Police chases rarely, if ever, end well. An uninvolved pedestrian in Vallejo, California, discovered just how poorly chases can go earlier this week, when he was crushed between two parked vehicles as they were pushed together by a driver attempting to outrun local police.
This past Tuesday, a Vallejo cop flipped on his red and blues in response to what the department’s PR department called “reckless driving.” Rather than slowing down or stopping, the driver apparently sped off through two intersections before colliding with a parked car — crushing a 76-year-old bystander between it and adjacent vehicle. The pedestrian was rushed to a nearby hospital, but died.
This is, by the Vallejo Police Department’s own admission, not the first crash death in the city that was directly caused by a police chase. This past August, police chased down a Toyota Avalon that hit two uninvolved cars before stopping. The driver of one of those other vehicles, according to the police, died at the scene. The Vallejo Police Department claims seven fatalities from car crashes this year, but its press archives don’t go far enough back to see how many of those seven involved police. Of the deaths for which the department makes records available, two thirds can be traced back to a police chase.
This practice has always been, and continues to be, absurd. Cars now come with modern technology that allows police to track them down to an owner’s address — a recent safety development called “license plates.” Tickets can be delivered by mail, infractions adjudicated in a court of law by a jury of one’s peers rather than bargained at the roadside where one party holds all the power. Ending traffic stops, and police chases with them, will make us all safer.