You may have noticed that every so often, I write here about TV coverage of high-speed car chases. I'm not sure why I find them interesting. It might be the odd mental state being displayed by someone who flees from police despite the fact that there always seems to be about a 98% chance of being caught and/or involved in a car crash. (And — oh, yeah — they sometimes wind up getting shot, too. Like there weren't enough other good reasons to not try it.) I may also be fascinated by the general cluelessness of local news anchors who have to ad-lib, sometimes for an hour or so at a time, without benefit of very many facts to impart.
It's also kind of fun to see something on your TV and you have no idea just how and when it's going to end. I mean, you can pretty much bet it's going to end badly for the guy being chased…but how bad? And how and where will it happen? And will any innocent people be hurt in the process? I love moments when what's on my television is completely out of human control.
Oddly enough, I don't like those World's Wildest Police Videos shows that make up about half the schedule of Spike TV. They're phony with their precision editing and phony soundtracks. Do people even notice that it doesn't matter which state or even country the pursuit is in, it's still the same helicopter reporter covering it? And that there's the same annoying sound effects track of police sirens and tire squeals and crash sounds even though there was no microphone at the actual chase that could have recorded the noises?
But I sometimes get hooked watching the real things, especially when they occur on streets I know. If you're so inclined, I'll tell you about a huge online library of video from Southern California police pursuits. It starts on this page of the website of KCBS and KCAL, which are channels 2 and 9, and which share a common news crew. Most of what they have there are edited reports from the local news but they also have "web extras," which are usually long and untrimmed. Some of them are the raw footage that the copter fed back to the newsroom even when the anchors weren't chiming in with their comments.
This may not interest you in the slightest. But if it does, you'll waste quite a lot of time over on that site watching crazed drivers and hearing about P.I.T. maneuvers and spike strips.