No doubt there is much to be said for bringing high-speed chases to an end quicker, and especially before the speeder can get off the highway and go speeding through city streets, endangering both other motorists and pedestrians.
But the only way of ending high-speed chases sooner that many critics seem to favor is by letting the reckless drivers get away.
Some of these high-speed chases on a highway might be brought to a quicker end before reaching a populated area, if the police were freer to use force, instead of being hemmed in on all sides by restrictive regulations.
We are not talking about using force against someone who just happens to exceed the speed limit. We are talking about people who refuse to pull over and speed up to try to outrun the police, in utter disregard of the dangers they are creating for others.
When there is a police helicopter overhead, a shot straight down would have little chance of hitting some innocent bystander. Maybe the speeder is just someone out joy-riding but that does not make a reckless driver any less dangerous.
Moreover, this would not have to happen more than a few times before leading the police on a high-speed chase would lose a lot of its attractions -- and some of those hundreds of innocent lives lost every year as a result of high-speed chases could be saved.
Maybe if the courts would put some heavy jail time on people who go speeding away from the police, that might stop some of them. But they have to be stopped, one way or the other.