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Police are defending their car pursuit policy despite figures showing over a quarter of them end in crashes.
The safety of police pursuits has been questioned following the deaths of three Auckland teenagers after a high-speed chase on Christmas Eve.
The Press today reported official figures showed in the year to November, police were involved in 2089 pursuits nationally, with 539 resulting in accidents and 579 being abandoned.
Twenty-five of the crashes resulted in injuries, with three people killed.
Inspector John McClelland, of police national headquarters, said officers were often "damned if you do, damned if you don't" over pursuits.
"The public expect us to deal with people who don't completely uphold the law," he said.
"Sometimes it's easy to look back from an armchair perspective and say we shouldn't have done this or that. It comes back to the responsibility of the person who was asked to stop."
Mr McClelland said police had to determine the degree of risk to the public and those involved, compared with the risk of letting an offender get away.
Any major accidents were investigated by police and the Police Complaints Authority.
- NZPA
