Police chases endanger public

The Kansas City Star had a major article on the danger of police chases:

The researchers reviewed data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on fatal vehicle crashes from 1982 to 2004. The data showed that 7,430 deaths resulted from police pursuits. Occupants of the vehicles being chased accounted for most of those deaths, but nearly 2,000 uninvolved motorists and bystanders also died. Eighty-one police officers were killed.

“I don’t think people realize the extent the public is at risk,” said Robert Miller, the lead researcher and an emergency room doctor. “This is a public health problem. As an individual you can’t do anything to protect yourself. We have to do something as a society.”

Media reports of wrecks and deaths resulting from police chases seem to be appearing on a regular basis in Kansas City and across the country.

Less than a week before Lane’s death, a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper shot a robbery suspect after a chase that reached speeds as high as 90 mph on Troost Avenue and more than 100 mph on Interstate 435. Two Independence police cars and a trooper’s car crashed during the chase.

The death of bicyclist Toni Sena in 2004 during a police chase galvanized several bicycle advocates to play a lead role in revising the Kansas City, Missouri, police chase policy.

But other cities in the region have not followed KCMO's lead and after some high recent visibility chases, KCMO has come under fire for not following its own policy strictly enough.