A change in youth justice age and education around the dangers of cars and standing up to peer groups are two ways pipped to address teens fleeing from police.
Phil Dinham, from the Ministry for Vulnerable Children Oranga Tamariki, has weighed in on the trending involvement of youth fleeing from police.
The conversation comes as the number of people killed on New Zealand roads after police pursuits hits eight deaths so far this year, three of which were teenagers.
The most recent were Ihaia Maxwell, 15, and Meadow James, 12, who died after a police chase near Palmerston North on Monday.
The director of youth justice service development said the focus needs to be on prevention, which he hoped would be aided by raising the age of youth court jurisdiction to 18-years-old by July next year.
"This will mean we take a new and different approach to how we interact with young people who are beginning to drive carelessly," he said.
"The police are in a very difficult situation, so we need to focus on prevention and educating young people that cars are not just a means of transport, but they are a lethal weapon on occasions so you have to respect the rules."
Dinham said teens need to be taught impulse control as well as how to understand the underlying causes and the consequences of their actions.
He said it was also important to teach youth how to positively engage with their peers - and how to say no.
"What we know from the conversations we have with young people who are involved in offending, is a lot of it is coming from group enterprise - where you have a group of young people and somebody comes up with a bad idea and they all go along with it.
"We need to encourage young people to be staunch in front of their friends and to say 'no we shouldn't be doing that'.
"If we can work with them in terms of giving them tactics and tools to say this, and to do it from a position of strength and friendliness, then that can help prevent events like this happening," he said.
Dinham said there were a range of other reasons why teenagers might choose to flee from police.
"Sometimes it can be as simple as not wanting to be caught as Mum and Dad would be upset. It is about not wanting to face the consequences from their family, so they try and get away.
"Sometimes the young person may have been drinking or on drugs so there are no rational thoughts, it is just the first thing that comes into their head. Impulsiveness is a huge thing with young people," he said.
"There is also a small number, and social media brings this out, who seem to want to put themselves in a situation where they goad the police into chasing them.
"Perhaps it is boredom, excitement or an opposition to authority that young people sometimes have.
"But it is a tricky one, and if the young person intends to goad the police into a pursuit, then maybe our response to that needs to be different."
Number of youth involved in vehicle crime decreasing
Despite recent fatal police pursuits, Dinham said the number of youth involved in crimes like unlicensed driving, careless driving, and failing to stop has actually decreased in recent years.
Phil Dinham, Director of Youth Justice Service Development at the Ministry for Children, Oranga Tamariki. Photo / Supplied
"There were about 810 cases involving those kinds of offences seven years ago, and last year there were just 348 - so that is over a 50 per cent drop.
"We have had some terrible occurrences this year, and I wouldn't want to minimise the tragedy of those, but if you look at the bigger picture it is not an epidemic or something that is out of control, if anything young people are driving less carelessly," he said.
Who should take action?
Dinham believed the responsibility of preventing and educating youth falls not only with police, but also schools, parents and road safety agencies.
"Schools can often take the lead with that stuff but we have got a lot of agencies who have a huge investment in road safety and if we all do our part we can help out and campaign to get more young people to change," he said.
"Also parents, a lot of young people get taught to drive by their parents so they need to be stronger in that message of a car being dangerous."
When it comes to fleeing from police, Dinham said the message was simple "don't do it".
"The consequences of stopping are far less than the consequences of not stopping," he said.
Inspector Peter McKennie, manager of operations road policing, said each fleeing driver incident is unique and police can't give a reason for the increase in fleeing drivers, or the increase in fatalities.
"Police have been working with the IPCA on a joint review of fleeing driver events so we can better understand these events, including what motivates drivers to flee when signalled to stop by police.
"Our message to youth is the same as anyone else: if you are signalled to stop by police, pull over and stop. It is not worth putting your life, your passenger's life, or anyone else's life at risk," he said.
