High speed PIT maneuver in Arkansas

[OlongJohnson]

Are most police cars reinforced with roll bars beyond what is standard factory safety measurements. In general is it policy that LEO wear their seat belts? To go airborne and ambulate out of the hospital is quite a feat.

The interior padding is an integral and essential element of crash safety in a modern vehicle. Adding a roll bar or cage defeats that function, and makes the vehicle dramatically more dangerous in almost all crashes if the rest of the safety systems are not reengineered to work with the bars in the car. Doing so generally makes the car unusable as anything but a competition vehicle.

[BehindBlueI's]

Are most police cars reinforced with roll bars beyond what is standard factory safety measurements. In general is it policy that LEO wear their seat belts? To go airborne and ambulate out of the hospital is quite a feat.

Seat belts, yes. Even when I came on, it was already quite accepted in the culture to wear your seat belt by most officers. Put it on, leave it on until a block or two out from the run. Reinforcements, no, other than whatever might be incidental from a prisoner cage, etc.

My guess is the suspect was veering into oncoming traffic to increase the risk to the motoring public hoping the PD would call the pursuit. I would have obliged him, personally, as the risk was more then I'm willing to assume over a traffic infraction as the initial reason for the pursuit.

[Wingate's Hairbrush]

The current term is TVI: Tactical Vehicle Intervention, not PIT.

I've seen it and done it at high speeds without incident. The problem was a poorly executed maneuver, not the maneuver itself.

Where do you think this one went wrong?

[John Hearne]

This is speculation but... When you PIT a car you are interfacing with the smooth quarter panel area. When you look at a truck, the rear bumper wraps around just a bit and creates a gap. It looks like a two fold problem. He should have been a little further forward before he pushed and I suspect the wraps on his PIT bars caught in that gap around the rear bumper.

I believe you could safely (for the officer) execute a PIT but you wouldn’t have any margin of error.

[jd950]

The current term is TVI: Tactical Vehicle Intervention, not PIT.

I am an old guy so help me out here - why did we have to rename it? Please tell me it wasn't just so we use the word tactical...

Personally, I think the technique becomes more dangerous as speeds increase much above about 50 and once you are moving at truly high speed, the risk of someone getting killed becomes pretty high. I can see that the risk is warranted under the right circumstances, but as I understand it, this was over a red light violation. I would hate to have some young trooper or a bystander killed for such a thing. Frankly, few agencies in my jurisdiction would have permitted this chase or at least would have stopped it at some point.

[Trooper224]

Where do you think this one went wrong?

A properly executed TVI involves finesse instead of brute force. All that's required is relatively minor contact with the last few inches of the quarter panel and your vehicle, then a steady push and physics takes over. You don't ram the vehicle, you push it. I had trouble applying the required finesse during training and quickly earned the nickname of "hammer". Maintaining your vehicles speed is also critical. The Trooper got too far up on the vehicle before attempting contact and he rammed instead of pushing. He also didn't maintain his speed during the maneuver. All of which resulted in what you see here. I'm not really criticizing the young man, it's all too easy to do, but those are the mechanics.

I won't speak to the decision to TVI here, I don't know the details on what made it necessary or desirable. I'm just relating the mechanics of the manuver.

[Trooper224]

I am an old guy so help me out here - why did we have to rename it? Please tell me it wasn't just so we use the word tactical...

Personally, I think the technique becomes more dangerous as speeds increase much above about 50 and once you are moving at truly high speed, the risk of someone getting killed becomes pretty high. I can see that the risk is warranted under the right circumstances, but as I understand it, this was over a red light violation. I would hate to have some young trooper or a bystander killed for such a thing. Frankly, few agencies in my jurisdiction would have permitted this chase or at least would have stopped it at some point.

When that changed I don't know. When my old agency first trained on it it was called PIT. We trained, they then decided it had too much liability involved and it was shelved . Some years later we get on board and it's now TVI. Who knows.

I'm not recommending folks go out and TVI as a response to everything. I'm not going to speak on the validity in this situation because I don't know the particulars. All I'm saying is, I've done it on numerous occasions at various speeds and it's a viable tactic. I agree that lower than 50 and it's a waste of time for the most part, at excessive speeds the risk factor goes up. During the latter you need a pretty strong articulatable reason why you're resorting to it. The fastest speed i've used it at was 103. Yes, people died and given the totality of the circumstances that was the best outcome. A partner and I were once in a pursuit after which my Lieutenant wanted to know why we didn't TVi at a certain point. As I told him, at that point we were doing well over a 100 on a narrow county road, with heavy trees right up to the roads edge. If we'd tried it we all would have gone ass over tea kettle, there simply wasn't room for it, so it's not a catch all tactic. I'm merely commenting on the executed technique, which was lacking.

[Lester Polfus]

A quote from one of my EVOC instructors has stuck in my head for a long time:

"If you go twice as fast, things are ten times more likely to go wrong."

[mmc45414]

All that's required is relatively minor contact with the last few inches of the quarter panel and your vehicle
The Trooper got too far up on the vehicle before attempting contact and he rammed instead of pushing.
I'm not really criticizing the young man, it's all too easy to do, but those are the mechanics.

As mentioned it was also a car vs. truck matchup, and the right rear primary drive wheel drove right up and over the hood of the trooper's car. Had it been a car, especially a FWD one, probably nothing would have flipped and nothing would have gone airborne. Game of inches we get to rewind and replay.

ETA: This reminds me of how violently things happen when open wheel race cars collide. This wasn't the video image that was in my mind, but the crash where Gilles Villeneuve (Indy car driver Jacques father) was killed. When the drive wheels start driving up instead of forward it is NFG.
https://youtu.be/QTD_xp_P8T4

[TGS]

When that changed I don't know. When my old agency first trained on it it was called PIT. We trained, they then decided it had too much liability involved and it was shelved . Some years later we get on board and it's now TVI. Who knows.

It's whatever a given agency wants to call it. PIT is still a correct, commonly used and accepted term. Just because some agency calls it a TVI doesn't mean people need to be corrected because they refer to it as a PIT.