This morning I thought I was going to be skittled as I crossed a sidestreet on my way to work…

As I stepped out to cross the sidestreet, one car pulled out of a park heading north on the street and stoped to wait for me to cross… as I did so I head a skreech and Vrrrrooommmmm as a white RX7 shot out of another side street further down and accelerated towards us.

It was accelerating hard, and I started to become nevous that it would stop before hitting the back of the car I was crossing in front of… so with a quick hop I jumped out from in front the stopped car (incase it was hit and went into me), and preceeded to jog across the other side of the road.

As I jogged across the southbound lane I kept my eyes on the white RX7 still accelerating… The front nose of the car was showing some very recent and heavy damage, part of the front was being dragged under the car… something wasn’t right… I started to run out of instinct. The RX7 pulled across onto the wrong side of the road and kept accelerating towards me.

I leapt from the street just in time as the car shot past, it flew straight out of the side street, between me and the parked car, from the wrong side of the street, and shot into the main traffic.

It veered around the corner sideways, skipped between 3 cars in a driving move that was more luck than anything and across on the far side of the road, heading the wrong way into 3 lanes of traffic. Thankfully traffic was light as it careered in the wrong direction.

It hit the Nelson St corner, which is a one way coming down the hill. The lights were red, but this car wasn’t stopping. It shot through the lights (somehow missing everything), and headed the wrong way up the 4 lane, one way, Nelson St.

WTF??? I stood wondering what was going on…

And then I heard the siren. A cop car came flying out of the same side street in persuit. As they approached at full acceleration, it was clear they were unsure which way the RX7 had gone… I pointed down the road and up Nelson, and they waved as they took of down the street. They went straght ahead rather than up the one way Nelson St.

It was clear there was no way a heavy Commodore was every going to catch a sup’d up RX7. It was slow, poor handling, bulky and slightly sensible – vs. a fast, lightweight, nimble sports vehicle with an idiot driving.

Which brings me to the point of this… what should police do in persuits like this?

I know that police often give up in persuits such as this, and I can see why. I would not be surprised to hear on tonights news that the RX7 kills someone – hell, it could easily have been me. But that means the guy gets away…

Or they continue the persuit, and hope that the RX7 runs out of gas, or crashes harmlessly (as they are never going to catch it. Hopefully it doesn’t hurt anyone in the process (naturally I am excluding the driver that almost skittled me in this ‘no harm’ idea). They have a chance of catching the guy, and stopping him before he kills someone, but they also increase the chance that he will kill someone.

Talk about a catch 22.

So prehaps a city wide network of cameras and pop up wheel spikes would work better? Or possibly everycar should have tracking installed as they come out of the factory?

Anyone got any better ideas on what they should do.