After more killings during a Police chase this week there have been questions about the Police ability to involve

themselves in a chase safely

Interesting question. The Police have come up with their standard answers.

We have special handlers who call us off when it gets too dangerous. These chase specialist guys must be in the form of blow-up dolls in the rear seats. Try calling a possibly death-dealing high-speed chase from a back room somewhere. I don’t understand why anyone would try it let alone insist it serves as a safety measure. It should make you SCARED that two people in a rocket careering down a street near you think a guy on the radio knows when they are in safe bounds

Our guys are trained for it. They train for four weeks and eight hours a day. Of course that is a standard working day. In other words there are lunch breaks, sitting about having lessons and talking about the day’s driving. It would not do to think those Police actually get eight hours a day of real driving.

The issue of the time spent driving hard is interesting. I started driving when I was twelve and for some summer holidays almost never got out of a car. My friends and I could all drive a little Austin Lancer around a paddock on two wheels by the time we were fourteen.

Lots of people lived on farms and we had a lot more than a few hours a day of controlled driving to drive cars hard and experience sliding and drifting and all the things cars do when they unstick tires. Later some of us rallied cars and a few were high speed drivers for some of the criminals in the area. Usually getaway drivers for money collectors. Those guys drove more than a few working hours a day. Not one of them would consider a high speed chase on a city road without being aware he was possibly going to jail for killing someone on the road.  Nobody except a policeman or politician could have the gall to say a high speed chase among city and suburban streets was in any way safe. Those few hours some Police spend in controlled conditions are barely enough to make them safe at normal road speeds.

There is a way to find out just how safe Police and Politicians actually think their drivers will be in high speed chases. Get all the Police and the politicians together and have a rally. On every exposed corner place the Police and politicians and their families. They can have a picnic! Should be great!. All the police drivers can be drawn from the crowd as their turn comes up and they can race against proper rally drivers. Guys who race high speed all the time and still manage to crash into things.

Among the mix of drivers and cars should be a few high-powered V8s with bad tires and brakes, driven by monkeys, because we have almost forgotten the last part of the mix. The guys being chased

They don’t even do the Police course. Some of them are considerably better than the Police chasing them but some are drooling idiots full of alcohol, testosterone, fear or drugs. Yes indeed officer, I really really want you to inspire those guys to drive at higher speeds in my town

I am not sure but looking at the death toll recently I don’t think the Police actually have better stats than the hoons when it is a head for count.