High-speed police chases killed thousands of innocent in US

An investigation into death toll of U.S. high-speed police chases has recently shed light on how failure to implement effective policies led to a tremendous loss of lives of bystanders and passengers.

According to a new investigation conducted by the U.S. daily USA Today, more than 5,000 bystanders and passengers have been killed and tens of thousands more injured as a result of U.S. police car chases over sometimes minor offenses since 1979.

The report said that bystanders and passengers in chased cars accounted for almost half of all people killed in police high- speed chases from 1979 through 2013 and the majority of bystanders were killed in their own cars by a fleeing driver.

The report noted that the death toll could be even higher since the Department of Transportation's National Highway traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which analyzes all fatal motor-vehicle crashes, uses police reports to determine if a crash was chase- related, and some police reports simply failed to disclose that a chase occurred.

Though some police chases involved armed suspects, a number of police pursuits originated from minor offenses, such as traffic violations or misdemeanors, indicating a disturbing and long- standing phenomenon of police practice

In one case quoted by the USA Today report, a 25-year-old New Jersey man was killed on July 18 after a police chase which was caused because he ran a red light. Another case involved a 60-year- old federal worker killed on March 19 near Washington, D.C. by police chase because his headlights were off.

For a long time, the U.S. Justice Department has recognized the danger of high-speed chases and urged officers to avoid or give up pursuits which would put bystanders and nearby motorists in danger.

Calling pursuits "the most dangerous of all ordinary police activities" in 1990, the U.S. Justice Department urged police departments to adopt policies listing exactly when officers can and cannot pursue someone.

Despite the warning, however, the casualties resulting from police chase in 2013 (322) was higher than that in 1990 (317), according to NHTSA data.

A large number of local police departments still let officers make on-the-spot judgments about whether to chase based on their perception of a driver's danger to the public, said the USA Today report, and according to police records, officers continue to violate pursuit policies concerning when to avoid or stop a chase.

Meanwhile, the report said federally funded high-tech systems that would phase out chases, such as vehicle tracking devices, are still undeveloped or rarely used due to cost.