LA and Car Chases
August 15, 2005 – 12:51 amAs I was watching yet another car fleeing the police on one of the many Los Angeles highways on the evening news this evening, I realized that there really are more police chases in Los Angeles than anywhere else I have spent serious time. And they can be quite entertaining. Some are disastrous and quite tragic, but others are downright hilarious. Everyone knows who is going to win and who is going to lose, but somehow that information doesn’t make its way to the person(s) being chased.
Tonight’s pursuit involved a car that had been obtained via a carjacking. The person whose car it was told the police that it had about a quarter of a tank of gas left. That’s priceless. The whole time you’re watching one of the two helicopters’ feeds (yes, there were two helicopters, or “air ships” as they were called on television, following tonight’s bandit) you just know he’s about to run out of gas. I picked it up about half an hour or forty five minutes into the chase, and sure enough after ten minutes or so, he finds an exit, takes a couple of right hand turns, pulls the car over to the curb and gets out with his hands up.
Maybe it makes for a good prison story. Maybe those last few fleeting moments of freedom are enough to carry one through the inevitable incarceration that is to follow. Regardless, it makes for surprisingly entertaining television.
3 Responses to “LA and Car Chases”
Virtually every time I sit down to watch the evening news there is either a car chase in progress or they have one recorded from earlier in the day. The only time a person gets away is when they’re on a motorcycle. The thing about chasing a motorcycle is that you usually have to chase it with a motorcycle, and the resulting chase is simply too dangerous and not worth the risk.
When people from back East ask me about LA, the absurd number of car chases is usually something that gets mentioned. After two years I’m still dumbfounded by the sheer volume of idiots in LA who think that they’ll be the one to get away.
By Adam on Aug 15, 2005 at 5:58 pm
Haha, yeah its pretty entertaining to some degree. Assuming no one is hurt of course. When you live here long enough you’ll see a few. That’s always fun, some car goes zooming by followed by a bunch of cops and a helicopter. Kind of exciting!
By the way, my website is back up. http://www.katieandted.com/blog/ I think I was experiencing a denial of service attack. Since it was down for a couple of weeks they appear to be leaving me alone now. Weird.
By Griztown on Aug 17, 2005 at 9:00 am
I actually saw a car chase in person in East Texas several years ago. It was quite amusing. I was driving East on I-10, heading back to Tennessee for Summer break, I think, and I see this white car go flying by (I was doing 70, he must’ve been doing 90-95). About a minute later I saw this same car parked on the side of the road with a state trooper car sitting behind it, and I thought to myself “Good job troopers!” A few minutes down the road I see the same car flying by doing 100+ (now, keep in mind, East Texas is the populated part of the state. These aren’t empty desert highways; there were a decent number of people on the road). Right on his tail *whoosh* a state trooper. Shortly thereafter *whoosh**whoosh**whoosh**whoosh**whoosh**whoosh* about a half dozen state troopers (where they all came from I have no idea). Sure enough, a bit down the road, there was the white car lying in a ditch surrounded by state troopers (Texas state troopers!), many of whom had guns drawn, ready to turn this guy’s car into swiss cheese should he so much as sneeze.
It’s a shame this didn’t happen in Houston so that I could hear about it in the news. Although, I kept thinking to myself while this was going on, “Of all the places to screw around with the police, Texas is pretty much at the bottom of the list.” Your chances of getting away might be a little better in Texas, but if you *do* get caught, things will go much worse for you.
I’m also wondering whether I just didn’t take notice, but I really don’t recall many (if any) car chases that took place inside Houston city limits. Although given the traffic patterns, chances of escape would be much reduced. Additionally, the road conditions (poor) make it much more likely that you’d end the chase yourself by Darwinizing yourself.
By Adam on Aug 17, 2005 at 12:33 pm