Would somebody in the know please tell me, what is the point of some testosterone driven cop with a chance to star in his very own “Cops” show charging pell mell up and down our narrow pot-hole riddled streets risking the lives of people?

Or, to put it more politely, police officers knowingly putting the lives of innocent civilians (and themselves), at risk when they conduct high-speed chases.  I forget who said it (if my memory serves me correctly it was an American coroner!), that pursuits of this nature are “the most deadly weapon in the police arsenal.”  Hear Hear.

This topic was brought to the forefront not because a motorcyclist was ‘supposedly’ killed during a police chase earlier this year, but because of another reckless high speed hounding that ended in the smash-up of a cop car by the cricket field a month or so ago. 

Do we even know why the driver was being chased?

Of course we don’t, the matter is still “under investigation” — don’t you just love that line!  So sensitive is this issue that WestStar TV featured Commissioner Kernohan to discuss the matter on Daybreak. I did not catch the Top Gun’s interview, but I suspect he only shot public relations blanks so my views were not likely to change.

Had WestStar taken this prime-time puff piece to a different level and invited Aileen Samuels of the Road Safety Advisory Council on air to give her views, I might have stayed home to watch and turned up late for work.  Let the two Scotts duke it out – brogue and all; now that’s what I call proper prime-time!

My views, you may ask? Total and absolute foolishness is how I describe police chases here – anywhere, anytime … period.

In my opinion there are simply no positives to add to this argument, only negatives.  I don’t care how it’s done or if it is done in other countries, it’s not for Cayman roads. I don’t doubt that there may be compelling arguments (if one is inclined to listen), about whether these chases are justified or not, but the bottom line (for me) is that it matters naught if the driver is being pursued for suspected murder or pitching a piece of chewing gum on the sidewalk, it’s just downright dangerous and irresponsible. 

If the “Pull over, pretty please” method, doesn’t work, let’s go to “Plan Bleedin’ Obvious”: licence plate numbers. 

What are car licence plate numbers for anyway? Where the heck can these errant drivers go anyway – Fort Lauderdale?

What about using police radios and a helicopter to chart the course of fleeing violators? What about good detective work to follow up these leads?  If I were criminally minded, which I’m not, I would be less inclined to do something as stupid as running from the law if I knew the RCIP had an iron bird capable of tracking me down.

Think about this. Recently we’ve had occasion to use the services of Cayman Helicopters for search and rescue, the CNB Bank robbery and more lately, assisting with the fire in East End’s interior forest.

Does that not tell us it’s time Cayman looked at getting a chopper to assist us with various tasks? I just read that the RCIP got a bucket load of money allocated to its department this year.

Perhaps some of this should go towards retaining the services of Cayman Helicopters or getting our own whirly bird.  It makes sense to me that we look into this now, but what makes sense to me often doesn’t make sense to those who can make it happen. 

As usual though, when everyone’s thrown in their tuppence on the topic, it’s probably just going to take a terrible accident, perhaps a couple of gruesome (I’m talking headless torsos here) fatalities to get the message across.

I sincerely hope that when this happens, and it will, the officer at the wheel and the person firing the orders are charged with manslaughter or vehicular homicide.  But the odds of that ever occurring are probably slim to nothing as undoubtedly there’s a dusty moth-eaten page in some law book that says John Public would not win a suit against our RCIP because police have immunity and they cannot be held liable for properly doing their job or some such legalese.

But when all is said and done, even if the ‘guilty’ were to sit it out into infinity at Her Majesty’s  pleasure, or be smacked with a billion dollar fine (that’ll never get paid),  is neither justice, revenge or consolation for anyone maimed or killed.  I have no axe to grind with our esteemed RCIP, but when these ‘Starsky and Hutch’ wanna-bes risk innocent lives, I will morph into one of those public asses that choose to punish the police rather than the actual offenders.

We hear it preached all the time by our Road Safety Council “A vehicle is a deadly weapon”, “Speed Kills”.  Duh!… Are the traffic police listening to their own sermon?  This is not some teensy police boo-boo, it’s sheer insanity of monstrous proportions. Out – out you demons of stupidity.

May wiser heads prevail … soon.