Immobilisers key to ending police pursuits
Stuff has reported on not one but two recent car chases by police in Palmerston North within the space of a week. One was a 15-minute chase that started at 10am and went through the suburbs of West End, Highbury and Awapuni. It was quite lucky that no-one was killed or seriously injured – driving recklessly at high speeds for 15 minutes put many lives in danger.
At this point in time it is not publicly known whether the drivers and passengers were adults or young people. However, many of these incidents seem to involve teenagers.
Take for example, the 17-yearold driver who allegedly ran at least three red lights before crashing, killing an innocent motorist, Kenneth Mccaul, 64, in Christchurch two weeks ago.
In May last year, a police chase of a stolen vehicle resulted in a serious crash on the outskirts of Palmerston North, leading to the deaths of the driver, Ihaia Mcphee Maxwell, 15, and a passenger, Meadow James, 12.
If we believe child development expert, Nathan Wallis, teenagers function with 10 per cent of a mature ‘‘thinking’’ brain – the frontal cortex – and 90 per cent the ‘‘feeling’’ brain they had as 4-yearolds.
In adults, Wallis says, the ratio is reversed – 90 per cent ‘‘thinking’’ and 10 per cent ‘‘feeling’’. Empirical studies have shown that the adolescent brain continues to mature past the teenage years and into the 20s.
Hence, many teenagers are not capable of the kind of reasoning that allows most adults to make rational decisions. Adding alcohol and drugs into the mix compromises brain development of teenagers who are already going through changes hormonally, physically, psychologically, and socially.
Of course, the majority of teenagers don’t steal cars, but adolescent impulses and risk tasking behaviourmean that those who might be inclined to steal cars for a joyride are not going to stop for policewhen signalled to pull over. If, then, we assume that a lot of teenage drivers of stolen cars are not going to stop for police, what can be done about it?
One position is that ‘‘police should not be involved in highspeed pursuits unless the public is in imminent danger from a violent offender’’.
That argument is often put forward each time someone dies in one of these preventable tragedies. I understand it but disagree – police officers are not psychic and can’t always identify who is behind the wheel and what they’ve done or are about to do.
In my view, this problem requires amultifaceted approach, and one component that has been neglected is prevention. For example, why aren’t we having a conversation about preventing vehicles from being stolen in the first place?
One way to dramatically reduce the number of stolen vehicles is to introduce the fitting of immobilisers as a compulsory requirement.
It is almost impossible to hotwire or start a car without the correct key. In other words, no key no ignition.
Many modern cars already have an immobiliser fitted. For those that don’t, there is a one-off cost of around $200, payable only on fitting an immobiliser when registering or selling a vehicle.
This cost would eventually be offset, or at least a part thereof, through lower insurance premiums. Further, the number of stolen car insurance claims would reduce over time, potentially resulting in premiums being lowered even further.
Since the introduction of compulsory immobilisers in Western Australia, the main method of car theft is taking car keys from inside homes, often when they are left in plain sight on a table not far from unlocked front doors. That’s solvable by keeping car keys hidden and out of sight from opportunists.
If we introduced compulsory immobilisers here in New Zealand, we would see a decrease in opportunistic car theft, which in turnwould hopefully result in fewer teenagers involved in police pursuits.
Given that we’ve had more than 30,000 police pursuits over the last 10 years, it’s something to be considered.