Net results
Police ponder spikes alternative
Road spikes could become a thing of the past as police investigate nets as a safer way to stop fleeing drivers in their tracks.
A road safety campaigner applauds the move but says there must also be a policy not to pursue most fleeing drivers.
Police at national headquarters wouldn’t comment about its process to find ways to stop cars. But information on its rationale has emerged from police summaries of two contract opportunities on the Government’s tender website.
They show police want to buy new ‘‘ tyre deflation devices and are awaiting approval’’. Indicative total value of the whole tender is between $10m and $25m.
Police currently throw road spikes into the path of the fleeing vehicle, with the officer then retrieving the strip using a string.
‘‘This has the officer in full view of the fleeing driver while deploying which puts the officer in a danger zone of being hit by the fleeing driver,’’ an overview of the tender says.
In 2008, Sergeant Derek Wootton was killed by a fleeing Mongrel Mob member who ran him down while the officer laid road spikes in Titahi Bay.
One tender shows police are investigating systems involving nets.
The devices, such as the X-Net Vehicle Arrest System from British defence contractor QinetiQ, do not envelop cars, instead, the net features dozens of barbed spikes and is laid on the road by an officer in the projected path of a vehicle.
When the car drives over the net it envelops the front tyres and is pulled taut beneath the vehicle, seizing the cars tyres and bringing it to a rapid halt.
The idea is to avoid a car with punctured tyres sliding out of control, potentially endangering occupants and bystanders.
A summary of the nets tender says the project is in the initial development phase and police are investigating their options. It alludes to the risks associated with road spikes.
‘‘ Providing officers with limited tactical options when addressing a fleeing driver event, could result in poor decisionmaking, adverse public reaction, [Independent Police Conduct Authority] reviews and/or ultimately in death and serious injury of either the fleeing driver or members of the public.’’
Three Christchurch teenagers in a stolen car were killed in
January 2019 when the fleeing teen driver crashed into a tree while trying to avoid spikes.
The crash ruptured the car’s fuel tank and the trio were unable to be pulled from the burning wreck.
An Independent Police Conduct Authority inquiry found two police officers were justified in laying the road spikes, despite the pursuit being called off at least 30 to 40 seconds earlier.
Dog & Lemon Guide editor Clive Matthew-Wilson, a road safety campaigner, said he supported any alternative that addressed the risk of cars spinning out of control after they’d been spiked.
‘‘Road spikes have been linked to horrific accidents,’’ he said. ‘‘There has to be some feasible way of stopping cars that doesn’t involve the terrible deaths.’’
But in Wilson’s view, the vast majority of police chases are unnecessary.
He cited a 2010 report published by the FBI which found most suspects tended to slow down to normal driving speeds once they realised they were no longer being pursued.
Police could then quietly come along and nab them, or wait until later and pay a visit to their home, he said.
‘‘The police are effectively giving the death penalty for minor infringements, that’s complete overkill. Young people and criminals don’t make rational decisions when they’ve got a cop car chasing them in the rearview mirror.’’
That said, he acknowledged there were still cases where officers needed to stop cars in their tracks.
‘‘If you have a young woman that’s been kidnapped, and she’s in the back of the car of a guy that’s crazy on P, the cops need some way of taking that car off the road without risking the lives of all concerned.’’
Matthew-Wilson also cited the more restrictive pursuit policies in Australia as a reason for changing policy.
In the decade since 2008, Queensland, which has a restrictive pursuit policy, had no deaths from police chases. New Zealand recorded 22 deaths attributed to pursuits between 2014 and 2018.
It is understood the NZ Transport Agency has previously purchased the net system but did not respond to questions by deadline.
Police wouldn’t immediately answer any questions regarding the road spike replacement process, instead treating queries as an Official Information Act request with a 20-working-day deadline.
‘‘The police are effectively giving the death penalty for minor infringements, that’s complete overkill.’’ Clive Matthew-Wilson