We could learn from Australia
For years, high-speed police car chases have been controversial. Last week, the police were defending their pursuit policy as ‘‘fit for purpose’’ despite a spate of recent crashes resulting in death and injury. Flashback to June 2010, and you find thenPolice Commissioner Howard Broad saying the policy needed only ‘‘minor tweaking’’ – despite a record death toll that year from police pursuits, amid four reviews of the policy in the previous six years.
Can such pursuits be justified? On the evidence from this country and Australia, only a very small percentage of fleeing offenders had committed serious crimes. Yet in the past two years, police pursuits have resulted in the deaths of 21 people, many of them below 25 years of age. Clearly, police cannot know the age of a fleeing driver when in mid-pursuit. Yet the public could reasonably expect that the prevalence of young drivers among the fatality statistics might have encouraged amore conservative approach.
Arguably, such knowledge should have stopped police spokesperson Sandra Venables from recently placing the burden of liability entirely upon the fleeing driver.
‘‘He or she has to take more responsibility and make better decisions,’’ Venables said in March after a pursuit in Nelson had culminated in a head-on crash that killed two fleeing offenders, and the driver of an oncoming car. ‘‘We would hope people would just realise that it is better to stop and talk to the police officer.’’
True, in an ideal world, teenagers should be making responsible decisions. However, it is the police who are supposed to be the adults in this situation, as Auckland lawyer Deborah Manning pointed out last week.
Currently, Police Minister Stuart Nash seems disinclined to follow Manning’s suggestion that the pursuit policy needs to be reviewed independently of the Independent Police Complaints Authority, whose staff – as its website indicates – are largely comprised of people with policing backgrounds. Political considerations may explain the reluctance of a new minister (a) to get offside with the police, and (b) to look soft on youths hooning around in cars.
Australia, which is not renowned for being soft on crime, does things differently. Six years ago, a ‘‘safety first’’ policy was adopted in several Australian states after police pursuits had resulted in a spate of deaths and injuries not only among those fleeing arrest, but among innocent bystanders as well.
Research across the Tasman had indicated that only 3.75 per cent of the offences triggering police pursuits were crimes of violence. Awhopping 87.3 per cent of pursuits were inspired by relatively minor offences: stolen cars, drink driving or other traffic offences.
Reportedly, Queensland contains about 44,000 more people than New Zealand – yet in 2016, it experienced 3197 fewer police pursuits. New Zealand had 3323 pursuits that year, resulting in seven deaths, while Queensland had only 126 pursuits and no deaths.
Finally, this country has seen a steep rise in police pursuits, which numbered fewer than 2500 in 2012. By 2017, there were 3797 such chases, a roughly 52 per cent increase.
For some reason, the police are becoming more, not less, inclined to mount such pursuits, despite the deadly risks they pose for everyone on the road, including the ordinary public.