Howard Broad: Faulty perceptions cloud issue of police pursuits

Photo / Sarah Ivey

Opinion

The tragic deaths of two people a week ago has yet again sparked discussion around whether police should pursue fleeing drivers and whether the current policy is appropriate.

This is a vexed issue, and each perspective comes with a risk.

Many of the statements made last week have obscured the true picture of what really happens when drivers flee from police, and any public discussion of these issues needs to be based on accurate, relevant information.

There seems to be a faulty perception in some circles that the driver is typically stopped for a minor offence, whereupon they make an instantaneous rash decision, fail to stop and death is the end result.

The facts tell a very different story.

In New Zealand over the last five years more than 11,000 drivers have fled from police and 33 fatalities have resulted. The vast majority end without issue. The suggestion that the decision by the driver to evade police is a small "lapse in judgment" is also far from the truth. A large percentage of offenders involved in police pursuits have criminal convictions and nearly 30 per cent have been found to be driving stolen cars.

These are often people who may have something to hide from the police. In many cases, the dangerous driving that has occurred will be a serious offence and represents a significant risk to innocent bystanders as well as to the offenders.

What we need to make clear to these individuals is that we will, and do, follow up those we may not apprehend at the time.

Fleeing from police brings little chance of escape but a much higher chance of further charges. We follow up on all the information we have, and the knock on the door the next day may be the first time some people realise they are in serious trouble.

Simply ignoring what on the surface may look like a minor offence, is not as straightforward as it looks - we would be required to ignore suspicious behaviour which goes against all our principles, and there may be other reasons for that behaviour that we do not know about.

We review every incident of fleeing offenders, no matter how it ends, and our policy has been reviewed six times in the last five years. We are continually looking for ways to make everyone safer and assessing our policy against other jurisdictions.

There are some options we can look at around the fleeing drivers who come to our attention because of traffic offending. These may be assigning greater levels of responsibility to vehicle owners no matter who is driving, and the use of technology, including speed cameras.

We are committed to making sure that offenders are held accountable for their actions but we will always balance that with the safety of officers, the public, and the offenders. We need to keep this uppermost in our minds as we aim to deter as well as detect.


* Howard Broad is NZ Commissioner of Police