Austin police improve safety with StarChase instead of car pursuits
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Austin police improve safety with StarChase instead of car pursuits
Although glamorized in television shows and movies, high-speed car chases are quite dangerous resulting in numerous deaths and injuries every year—not only to suspects and first responders, but also to innocent bystanders that may be in the path of one of the vehicles. In Austin, Texas, police are using GPS tracking technology from StarChase to apprehend suspects in vehicles more efficiently and with greatly diminished risk of injury.
“Each time that we have used this technology, we have not had any injury to officers or suspects, and we have not had any wrecked vehicles, which saves on liability, litigation costs, repair-of-vehicle costs and [results in] no injuries,” Marcus Davis, a senior officer in the police technology unit for the Austin police department, said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “We’re getting sued from a 2012 case—before we had StarChase—and they’re asking for $1 million for a fatality, so you can see how costly these can get.”
In the 2012 case, an innocent bystander in a car died after his vehicle was “T-boned” by the suspect’s car that was trying to evade law enforcement. Such incidents happen far too often throughout the United States, which is why the StarChase system was developed, according to Trevor Fischbach, president of StarChase.
“This is a major problem that takes a lot of lives every year,” Fischbach said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “Not only does it take a lot of lives, it creates a ton of lawsuits and property damage—billions and billions of dollars are being spent on the lousy outcomes of these pursuits.
“The other unspoken statistic is that you have upwards of 50,000 people hurt every year in pursuits, and that’s probably an underestimate.”
If new vehicles operating on
If new vehicles operating on public roadways were made with receivers with GPS like OnStar, they could be programmed so that Law Enforcement could either request or remotely shut down a vehicle themselves in a relatively safe manner so that high-speed chases become a thing of the past. If criminals know Law Enforcement can bring a car to a stop remotely, attempting to flee at high speeds would decrease quickly. Adding a few lines of code to a car’s software seems like an inexpensive addition. As long as there were stiff penalties if a Law Enforcement department abused this technology, it would be hard to understand why anyone would be opposed to such a technology…..
we dont need a police state.
we dont need a police state. Cut down on pursuits to cut down on injuries.. Chasing people that have expired tags and b/o tail lights is BS.