Austin police improve safety with StarChase instead of car pursuits
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Austin police improve safety with StarChase instead of car pursuits
“If you look at the micro picture—with the one officer and one suspect—you have reduced the risk for that officer and that suspect, because you have reduced speeds on the road,” Fischbach said. “That’s usually what kills people that are in the pursuit itself, because people tend to run red lights and everything else, which is when tragedies occur. Most people understand that, but what’s happening on a macro level—and this is something we did not expect—is that the entire agency behaves differently [with StarChase].
“Imagine you’ve got 15 of your brothers out on patrol, and you just did this tag and put StarChase out on the radio. What happens is that all of the officers that are involved realize that they don’t need to respond like they used to. So, you know longer have five or six patrol cars that are in the general area responding in a very high-speed manner to get to the scene of a pursuit.”
In Austin, StarChase has been very effective—“it’s just another tool for your toolbelt”—but having the technology is not eliminated all car chases, Davis said.
“It all depends on the situation,” Davis said. “If there was a suspect that shot at the police officers, it doesn’t matter if we deploy StarChase or not, we would chase that car until the wheels fell off of it. On the other hand, with a stolen car, we might deploy it before we even turn our lights on, because we know that the tendency is that the vehicle’s going to run.”
The cost of StarChase is about $5000 per vehicle, which includes initial installation, training and two GPS projectile tags, according to Fischbach. Installing StarChase takes about two hours “with two checks that what they’re doing,” he said. After the first year, typical ongoing cost for the StarChase system is several hundred dollars per year, primarily to replace the GPS projectile tags, he said.
At the moment, StarChase uses a mix of direct and indirect sales to market its product, and the company is actively trying to enhance its indirect sales network, Fischbach said.
“I’m on the hunt for the right dealer partners,” he said.
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.