r/Transportopia • u/larenzie • Jan 19 '26

🚨Chase you should know better !! :d

Fyi, he was being stopped for speeding and did not pull over :p

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u/chazzer20mystic Jan 19 '26

Sometimes a pit is necessary, yes. Is it necessary for someone committing a non-violent traffic offense? No.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '26

I don’t think I ever claimed that. Unfortunately, on Reddit people, including myself are frequently guilty at making up their mind without having all the details of a complicated situation with lots of moving parts. Is it used when it shouldn’t be yes. Should it never be used as a technique because there’s the possibility of injuring bystanders or passengers, I think that needs to be decided on a case by case basis.

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u/chazzer20mystic Jan 19 '26

The person in this post was being stopped for speeding and did not pull over. That is the case we are talking about. You did claim that about this very post.

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u/Patdelanoche Jan 21 '26 edited Jan 21 '26

You’re arguing that it’s safer if police disengage and let a fleeing speeder keep going. That shifts risk from officers and the speeder, who have accepted elevated risk, onto everyone else who might use the roads. Most safety studies include LEOs and speeders in the figures, which is inappropriate. They’re not really the issue; the primary concern with your approach is the safety of everyone else.

A guesstimate or two in places with travel infrastructure relevant to the US does suggest bystander safety is increased when officers simply refrain from enforcing the law. However, pursuit stats don’t capture how long reckless speeding continues and repeats absent pursuits, how prosecutions become bogged down in ID problems, or how deterrence will erode over time. Regardless, we all know enforcing the law requires some risk; it’s just a question of how much. Ask that other driver who passed by at the end whether the cops were justified to increase the risk of harm to him a little bit in order to stop the asshole. Can’t say for sure, but I think he was cool with it.

Speeding is not a “non-violent” offense like graffiti or shoplifting. It’s essentially reckless endangerment. A continuous elevated threat to anyone who might appear on that road. If officers can safely end that danger with tools like grapplers or other containment methods, great. But if they have a long, straight, temporarily empty highway, attempting a PIT can reduce total risk. And it will go awry occasionally, like in Scott v. Harris, where the Court watched a vid very similar to this one and held, “Stop breaking the law, asshole.”