COTD: Smokey And The Bandit Edition

The extended cops-and-robbers chase that is Smokey and the Bandit was a work of fiction, but do we want even the basic idea of a police chase to be consigned to history?

The truth of the matter is that police officers are people like the rest of us, and they're not as well trained behind the wheel as we are often led to believe. Today's example of a deputy crashing a Tahoe going 119 in a 45 brought rocknroll_jeph to question why we even have police chases.

Seeing how Beijing was in the news yesterday, I feel it's fitting to add this comment- police chases are not allowed in China because of incidents like this in the 80's and 90's. For one thing currently the traffic is so bad that no one could make any distance, but also the police have cameras and a huge force to put up roadblocks to stop anyone fleeing.

Which brings me to the point of why don't we do this in the States? I know that US roads are a lot bigger and spacious, but it seems that a few police with some spike strips or a barricade already in front of a fleeing person would be able to prevent this sort of thing from happening in many cases. I realize there are tons of what if scenarios, I'm not fond of the cameras, but for my own safely, as a law abiding citizen I could deal with it, or maybe it's just because I have driven longer in Beijing than I have in the US and the propaganda has really taken hold in my ideas?

Photo Credit: Universal Pictures