likelyhook of getting away with crime if they are able to get in a car. It can have a snowball effect to where you end up with more crime.
Maybe with the advent of drones and automatic lisence plate regustry you can just turn the screws systematically without any chase. Just by suffocating the suspect out of options with strategically placed police all around.
I went on a road trip around America last year, and for the first time I saw a car drive away from a cop. Right in the middle of town a cop pulled over a car and then 5 seconds later, the car zoomed off and the cop chased after them. They must’ve been going over 70mph in the middle of town. And their engines roared for a solid minute off into the distance. Car chases are very exciting 😅
I was a victim in a police chase crash. The cops started chasing a guy for a minor traffic violation, and he wouldn't stop because he was smoking weed and had a prior record. They ended up chasing him over 10 miles to my end of town and he t-boned me at the bottom of a highway ramp as I was driving under the overpass (I had the green light). 120mph, he flipped my car 3 times. When I was heavily sedated with fentanyl in the ER with a broken hip, the cops had me sign a waiver saying they weren't liable for my injuries even though they initiated the chase and he wouldn't have been driving 120mph if they hadn't chased him. I remember signing but I don't remember having any awareness of what I was signing. Very frustrating considering how much it cost me out of pocket.
DUI and road raging isn't deadly?
This simple solution has many problems. Most of the time the fleeing driver has not been identified, and using the registration information isn’t strong enough to hold up in court. When pursuits are terminated, the fleeing driver is almost never held accountable.
Also, when criminals know they don’t have to stop for police they are more likely to flee. This is why departments who used to have a no chase policy reeled back on those restrictions.
In reality most departments are adopting pursuit policies that are similar to what the video suggests. Saying nobody cares in wrong.
change laws to make it hold uo in court.
@@tafazzi-on-discord Yeah, you'd need a constitutional amendment for that or something. You typically need evidence that people have committed the crimes they're accused of. It's kind-of the whole foundation of law.
@@chaos.corner the evidence is that the car they own didn't stop at the police's orders. That's evidence for a crime, the owner either helps to identify who's responsible or they get the consequences for that crime.
@@tafazzi-on-discord Yeah, that's not going to happen outside your head or in some country without a common law style justice system. A law like that wouldn't last 5 minutes in the US.
The police in southern Oregon actually disengage if it turns into a chase. Better to track from the sky.
I'm glad some people are talking about this at least. My grandma died from a police chase before I got to meet her. Never liked cops since I was a kid because of it.
My dad almost died from a chase. He wasn’t even a criminal or officer just a bystander. The odds of him living to the end of that week were about 1 in 350. He is alive with literally no signs of it other than surgery scars. Insanely lucky
Once cops got their license plate number, just show up at 6:00am at their address the next day.
Even though I think you're right and all departments should implement no-chase policies, I think there is something important missing. Even though most chases start off for something minor like a traffic violation, the person fleeing usually has something to hide or a deeper reason to flee. A regular Joe is not going to flee for a stop sign or speeding ticket. But someone on parole who doesn't want to go back to jail, or someone who has meth in the car, might, for example.
Still sounds like it’s not worth chasing them on the road.
Many people might just be terrified of cops for very good reasons. We can't have judge dread cops running around assuming your guilty until proven innocent.
@@22burnsieso you rather them to just keep doing what they want without consequences? See people like you that are soft on criminals is the reason why they are so many criminals out doing what they want.
At the end of the day the question is fairly simple - is it more risk to society to allow the person to flee, or more risk to engage in a high speed chase to catch them immediately? And I simply have a hard time believing that more people would die if you let the parolee on drugs flee and then tried to arrest him later at his house than if you engaged in a high speed car chase to catch them right away.
In the UK we don't tend to do close in car chases, but we can afford helicopters.
And when we do, 99% of the time, they don't end with the police violently ramming the suspect off the road like American cops seem to do.
The US is also 4000% larger than the UK. It’s great that major metropolitan areas can afford helicopters, but much of the US can’t.
helicopters cant see through tree cover
@@EC-dz4bq Good thing Europe chopped down the majority of their trees centuries ago lmao
helicopters dont usually crash into pedestrians/cars/get in life ending car accidents so I would say thats a good thing! american police are vastly, massively overfunded, and typically have multiple helicopters usually- but also outfit their vehicles to make them more deadly in a chase. they choose to endanger lives instead of using better methods. Police copters also dont have to follow roads so can more easily track the vehicle, and can travel at up to 150 mph and work well to follow fleeing suspects. So funding and abilty arent the problem, american police are messed up man
If the suspect flees a routine traffic stop, it would in some cases indicate a more serious crime is being committed. I don't think the conclusion in this video is the answer.
I think he makes a good point about the criminals already being in the system though. There are definitely better ways to handle the situation if you know where they live lol
@@DefaultMii What if they stole/kidnapped someone and they run away. Put them somewhere in between catching them again. How would the authorities ever know what to look for?
Except he just showed you statistics that states thats not true over 90% of the time.
@@DefaultMii it's a naïve way to think, you'll just teach criminals to steal license plates and never stop.
@@bad3nergytroll idk I don't have the solutions, kevin didn't even provide any and now there's arguments in the comments
Cop: turns on lights
Suspect: I demand trial by combat.
Say what you will, but I was in a police chase that went through three police barricades and several civilian cars. I was abducted by some guy off his meds. The cops finally disabled the vehicle and ripped us out of the suv and turned me away so I wouldn't see them beating the snot out of the guy 😂 I definitely understand some of these chases.
I still get a bit of PTSD when a cop pulls up behind me and turn on his lights. Not that I am scared of them, but there is an involuntary response where my blood pressure spikes and I get massive adrenaline dump. Lol. Trying to explain to the officer why I look so nervous and my hands are shaking handing over my paperwork. 😅
How do the conclusions of this video relate to your video titled "Crime Stats Are A Lie"? Is it the case that the statistics about violent crime are unreliable, but traffic violation and car chase data are reliable? How is that? Does the data come from somewhere other than law enforcement agencies?
Its about spin. They can misrepresent violent crime statistics because that all happens behind closed doors, but chases get a lot of attention and happen out in the public so they can't spin them so much.
In the US you can get in an argument with your wife, and be arrested for domestic violence.
Because we can see the cars do it. Police chases are things very easily catalogued because... police are monitored when they do such things.
Do you think regular people are monitored as much as cop chases? It's really not remotely the same
I like how the data mentions only what initiated the stops, but not why they actually flee.
The solution is simply to not flee, and have no reason to flee.
Police in the northeast a few years ago made it clear that they would not respond to calls about shoplifting under $2,500. You want to know what happened next? Shoplifting skyrocketed, and communities collapsed. I think we could draw parallels to this situation.
It's a trolley problem but this guy only talked about one of the track branches.
But you aren't making an argument about why police chases are an effective deterrent to minor traffic violations. He wasn't saying that they should stop punishing and arresting criminals completely, just that high speed chases are a dangerous and inefficient method of catching criminals. Kevin already more than proved that these chases are dangerous and that the people involved aren't an active threat. Why put anyone's life on the line over a fine when they could just hunt the person down later instead?
@@brody3166They're not a deterrent for minor traffic violations. They are a deterrent from fleeing the police in a vehicle. The consequences of minor traffic violations are the deterrent for minor traffic violations.
@@brody3166Fleeing from the police in a vehicle makes you an active threat.
@@brody3166They can't positively identify the driver until the driver is apprehended, otherwise there is plenty of reasonable doubt that the owner of the car was not the driver.
Ah yes. This is why in need for speed I try to make sure the cops call it quits because they think it's too dangerous.
what?? cops are endangering lives and wasting resources on a pointless show of force? who could have seen that coming?
I knew someone who does street racing late at night. Usually it just means accelerating with another car from 50-120ish on a mostly open highway.
I’ve heard of people crashing sometimes but rarely, and never fatalities.
I live in Denver and I’ve seen lots of really misleading news reports that paint the issue as a danger to all society that must be stopped immediately. Some police districts have in the past taken the extreme action, and I have personally seen cops harassing people in parking lots just enjoying cars.
What I’ve heard is that anyone pulled over for a contest of speed will get arrested with tons of extra charges slapped on. Because of that a lot of the guys won’t pull over.
yeah overenforcement can also do that esp when it results in you having to get a defense attorney just to get the extra bs charges dropped
Maybe not street racing is the solution.
"I want to do this crime and I'm salty that I get punished for it"
Just moved away from a city that had a “no pursuit” policy. The city NEEDED police intervention due to a very high crime rate and constant robberies and vehicle theft. Hearing about or seeing a car with parts taken from it was common. I personally had my car broken into 4 times in a few years. Police could never chase due to thieves not posing as a threat to human life. The criminals played the system
Exactly, people think we can just stop enforcing the law to end violence and will get more violence in the end. They do not understand deterrence, that chases that end badly discourage lawbreaking for many...
One must keep in mind the unintended consequences if you ban these pursuits.
It will likely create even more unsafe situations as people try to get to a vehicle to start a pursuit so they are not followed.
Instead there should be clear guidelines and metrics which the police use to determine if a chase should be aborted, or find alternatives to chasing them in a vehicle, such as cameras, drones, helicopters.
There are very likely better options, but consider the unintended consequences very seriously.
The consequences of handcuffing the cops is more crime. Plain and simple.
Careful you might derail the fuxk the police mindset they're spreading. We already lot violent criminals go based of color. Now they want to just not enforce laws period because they aren't violent enough offenses...
I had a close run-in with death the other day when a fleeing vehicle sped past me as I was crossing the street. A brigade of police followed in pursuit. I didn't even register it until the car turned around and sped back in the opposite direction.
that's not what NDEs are
@@tafazzi-on-discord Fair enough. Edited.
7:11 What is a "Job Related Illness"?
Part of the issue is that if everyone KNOWS the police policy is to not pursue, then everyone would just flee. Think about the game theory aspect: if 100% of the time you get no consequences for fleeing, who would pull over?
Non-pursuit cannot be a policy. The real question is in what circumstances should the pursuit be called off? Speeds over 80? When the pursuit moves towards neighborhood streets? In the dark?
The interesting part is that once police policy for non-pursuit is known by criminals, they will learn to create those exact situations to avoid apprehension. Oh, game theory, you squirrely and psychopathic yet somehow logical beast. ;P
You don't need to know "game theory." This is common sense that somehow eluded him.
what? no... many countries have this policy as its safer ... who cares if someone flees... you have their plates... here in Canada cops follow you and if you go over the speed limit they end it as its not worth putting peoples lives and cops lives at risk
@@emko333 if the person fleeing is a drunk driver who ends up driving onto a sidewalk and killing a family after the police decided not to stop him, people might care. If the drug dealer who sold your kid an overdose managed to evade police a week earlier due to no-chase policies, you might also care.
It's not a zero sum game. If people are being pulled over for street racing or reckless driving, or driving drunk etc, there's no reason to expect them to suddenly start being safe while evading arrest. People still get ran over in countries with no chase policies.
YoU hAvE tHeIr PlAtEs! @@emko333