Query about police chases

 

Just now I watched a police chase on _Disorderly Conduct_ (Spike TV).

A stolen car was being pursued by the California Hwy Patrol and after
the suspect jumps a curb, drives through a gas station and squeezes
between two other vehicles at speed a CHP patrol car finally moves
in and performs the PIT maneuver. The perp's car spins around and
smashes into a another car stopped in the left turn lane.

That could have been ME waiting there. Shit, what if I were sitting
there on a bike. Ouch. Who pays for any injuries and damages
to my vehicle? The narrator says the guy gets charged with car theft
and felony flight, but makes no mention of civil liability.

The suspect probably has no insurance. Would the CHP reimburse me,
considering that one of their officers "caused" the collision?

I wonder if these police are being as careful as possible. Watching
TV and YouTube etc I've seen PIT interventions cause a number
of accidents with innocent bystanders and never a word about
financial compensation.

SQ

 

Makes you wonder why anybody would bother with Lowjack.  Who really wants
their car back after all that?

CS

 


If the car had Lowjack the pursuit would have made no sense.  Just
wait till the car is parked before moving in.

 


Erm, mayhap because stolen cars are rather rarely wrecked in car
chases?

90% of car thefts are either joy-riding kids or professional car
theives. In the first case, the cars are usually abandoned somewhere,
and in the second case the cars are generally taken immediately to
wherever they'll be stripped for parts.

I either case, Lowjack has quite a good record for recovering your
stolen car without a lot of damage, and the more quickly you report it
stolen the better your chances are of getting it back more-or-less
intact.

 


 > The suspect probably has no insurance. Would the CHP reimburse me,

Getting spooked at the thought of riding through Los Angeles on your
motorsickle, are you?

It's not as bad as the TV shows make it out to be. In a county with a
population of nine million, there are going to be police pursuits
every day, but the TV shows pick out the most dramatic chases for
their videos.

Ordinary drivers of the ubiquitous debtor group called "the public"
are required to maintain a minimum amount of public liability and
property damage insurance on their vehicles because they may not have
access to enough funds to pay for damage done even in a minor
accident.

So they join a private pool of citizens who are betting that they
might have an accident and the pool is administered by private
businessmen who are betting that they won't have an accident.

They also buy insurance to pay them back in the case an under-insured
motorist collides with them...

A wealthy driver might be able to post a large cash bond and avoid
paying insurance premiums or he might be so rich as to be "permissably
self-insured."

The CHP doesn't need private insurance on their vehicles because the
State of California has access to the "deep pockets" of the wealthier
citizenry.

The CHP is far beyond the requirement to be "permissably self-insured"
since the State can extract any amount of money from the rich people
of California which a judge will allow.

Whereas a private party involved in an accident which a second private
party would be liable for would make a claim against the second
party's
liability insurance, a claim against the CHP (which is an agency of
the California Department of Motor Vehicles) would begin with a
lawyer's formal letter demanding payment for damages and then it would
progress to a civl lawsuit that would take years to work its way
through the legal system.