Police Chases Gone Wrong
In the United States, 40% of police road pursuits result in crashes that cause injury and even death for suspects and bystanders.
Read Time: 2 minutes
Published:
- Police car chases threaten public safety.
- Legal restrictions on police chases may reduce injuries and deaths to bystanders.
Screeching tires, blaring sirens, and cars speeding down busy streets have added excitement to TV shows and movies for decades. Well-orchestrated car chases lure the audience into an adrenaline-filled fiction in which no one is truly injured. But the reality behind these glorified spectacles is very different. In the United States, 40% of police road pursuits result in crashes that cause injuries and deaths for suspects and bystanders alike.
Andrew Hendrix and colleagues examined data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Fatality Analysis Reporting System to document circumstances, locations, and other patterns most associated with police pursuit fatalities between 2009 and 2023.
Nearly 5,500 police pursuit crashes resulted in 6,400 deaths during the study period. As the figure shows, fatal crashes are on the rise. The number of people and vehicles involved in police pursuits has also continued to grow over time. These trends may be explained in part by rising urbanization that folds pedestrians and vehicles into complex, overlapping traffic patterns.
The majority of people who died in these police chases were occupants of the involved vehicles. However, the risk to bystanders in other cars, on bikes and motorcycles, walking on the sidewalk, or working in construction zones was alarmingly high. Nearly 80% of all bystanders hit in these crashes died.
Bystander deaths are more common than you may realize. In April 2026, USA Today reported eight police pursuit deaths across three states in less than a week. Anyone on or near a road can fall victim to this hazardous policing practice while simply going about their day-to-day life.
The authors recommend policy reform, such as placing risk-based restrictions on ground pursuits, to curb injuries and deaths. Restrictive policies would bar officers from engaging in risky chases for minor offenses, such as traffic violations, and would only allow pursuits if the danger of a suspect escaping outweighs the community risks of a police chase.
