Police confirm U-turn on chasing fleeing cars

Police will be chasing fleeing cars again, but they’ll still have to lay road spikes manually to stop drivers – a job that recently put an officer in hospital in a critical condition.

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster officially announced the car chase U-turn yesterday, after a turbulent week during which frustrations over retail crime crystallised in the wake of the fatal stabbing of a Sandringham dairy worker.

Earlier this month, an officer was sent to hospital in a critical condition and needed extensive surgery after he was hit by a fleeing driver while laying road spikes.

Currently, road spikes are deployed manually, but police are looking at a remote-control type that fires across the road, protecting the officer more.

‘‘It is a high priority,’’ Coster said in an interview with Stuff yesterday. ‘‘That programme of work has been under way for some time ... I don’t have a date, but we are working very hard towards having that clarity.

‘‘Laying tyre deflation devices, or spikes, is one of the highest-risk activities we undertake, in response to a very high risk presented by drivers when they flee,’’ he said.

Officers now have to notify the communications centre over what they were using as protection, like a lamppost, once the spikes had been deployed.

‘‘When we deploy, we have to be confident it will be safe and not have unintended consequences.’’ Andrew Coster Police Commissioner