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What’s Up with Car Chases in Los Angeles?
Who among us is not guilty of watching a car chase on the news? You can’t avoid them if you follow any local news networks. In fact, I was getting alerts from the news to tell me the daily car chase was happening live on Facebook.
Car chases are disgustingly terrifying but also intensely captivating. And they seem to be a constant feature of the Los Angeles area.
Los Angeles has a strong culture surrounding cars. Of course, so do a lot of other cities that don’t have daily police pursuits. Is it the live coverage of these pursuits that draws people to run?
Some sources suggest that ratings quadruple when police pursuits air on the news. But there are still a lot of questions. Does live coverage of police pursuits encourage suspects to flee? Does it incite people to gawk or even to get involved? Does it help deter police brutality? Some people say that police pursuit coverage does all of the above.
Now, some pretty serious shit has happened surrounding police pursuit coverage. On July 27, 2007, two helicopters crashed in the air over Phoenix. Four people were killed. In 2012, also in Arizona, Fox News aired a live chase in which a suspect got out of his vehicle and shot himself. The incident was shown live.
