March 21, 2016 3:00pm by David Farrar

No surprise when Police are not able to pursue

More than 1000 people who taunt police with car chases are getting away with it – and teens involved are boasting about their antics online.

New figures obtained under the Official Information Act reveal 1206 pursuits in 2015 ended with the fleeing driver escaping before police could identify them – an increase of 39 per cent in four years.

Police were unable to pinpoint what was behind the rise but the total number of chases has jumped 25 per cent to 2998 between 2014 and 2015.

The more the IPCA restricts the situations in which Police can pursue someone fleeing, the more people will flee. They know that the faster they go, the more likely the Police have to give up.

Now I accept there are situations where the Police should not pursue. But you need to look at having very string incentives for people not to flee, otherwise they will.

Those incentives could be automatic loss of licence and loss of vehicle. They could be automatic jail time.

But if you have strong incentives to flee, and weak incentives not to flee – then more and more will flee.