A car chase or vehicle pursuit is the vehicular overland chase of one party by another, involving at least one automobile or other wheeled motor vehicle, commonly hot pursuit of suspects by law enforcement. The rise of the automotive industry in the 20th century increased car ownership, leading to a growing number of criminals attempting to evade police in their own vehicle or a stolen car. Car chases may also involve other parties in pursuit of a criminal suspect or intended victim, or simply in an attempt to make contact with a moving person for non-conflict reasons.
Car chases are often captured on news broadcast due to the video footage recorded by police cars, police aircraft, and news aircraft participating in the chase. Car chases are also a popular subject with media and audiences due to their intensity, drama and the innate danger of high-speed driving, and thus are common content in fiction, particularly action films and video games.
Police involvement
Car chases occur when a suspect attempts to use a vehicle to escape from law enforcement attempting to detain or arrest them. The assumed offence committed may range from misdemeanors such as traffic infractions to felonies as serious as murder. When suspects realize they have been spotted by law enforcement, they attempt to lose their pursuer by driving away, usually at high speed. Generally, suspects who police spot committing crimes for which long prison terms are likely upon conviction are much more likely to start car chases.
Police use a number of techniques to end chases, from pleading with the driver, waiting for the driver's vehicle to run out of fuel, or hoping the driver's vehicle becomes somehow disabled to more forceful methods such as boxing in the vehicle with police cruisers, ramming the vehicle, the PIT maneuver, shooting out the tires, or the use of spike strips. Though all efforts, many of which pose risk to all involved as well as bystanders, will be aimed at avoiding danger to civilians. When available, police aircraft may be deployed, which may follow the vehicle from above while ground units may or may not be involved.
History
Media coverage
The first police chase known to be recorded on video was in 1988 in Berea, Ohio. Los Angeles television station KCAL reported a quadrupling of ratings when police pursuits aired. In 2002, 700 pursuits were reported in the city of Los Angeles. Police officials have asked news media to reduce coverage of chases, claiming that they encourage suspects to flee and inciting gawkers to possibly get in the way of the pursuit, while the media responds that coverage of chases provides a public service and provide a deterrent to police brutality.
Reality television has combined with the car chase genre in a number of television shows and specials featuring real footage, mostly taken from police dashcams, police aircraft cameras, or news helicopters of suspects fleeing police.
On June 17, 1994 former NFL running back O.J. Simpson gain national coverage being in a low speed chase in his white 1993 Ford Bronco after the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in Los Angeles.
One notable, recorded police chase occurred when an M60 Patton tank was stolen by Shawn Nelson from an Army National Guard armory, on May 17, 1995. Nelson went on a rampage through San Diego, California, with the massive tank crushing multiple civilian vehicles before becoming stuck on a road divider. Police were able to mount the tank and open the hatch, killing the suspect when he would not surrender.
On June 4, 2004, welder Marvin Heemeyer went on a rampage in a heavily modified bulldozer in Granby, Colorado, wrecking 13 buildings including the town hall, the public library, a bank, a concrete batch plant, and a house owned by the town's former mayor, resulting in over $7 million in damage. The police were initially powerless, as none of their weapons could penetrate the suspect's vehicle. However, the bulldozer's engine failed and the machine became stuck, so Heemeyer committed suicide by gunshot.
On July 27, 2007 in Phoenix, Arizona, two helicopters collided in mid air while filming a police pursuit. Both were AS-350 AStar news helicopters from the KNXV-TV and KTVK news stations. All four occupants of both aircraft were killed. No one on the ground was injured.
On September 28, 2012, Fox News aired a live police chase in Arizona which ended in the suspect exiting the vehicle and shooting himself after a short foot chase. Fox News was airing it in a five-second delay instead of a normal ten-second delay, which resulted in the shooting being aired on a live broadcast of the Fox Report. Fox anchorman Shepard Smith soon apologized for the broadcast and vowed to never let it happen again.
Risks and legal considerations
High-speed car chases are recognized as a road safety problem, as vehicles not involved in the pursuit or pedestrians or street furniture may be hit by the elusive driver, who will often violate a number of traffic laws, often repeatedly, in their attempt to escape, or by the pursuing police cars. In the United Kingdom, it is estimated that 40 people a year are killed in road traffic incidents involving police, most as a result of a police pursuit. In the United States, chase-related deaths range between 300 and 400 people per year.
The February 2005 Macquarie Fields riots occurred in Sydney, Australia after a local driver crashed a stolen vehicle into a tree, killing his two passengers following a high-speed police pursuit. The death of university student Clea Rose following a police chase in Canberra sparked major recriminations over police pursuit policies.
In 2007, the United States Supreme Court held in Scott v. Harris (550 U.S. 372) that a "police officer's attempt to terminate a dangerous high-speed car chase that threatens the lives of innocent bystanders does not violate the Fourth Amendment, even when it places the fleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death."
In most common law jurisdictions, the fireman's rule prevents police officers injured in such pursuits from filing civil lawsuits for monetary damages against the fleeing suspects, because such injuries are supposed to be an inherent risk of the job. Public outrage at such immunity has resulted in statutory exceptions. One example is California Civil Code Section 1714.9 (enacted 1982), which reinstates liability where the suspect knew or should have known that the police were present.
Policy on what circumstances justify a high-speed pursuit differ by jurisdiction. Some safety advocates want to restrict risky chases to violent felonies. Another option is to use technology to end or avoid the need for such chases. For example, vehicles can be tracked by aircraft or GPS tagging device like StarChase, allowing police agencies to reliably intercept suspects using stationary blockades, lower-speed vehicles, or when the vehicle is parked.
Inter-jurisdictional pursuits and policy issues
One particular hazard that is attendant to police pursuits is the problem of multiple law enforcement agencies becoming involved in a car chase that crosses municipal and jurisdictional boundaries. This is often complicated by radio communication incompatibility and policy differences in the various departments involved in a pursuit.
The city of Dallas, Texas was the first major city in the United States to adopt an "Inter-Jurisdictional Pursuit Policy" to address the problems inherent in car chases that involved more than one law enforcement agency. In August 1984, the Dallas Police Department's Planning and Research Division, under the command of Captain Rick Stone, began crafting a policy that more than twenty (20) local law enforcement agencies could agree to abide by when car chases crossed their borders. The result was a model policy that became the standard for use by police departments around the United States.
In Europe, as many national borders no longer have border stations, car chases may sometimes cross national boundaries. States often have agreements in place where the police of one state can continue the chase across the national boundary.
Non-police car chases
Some car chases may occur between vehicles that are not involved in law enforcement. These may be conducted by rival criminals, criminals attempting to catch intended victims, vigilantes, or as part of road rage. They may also occur for non-criminal reasons, such as the pursuing vehicle simply attempting to catch up to another vehicle. These car chases are rare and are almost always considered illegal due to the dangers of civilian vehicles, lacking any sort of warning device or authorization, pursuing each other at high speeds.
In 2021, Terrence J was pursued and shot at by a vehicle in an attempted robbery. In 2021, a carjacking victim in Chicago pursued a car thief, resulting in an eight-vehicle collision in which the stolen vehicle was destroyed.
In film and television
In film and television, the term "car chase" refers to a chase scene involving two or more automobiles pursuing one another, which may or may not involve a police car. Feature-length films have been built entirely around car chases, often featuring high-powered exotic vehicles. They are depicted as fast moving scenes with action involving the speed of the vehicles involved, and the potential collisions and the debris resulting from the wreckage.
Staging car chase sequences often requires numerous takes and destruction of several vehicles (whether intentional or mishap). Therefore, it is common to use older vehicles that are 1–2 generations behind the current models on the market, since these can be second-hand acquisitions at low cost due to depreciation. There are some exceptions, if a high-profile vehicle is used, such as the James Bond and Transporter franchises who use current and even concept vehicles. The vehicle manufacturer may also pay for product placement in a film production (serving as a technical adviser, donating vehicles to be used in filming).
History
Although car chases on film were staged as early as the motor vehicle itself — one of the earliest examples being Runaway Match directed by Alf Collins in 1903 — the consensus among historians and film critics is that the first modern car chase movie was 1968's Bullitt. The 10-minute-long chase scene in Bullitt was far longer and far faster than what had gone before, and placed cameras to give perspectives from inside the cars. Previously, car chase scenes were often staged using the rear projection effect.
Computer-generated imagery
In more modern times, the use of computer-generated imagery is becoming increasingly popular, and, although costly, eliminates any danger level. Recent examples of this computer-generated imagery can be found in the Michael Bay films Bad Boys II and The Island. Driven was particularly panned for its CGI car chase sequences.
However, some critics claim that CGI eliminates the realism of the chase scene. Such criticism has affected recent Hollywood productions; for example, films like Ronin, The Bourne Supremacy, The Kingdom, The Dark Knight and Need For Speed all had actual live-action chases with minimal use of CGI, if at all. For instance Furious 7 stunt coordinator Spiro Razatos wanted to rely more on real stunts rather than CGI because he wanted the whole sequence to "feel real" and fulfill audience's expectations so only 10 percent of the action sequences in the film were computer-generated, and even then, much of the CGI was employed simply to erase the wires and other contraptions that were used to film real cars and drivers or to add a background.
Notable examples
- The Fast and the Furious series
- Gone in 60 Seconds (1974) features a 40-minute car chase scene with multiple crashes (some of them unplanned, real accidents) and a 30-foot-high, 128-feet-long airborne jump over crashed cars that block a road.
- Films such as The Blues Brothers, The Keystone Kops, W.C. Fields comedies, The Three Stooges, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, The Shaggy Dog, The Gumball Rally, No Deposit, No Return, Freaky Friday, The Gnome Mobile, The Million Dollar Duck, What's Up, Doc?, Short Time have car chases that are used for comedy.
- To Live and Die in L.A. and Ronin both include scenes of cars going the wrong way at high speed against moderately congested freeway traffic.
- The Matrix Reloaded depicts car chases with characters move from one vehicle to another and to fight in or on top of a moving vehicle.
- A number of television shows have been built around the popularity of car chases, such as CHiPs, The Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider, Airwolf, and Chase.
In video games
Many video games, often within the open world and racing genres, tend to contain, if not focus on, car chases of some sort, usually involving police. Many of these chases are often heavily stylized, with police often ramming or even shooting suspect vehicles.
Notable examples
- Early examples included Bally Midway's Spy Hunter (1983), featuring a James Bond-style weaponized vehicle; and Atari Games' APB (1987), where the player controlled a police car.
- Chase H.Q. (1988) and its sequels have the player assume the role of a police officer who, along with his partner, must stop fleeing criminals in high-speed pursuits.
- The Need for Speed series is notable for its depiction of police pursuits, usually involving high-performance cars driven by both criminals and police.
- The Grand Theft Auto series is especially famous for its depiction of car chases in both missions and its open world, with reckless pursuits by both criminals and police being possible in almost every game in the series.
- L.A. Noire (2011) features police pursuits in several of its cases and missions, though unlike Grand Theft Auto, the player takes the role of the police.