Police Pursuit Driving

Police pursuits, often receiving a lot of media attention, have become a topic of concern and priority for both law enforcement and the communities they serve. They often come with high risks for the well-being of community members and for both the police officers involved in the chase as well as for the fleeing suspects. In this brief, we summarize what is known about police pursuits, from both legal decisions and criminological research. We then discuss the impact of this research on police pursuit policy, court decisions, and media reports. We offer suggestions about the need for more development and use of research, and the challenges for research to be integrated into police policies, training, supervision and accountability systems.

Using the analogy between improper use of firearms and improper pursuit driving, Alpert and Dunham analyze the police car as a potentially dangerous weapon. The book is based upon information gathered over several years in Dade County (Miami), Florida. The data, which includes details of deaths, injuries, and property damage as well as arrests and apprehensions of felony suspects, are presented not to scare the reader, but to assist the public, members of the law enforcement community, and politicians to understand more clearly the role of pursuit in policing and crime control.

Who better to write a book on performance driving than Bob Bondurant? Bob knows fast driving - and he knows how to teach it! Here Bob draws from his highly-regarded law enforcement course on police pursuit and counterterrorist interception driving to fill you in on the pursuit techniques used by today's police officers. Corporal Edwin Sanow illustrates several of Bondurant's techniques with firsthand accounts of actual police pursuit situations.

The Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving near Phoenix, Arizona, is one of the most-respected driving schools in the world and the site of a highly regarded police driving course that is attended by more than 2,000 law enforcement officers each year. (Those who can't attend, incessantly lobby their superiors for the opportunity.) Bondurant and veteran officer and law enforcement driving instructor Ed Sanow illustrate and explain all elements of police and pursuit driving -- the terminology, the car, the road, safety, and Bondurant's methods for controlling weight transfer, following lines through corners, tail-braking, and more. Bondurant is a former F1 driver whose Bob Bondurant on High Performance Driving is now in its fourth edition. Ed Sanow is a driving instructor with the Benton County (Indiana) Sheriff's Office and the author of five MBI titles.