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One of the craziest police pursuits I've ever seen

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#1

In Southern California, of course, a large RV that had been hijacked and was being pursued by the police. It’s a 50 minute video. Skip to about 3 minutes in to see the first crash. Skip to 14 minutes in to see the end of the pursuit.

I post this because it’s quite an unusual one (as well as a large RV it involves a woman and a dog). Also, these live-on-air police pursuits are now a regular staple in places like California (because they get a huge amount of viewers), which brings in the bread and circuses aspect of it. And the last ‘also’ is the huge volume of roads and traffic in parts of the world like this - the LA freeways are a wonder to behold.

Will they ever go EV?

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#2

Unbelievable. I wonder why the police do such pursuits. With the chopper above , the driver can’t escape - not in that vehicle anyway. The end result is going to be the same, but the pursuit, that seems to go to the driver’s head, just results in a few extra casualties on the way.

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#3

Evvy, when you look at pursuits like that it’s hard not to conclude that the felon was on rawl plugs, particularly since this woman had her dogs in the RV with her.

When it comes to the police in California, that might be another story.

#4

There’s a few reasons from my experience. If you make them chase you, you will suffer. It’s not so pronounced here, or at least about 30 years ago Hunter S Thompson made them earn it, and look what it cost. Am convinced that a percentage just chase because of the running action. Like dogs.

They’ll always oversaturate because fun/opportunity for violence.

Should have ditched that thing within the first three minutes. It’s a great blockage for not being followed down an alley etc.

If you must play this game, horsepower is your friend. Stuck at a push? Single decker bus. 70+MPH, 10 tons plus, very very low centre of gravity. Tyre deflation isn’t going to stop it either.

This is how it’s done. Particularly like this video for two reasons. 1) The snarl between gear changes gives me a crisis 2) more importantly, turn off your lights and use main beam, as demonstrated here. Just like old times!

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#5

Couldn’t take my eyes away.

I’m about a hundred pages into the latest Bret Easton Ellis novel The Shards, which includes long and detailed accounts of driving and the exact routes followed. And lots of eighties music. I seem to remember one of his novels (almost certain it was Less Than Zero) begins with the statement that in LA people just don’t know how to merge onto highways properly.

If you haven’t seen the Black Audi In The Shopping Mall vid, prepare to be amazed…

At some point the driver stopped and along with an accomplice helped themselves to some high-end electronics.

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#6

I reckon the woman who hijacked that RV was Liz Truss, during her vacation in California.

LocalYokel, it might sound like you had a misspent youth, and might know how to do handbrake turns.

KarenEliot, it’s amazing how bold these thieves are; also stupid because most of them are eventually caught, and if you’re in America you will find yourself in the biggest and one of the most brutal prison systems in the world.

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#7

Yes, LY: spill the beans a bit about what you got up to. Obviously quite a few pranks. The single-decker bus spiel. bespeaks some - erm - experience. You ever have a PSV licence, like me? :smile:

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#8

Just as an aside to this (because I’m the world’s biggest travel bore), many years ago I was pulled over on the side of an LA freeway (I can’t now remember what freeway it was - 101 I think). I was driving a small Datsun sedan. Beside me in the passenger seat was my sister Sue, on the back seat was my cousin Andre. We were living and working in San Francisco and had come down to LA to visit some relatives and do the usual tourist stuff.

So, the LAPD pulled us over on the side of the freeway. The car I was driving was all perfectly legal and was being driven within speed limits. I’ve no idea why they pulled us over.

A big guy got out of the cop car in front of us and approached. I don’t need to add that these are always tense moments, because the cops are armed and many citizens are armed. This has always been particularly so in LA, where cops shooting people for no real reason is not a recent phenomenon.

I wound down my window and started politely answering the cop’s questions. As soon as the cop heard our English accents he looked startled, and then pulled out his gun and pointed it at me through the driver’s window; like, two feet away from my head.

Suffice to say it was all peacefully resolved, yet a very frightening experience.

After jokes about the Queen of England the cop wrote us a traffic violation ticket. I’ve no idea what it was for, and I never paid it.

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#9

Something like that, yes. Wrong place at the right time. Before I go any further, I’d like to point out that I am not proud of some of things I got up to. At the very least, my actions would have seriously inconvenienced people’s lives.

Early 90s. After my short stint in the military, I got involved with professional car thieves. As you do. My gateway was a friend who I used to get stoned with. Met some scary fellas who offered me an opportunity if I could prove myself. I had to steal a car. Was easy. A nice 7 series. Don’t leave your car running with the door open and go into a shop!

For approximately 18 months following this, I lived the life of a Hollywood action movie. Fast cars, fast food and fast women. The plan was simple. Ring cars to sell, buy drugs, sell drugs to buy dead cars for ringing. Throw in some motorcycles for shits and giggles.

My job was distraction driver. If the police started following the target vehicle, my job was to stop them. Your imaginations won’t be far off the reality.

Why did I do all of this? Because the goal was to build a legitimate empire, and that requires seed money. We were probably 70% there when it fell apart. Too much use of copious free drugs, plod were thoroughly fed up because they couldn’t prove anything (they knew though!) and competition from people who believed we were taking stuff on their turf

I don’t drive like this nowadays. It’s been a decade plus since I did a J-turn, and about three years since I last did a handbrake turn. I do still travel swiftly on quiet country lanes but other than that, I just waft along now.

Never been caught in or on a vehicle yet for what it’s worth.

Edit. The only reason I didn’t go to prison was because it was my first time in front of a court. I had four figure fines and three years probation. Would have gotten less, but that’s a story for another day

Apart from shunting one across a farm yard once, I haven’t driven one. It came about during a long session with a group of miscreants into similar things as me. You need mass, but not so much that you have no performance. Other factors include toughness of both drivetrain and body. Bus was the general consensus after six odd hours of heated argument.

Good old Top Gear proved it about 15 years ago when they let touring car drivers loose on them.

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#10

LocalYokel, that’s a fascinating post, and thank you for your honesty.

There’s loads of questions I’d like to ask you. Unfortunately I’ve had one of those days and am about to crash out for the night.

But my two most pertinent questions would be: we’ve just cross-posted and I was banging on about weapons in America: what weapons, if any, did you and your associates carry during your life of crime?

And secondly, where are you at now? This is particularly so with the present ‘cost of living crisis’, when people can no longer afford to heat and eat and many must be driven to crime in order to survive.

I feel these are important questions, and maybe you might start a separate thread about it, instead of it being buried down here amongst my ramblings about vehicle chases in California.

#11

Weapons. Am not impressed with armed police. I’d have shat broken glass in your situation. It’s militarisation is simply for keeping us down.

  1. Weapons. Had a few sorn offs in the group. Good enough. More general day to day was a cricket bat with stumps and ball (so it is not an offensive weapon). I carried a knife a few times, but usually when I had s four figure sum shoved in my pants.

I have no issues with carrying a weapon. Part of my introduction was to watch many films. Scum was one of them. Very bleak. One of your socks and a can of pop will save you. Chances are they’ll have a weapon too.

“Where’s ya tool?”
“What tool?”
“This fucking tool!” (Pop)

Young Ray Winston for the record.

  1. I’m reluctant to say exactly how I survive, given man’s propensity to drag others down. But we’re okay, and will continue to be until the music stops. I’m an anomaly, and I’m very aware. Almost everyone I know is struggling. We will help in whatever way we can. Take my mother in next week. She has dementia. Roughly 5.5 out of 7. She’s starting to forget who I am. Focus in the positive and it’s hilarious. We took her for Sunday lunch a couple of weeks ago and later that evening when I dropped her off, mum told me about dinner with my wife and a strange man. I enquired to where I was, “No idea”

When mum checks out (hopefully a while yet cos I stopped her getting the jabs), am an only child. I can either buy the council house we live in (that’s a shit moral dilemma),;or burn it fast on fun/frolics.

Ideas so far are either a large caravan to see the UK or a canal boat for the same reason. Have tiny experience with boats…

I’m not gonna do it, but I’ve thought of a couple of cars I fancy… Roush Mustang (second hand car + parts = roughly £50k (fuel puts me off. It’ll barely move across the year) or an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio (Ferrari engine…) Same price.

To be honest, if I do get one, it’ll either be a Focus RS or that new Toyota Yaris GR. They’ll be going in the garage as retirement investments, so that means no fun for me. But, seeing that a Sierra RS500 Cosworth recently went for £600k!..(it was basically new still)

Edit. Whilst I will not be participating, crime is going to rise and sadly this means we will all be affected. At most, our defences against this will only be deterrents. Thieves, like most of us like an easy life. Make something hard enough and they’ll go elsewhere. But if they want your stuff (for whatever reason), they will take it.

My biggest fear is crackheads/junkies. Unpredictable bastards and usually very desperate.

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#12

That brief Ray Winston moment burned into my memory too. Never forget it. It encapsulates in a stark dramatic moment why I think that in a straight face-down between war-band leaders and multibillionaires, the tooled up mob will just about always prevail. Hired guards are no match for dedicated war-bands following a charismatic leader. I imagine you get what I mean, L. :slight_smile:

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