Los Angeles’ experience with high-speed chases may lead to some common sense approaches.

How long does it take for the word to get out that high-speed vehicle chases in urban settings often create far more harm than good?

One of the latest cities to bring attention to this issue is Los Angeles. Others dealt with it long ago. Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton has proposed a ban on most furious sorties after a series of serious incidents, including the death of a 4-year-old girl. The new policy would bar officers from chasing people for minor traffic violations, such as missing license plates and broken taillights. What about stop-sign violations and wrong turns?

The police commission found that LAPD pursuits rose to 781 during 2001, from 597 the previous year. At least 60 percent of those cases were for minor offenses.

Pedestrian injuries resulting from chases last year were nearly double those of 1998. There are no figures on damage and injury or death to non-involved motorists.

Recently we have seen film after film of the damage, injury and death which result from vehicle chases all over the nation. Lawrence has had its share of such incidents in the past and at least one fatality has resulted.

LAPD has proposed tracking fleeing suspects by air when feasible. Places such as Kansas City where chase tragedies have struck of late also have air equipment, such as helicopters, to handle these cases.

Media-hungry Los Angeles, however, has become a hotbed of helicopter camera coverage of high-speed chases. Television stations have leaped into the fray to be “first with the most.” All this has become highly competitive and the public is foolish enough to lap up such fare.

The police are the ones who can change all this, even if the media people and the public don’t have good sense about it. Consider, for example, the low-speed pursuit of murder suspect O.J. Simpson in the past. At least nobody was hurt and no wrecks occurred.

It is difficult to understand why it has taken Los Angeles with its sensationalistic tendencies so long to begin to think seriously about how to solve this problem.

There are, to be sure, times when high-speed chases are necessary. But it would not be surprising to find that in at least 90 percent of the cases, lower-key approaches would work just as well and protect the public far better.

Innocent people should not be endangered by reckless miscreants and law enforcement cowboys. Too often they are.