Tim Walker’s Chase

After this recent ‘horror weekend’ on New Zealand roads where a number of incidents saw an even higher number of people killed, the call has gone out to the NZ Government to ‘make our roads safer’.

This must make a nice change for New Zealand Police who are continually finding themselves under criticism for, as is the popular phrase, ‘chasing drivers to their death’.

Personally, no idea how the NZ Government is expected to make a few million road users better at using the road, although there has been talk of implementing lower speed restrictions – which of course only works if drivers are willing to adhere to these new limits…

It’s going to be more straightforward to focus on that other one.

It seems that a number of offending drivers, on seeing flashing red and blue lights behind them, on hearing that beseeching wail of sirens, like to try and evade police, thereby endangering the lives of themselves along with other road users, by utilising their car’s, often modified, speed and agility, rather than capitulate and accept responsibility for their, generally idiotic, actions.

The result of this attempted elusion is often death – in many cases of the perpetrator but sometimes – of innocent bystanders.

Whenever one of these aforementioned dick-wads kills him/herself (let’s be fair, it’s typically a him) while trying to outrun police, a massive uproar can usually be heard from not only the dick-wad’s family but from other people, who think that because these dick-wads were young they deserved so much better…

Here’s the thing. If you commit a crime, odds are, the police will chase you. If you try to escape, odds are, you will crash. Once you have crashed, given that your speed will have been far in excess of the recommended limit, odds are, you will die.

This is not the fault of the trailing police car. This is the fault of the leading dick-wad trying to evade the trailing police car.

New Zealand Police have a job to do – to maintain peace and order. If somebody wants to disrupt this ideal, they should be willing to reap the consequences. If they choose to shirk these consequences they effectively remove themselves from the ‘peace and order’ ideal altogether therefore, essentially, it’s every man for himself and, well, anything goes.

Granted, officially, police will invariably maintain they had relinquished the chase prior to the car crashing, but that’s what they have to say; they’re not very well going to admit they pursued the car right until the fiery end.

In order for society to function, every person must abide by a set of regulations. It’s all very well to seek out the thrill of the dissident but be aware, to go against the established rule of society is to relinquish the safety thus support of law providers.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Polly Eastman

Photography by Fie Ray Crush

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