Police Chase Elimination

Eliminating the Need for Such Dangerous Pursuit Chases

High-speed Police chases of criminals can be eliminated nearly completely!
A very simple and inexpensive (well under $5 and maybe under $1) radio receiver can be installed in all new vehicles' computer control systems, tuned to receive complex coded signal messages similar to Internet Credit Card encoded transaction messages.
Only a Police car could send such signals, and those specific messages would have to be provided from the Police Department Office for a specific target vehicle (Make and Model), and that specific message would only have effect for a maximum of one hour. It also only has a range comparable to a garage door opener, less than a city block.
In the same way that most modern vehicles already automatically shut off the engine ignition if the oil pressure drops below a certain level (to preserve the engine), the radio receiver would trigger the same (existing) function, a single wire in the engine computer, to shut the engine of the pursued vehicle off, where it would then roll slowly, safely and peacefully to a stop. No differently than if it had run out of gas or had that low-oil-pressure reaction or if any mechanism had failed in the engine.
Below, we note that a vaguely similar system is being used on trucks hauling Hazmat materials, where a Dispatcher can (allegedly) detect if the truck was getting too close to a school and simply shut off the fuel supply, forcing the Hazmat truck to roll to a stop with a dead engine! Wouldn't that cause the stalled Hazmat truck to stay near the school? Exactly opposite that supposed claim? (I'd really like to see whether that has ever actually occurred, as it sounds more like what a salesperson might have claimed than any actual event that could have been accomplished. My guess is that Hazmat trucks pass close to Schools every day!)

This concept was invented and Engineered by June 1997. This presentation was first placed on the Internet in March 1998.

Public Service
Categories

Self-Sufficiency - Many Suggestions

Environmental Subjects

Scientific Subjects

Advanced Physics

Social Subjects

Religious Subjects

Public Services Home Page

Main Menu

E-mail

High-speed police pursuit chases can be eliminated! A simple and inexpensive solution is available! Any Police car would be able to remotely stall the engine of a specific pursued vehicle, so it just rolls to a stop with a dead engine, as though it ran out of gas. That is far safer than current procedures of high speed chases and ideas like tire rippers which cause the pursued vehicle to go totally out of control at high speed.

Many people are killed every year as a result of high-speed Police pursuit chases. It seems to be getting more common that criminals try to escape rather than submitting to the authority of Police. The number of resultant high-speed chases is on the rise.

Such chases have numerous inherent dangers. Both the suspect vehicle and the Police car(s) regularly go through red traffic signals and stop signs at very high speed. The suspects, the Police in the pursuit vehicles, innocent drivers and pedestrians are all at great risk of injury and death. In addition, a substantial amount of property damage often occurs.

All this danger and damage and injury and death is entirely avoidable! A simple and inexpensive solution is available.

A Remote Engine Stalling Device!

A very simple, small radio receiver would be designed into every vehicle's main computer control circuit chip. This radio receiver would have the function of disconnecting the ignition circuit of the vehicle, effectively turning off the key of the ignition. The car would then just roll to a stop, as though it had run out of gas, and Police could apprehend the suspects.

All modern vehicles already are made with computers that control the operation of the engine. Most even already have ways that automatically shut the engine off if the oil pressure gets too low or the water temperature or oil temperature gets too high, to avoid serious damage to the engine. Therefore, much of the necessary circuitry already exists in every new car and truck!

Actually, many car owners already have virtually the identical system. They have a small "zapper" that they use to lock and unlock the car doors. Those systems even include extensive security features to make sure that no one else could unlock their vehicle! (But this new concept actually has far more sophisticated security coding, so that no computer hacker could ever stall anyone's car! Instead of putting the receiver in the door-lock circuit to actuate it, just put it in the ignition circuit to disconnect it! The proposed device is actually far simpler than the car-door-lock equipment, and it would cost far less in a vehicle.

Actually, even more drivers already have similar Zappers which remotely open their home garage doors! Again, decent security so no one else gets into your house, but rather reliable, AND of short physical range, less than a city block.

Invented in June 1997

To understand the basic concept, imagine taking an absolutely standard, off-the-shelf, automatic garage door opener. Discard the motor and mechanism. Only keep the hand-held "zapper" transmitter and the radio receiver from the opener assembly. Instead of having the receiver actuate the motor of the garage door opener, just put it in a vehicle and connect it to an existing wire of any normal vehicle's computer. That's it!

Could anything be much simpler?

If the hand-held zapper is within a few hundred feet of the vehicle, pressing the button simply shuts off the ignition to the engine.

Hopefully, it is clear from this example just how simple and inexpensive and proven the necessary technologies are. The vehicle portion (the receiver) could be manufactured and installed in all new vehicles for well under $5 per vehicle, probably under $1. The Police end of it (the transmitter or zapper) is also clearly very simple and inexpensive, being only slightly more complex than the millions of zappers that now open people's garage doors. Best of all, no new technology is necessary, so no enormous expense or time would be involved in applying this system.

The actual system would be virtually identical to the garage door opener technology described. Police might want the transmitter to be slightly more powerful so the effective range would be a thousand feet instead of a couple hundred. Simple. As dependable and foolproof as the proven performance of millions of automated garage doors!

In addition, there are several additional simple features that should be added to that basic system. A coded signal should be sent from the Police car to the vehicle, so he doesn't stop all vehicles' engines in the vicinity! But garage door openers have had that technology for many years, so only your zapper can open your garage door and burglars couldn't get into your house! The coded signal should therefore be different for various Makes (and Models) of vehicles. That way, all drivers of different Make/Model cars would be unaffected and their vehicles would run perfectly.

In addition, in the event that some criminal would ever get access to such a Police transmitter (or make his own), the coded signal should be both "secure" and time-variable. Again, these technologies already exist, in Internet processing of credit card transactions. Finally, to ensure that some rogue Officer would not get carried away and start using this system to stop normal traffic violators, a police car would not normally have this capability. On request by an Officer, the Department would radio him the current signal coding for a particular Make / Model of vehicle, which would expire an hour later.

These are each very simple and inexpensive additions to the basic system, and well worth the trouble for the safeguards they provide.

Here are some features of this system:

The radio receiver circuit, which could even be designed to be within each new vehicle's computer chip, would include a secure link, similar to the SSL (or similar) security protocols in Internet financial transactions. The public key and the private key and certificate authorities, could be used in an almost identical manner. This should eliminate any use of this system other than by Police. No criminal could ever randomly stall the engines of innocent victims.
The radio receiver would have short effective range, only sensitive enough to respond to a Police transmitting signal that was within a few hundred feet.
The procedure to activate this receiver would require authorization for each individual instance of its use. Upon this authorization, the public and private electronic "keys" necessary to activate the receiver would be transmitted to the Police car on their normal radio. The necessary coding would then simply go into the "zapper". This procedure is desirable to eliminate the possibility of a criminal ever getting access to a transmitter to stop victims' cars for crimes, and to ensure that individual Police officers did not use this capability any more than absolutely necessary.
Each time the procedure was used, an internal Police report would have to be filed, just as when an Officer discharges a weapon. Again, this is a control so that exuberant Officers did not excessively use this capability for normal traffic arrests.
Each Make and Model of vehicle (and possibly year) would have a unique public (electronic) key embedded in its receiver circuit. This would eliminate a long delay while an exact private key was located to match a specific license plate number, which could have been changed anyway. As long as the pursuing Officer could identify the Make and Model (and possibly year) of the vehicle being pursued, the correct public key for that vehicle would be quickly accessible, without any need for confirming license plate and registration information.
Each vehicle's radio receiver would have its own internal calendar and clock. The hour and date would be used by the radio analysis circuitry in creating it's decryption key. This means that this key would change each day and each hour. In the remote possibility of a criminal ever obtaining a Police transmitter for this system and somehow getting access to the private key (for that Make and Model of vehicle), its effectiveness at stopping vehicles would expire quickly. This feature is another safeguard against improper use of this capability by anyone.
Each vehicle's radio receiver (or the Police zapper) should probably have a one- or two-second "latch". In the event that the Officer releases the transmitter button or there is momentary radio interference, the effect would not be interrupted.

Procedure

As soon as a suspect vehicle shows clear evidence of attempting to evade Police attention, the pursuing officer makes a radio request for the stall procedure to be invoked. He has already radioed in the make and model of the suspect vehicle, as well as the license plate number. Hopefully, the Officer has correctly identified the make and model, but even if he didn't, running the tag number should promptly confirm the correct Make and Model.

The Police dispatcher would have available a radio or computer link to a central source for the necessary encryption keys. This is equivalent to an Internet vendor accessing a Credit Card data source for the necessary security key codes. That digital information would be sent to the Officer, probably by his standard Police radio. A simple, inexpensive transmitter (the "zapper" referred to above) installed in the Police car would then locally transmit that encrypted signal, exactly like a garage door zapper.

ALL vehicles within a few hundred feet of the Police car would receive the transmitted signal. Vehicles beyond that distance would be unaffected. Vehicles that were of any other Make or Model would not match the encryption keys, and would therefore be also unaffected.

The suspect vehicle's radio receiver would find that the encryption keys match and would therefore immediately disconnect the ignition of that vehicle. The vehicle would simply roll to a stop, as though it had just run out of gas! No high-speed pursuit would be necessary. The only possibility where a brief high-speed chase could occur would be as an Officer first attempts to stop a suspect vehicle, and it bolts. This procedure takes several seconds to initiate, because of the various bureaucratic safeguards included in it. It is necessary for the (or a) Police car to remain within a few hundred feet of the suspect vehicle until the authorization has been granted and the disabling code transmitted to the Police Officer, at which time he/she can de-activate the ignition of the pursued vehicle. Therefore, even if a high-speed chase begins, it should only be able to be a fraction of a mile in duration, rather than the extended chases that we see on the nightly news.

There is only one very minor negative effect implicit in this system. An occasional innocent nearby driver might experience a temporary mysterious stalling of his engine, IF he happened to have the exact same Make and Model of car as that being pursued (and year, if that feature was used), and IF he happened to be within a few hundred feet of the transmitting Police vehicle. As soon as the chase action moved beyond the few hundred feet range the innocent motorist's vehicle would perform correctly again. If the chase ended very near the innocent motorist's vehicle, as soon as the suspect is apprehended, the transmitter would be shut off, and any affected innocent drivers would be able to drive away. In other words, the worst possible effect on any other motorists could be a brief impression of running out of gas. This is certainly much more desirable than the possibility of being hit by a high-speed vehicle involved in a pursuit chase.

The radio receiver and decryption circuitry would likely only add less than $5 to the cost of a new car or truck. In mass production, the simplicity of the circuitry would likely be far less than that. The low power, simple transmitter in the Police car would likely be well under $100, including the Police radio link. Again, the technology is extremely simple and standard and inexpensive. The Police Station link equipment to the encryption key database, would also likely be under $100. It may be virtually zero if existing Police communications systems were used.

For these modest costs, the benefits would be enormous. Greater public safety. Greater Police personnel safety. Less equipment damage. Less insurance claim payments for injury, death and property damage. Fewer lawsuits from injured parties. A more predictable sequence of the arrest procedure.

A second-order effect would likely eventually be that pursued vehicles would stop even trying to escape, thereby eliminating even brief high-speed chases. If a criminal doesn't see any value in trying to escape, hopefully he would be more prone to submit to authority.

None of this involves any exotic new technology. In fact, all the parts of it have been around for at least a decade!

Here's another very simple example of long existing technology. Imagine a child's radio-controlled airplane. He holds a transmitter and a small receiver is in the model airplane. Now put that transmitter in a Police car and the receiver in a target vehicle. The Officer could flip a switch and shut the engine off! Actually, we only need a "one-channel" system, where most modern model airplanes have multiple channels, so the technology we need is actually that of obsolete RC model airplane transmitters and receivers! As to the security protocol, the modern automatic garage door opener approach would apply. The transmitter and receiver have a unique coding so that other drivers cannot open your garage and house. Again, all this technology has existed for a long time.

The proposed system has a slightly more sophisticated security system, where the necessary message is changed each hour, so a transmitter in criminal hands could not do much harm. But, the proposed system is extremely simple and straightforward and of amazingly low expense.

I suspect one or more auto manufacturers should jump at the chance to get some wonderful public relations by developing and installing such receiver circuits in their vehicles. Remember how much they invested in developing and installing airbags, a FAR more involved and expensive addition to vehicles? This invention requires virtually NO Research & Development, and modifications to production would also be very simple and inexpensive. Very little 're-tooling' costs would be involved either. A manufacturer should probably be able to start installing such receivers within a period of MONTHS.

That first automobile manufacturer that includes this remote ignition shutoff system would be able to develop some very persuasive television ads. They would probably sell a lot of additional cars because people would realize how much that manufacturer cared about public safety. Does P/R get any better than that?

I can imagine a simple, yet impressive demonstration that an automaker could present for the media and authorities. Imagine half a dozen new vehicles of that manufacturer all including standard coded-signal garage door opener receivers (as described above), and all being different body colors (white, black, red, etc). Their drivers are all instructed to start weaving around in a vacant demonstration parking lot. Nearby, in an office, dignitaries and media watch the vehicles through the office windows. A Police Chief is handed a half dozen standard garage door zappers, each brightly colored to match the colors of the cars outside. The Chief is told to stop the red car. Without any prior instruction, he logically presses the red button. Everyone watches as the red car outside safely and calmly rolls to a stop, without damage or collision or excitement. The other cars continue to move around, unaffected. Any zapper the Chief presses causes just that car to stall, and no others. No accidents. No danger to pedestrians, the "apprehended" driver, any of the other drivers, or to any other objects, exists. No injuries, no deaths, no property damage. A calm and controlled arrest procedure.

Such a demonstration would not even need any of the security protocols, and it would impressively demonstrate the concept. You probably have noted that such a demonstration could be accomplished at far less than $1,000 total expense! And the potential for positive Public Relations and additional vehicle sales would be enormous.

If such a manufacturer began unilaterally installing such devices in their vehicles, they would certainly get regular news coverage of their efforts. Such extensive media coverage would certainly be worth many millions of dollars of expensive advertising, and it would be free!

Amazingly enough, there would be yet another media benefit for such a manufacturer. Keeping in mind how simple and inexpensive the Police transmitters and associated equipment is, the manufacturer might consider GIVING the necessary equipment to various Police Departments, one at a time. I would think that a "media event" would occur in each city where this was done, with additional priceless P/R value.

It would be hard to imagine why a manufacturer WOULDN'T immediately want to start installing such devices! The benefits to that first manufacturer would be enormous!

A side benefit of this system could be for car-jacking situations. When a Police Department was notified of a car-jacking, the actual location of the car is often not known. Maybe ALL of their Police cars could send out the stall message for that particular Make and Model of vehicle. Without the Police even knowing where the car was, it would probably soon roll to a stop. The thief would not likely stay with a stalled car, so it should be easily recovered. Any hostages might be left in the abandoned vehicle, and therefore be safe.

Considering that most high-speed pursuits are chasing nearly new vehicles, within two or three years of beginning this program, most of the affected pursued vehicles could have the receivers in them. (I suspect that few high speed pursuits involve cars like a 1983 Ford!)

Each Police Department has been recently struggling with developing an official position on just when their cars should participate in high-speed chases. If this system was in place, such policies may become unnecessary!

This presentation was first invented in June 1997. It was first put on the Internet in March 1998.

This page - - - - is at
This subject presentation was last updated on - -

Additional note:
As noted above, I invented this in the Summer of 1997.

In June 2003, I noticed that the History Channel aired a program on the process of shipping Hazardous Materials. They described that there is now a system that I think they called Qualcom which vaguely resembles my concept. Each truck that is hauling HAZMAT materials is apparently now continuously monitored by a satellite system like GPS. If a truck carrying HAZMAT gets too near a school or other sensitive area, the monitoring facility has the ability to shut off the fuel to the engine of the offending truck. The truck then rolls to a peaceful stop, NOT EVEN ENDANGERING THE HAZMAT MATERIAL INSIDE IT! This is mentioned because several people have been highly critical of my concept in claiming that a pursued vehicle would go out of control if my system shut off the ignition of the vehicle. This HAZMAT system establishes that a vehicle will definitely remain under control if the engine just stops operating. The presentation above makes it clear that my system simply makes the vehicle act as though it had just run out of gas, a rather safe condition that millions of motorists face each year, whether due to actually running out of gas or to a mechanical failure in the engine.

Those people who have intensely criticized me for causing the engine to suddenly seem to have run out of gas, must never have run out of gas themselves! It is a very annoying situation, but completely safe where the vehicle remains completely under control.

Automotive-related presentations in this Domain

Automotive Engine - Physics and Mechanics Physics In an Automotive Engine (Feb 2003)
Automotive Vehicles - Physics Physics In Automobiles and Trucks (April 2006)
SUV Rollover Accidents - Eliminating Them. A method to make SUVs the safest vehicles on the road (late 2005)
Hybrid Vehicle - An Improvement. An Entirely Different Approach to a Hybrid Vehicle (1992, May 2008)
Auto Market Recovery Seems Peculiar Are the auto manufacturers allowing unqualified people to buy vehicles? (late 2010)
Electric Cars, Hybrid Cars, the Physics Battery-Powered, Hybrid Cars and Hydrogen-Powered Vehicles (April 2006)
Hydrogen as a Fuel for Vehicles. (August 2003)
SUV Rollover Accidents and the Physics and Analysis (first presented on the Internet January 2002)
200 mph, Safe, Self-Driving Cars, Trucks, Economical 200 mile per hour TRANS Super-Efficient Transportation System (invented in 1989)
Automotive Engine - A More Efficient Approach Significant Improvement (2001)
Horsepower Gauge for Automotive Applications An inexpensive and accurate Dynamometer for Vehicles (invented around 1966)
Highway Safety by Textured Audible Highway Warnings RoadTalker Ridge Patterns in Highways for Warning Messages (invented in 1995)
Police Chase Elimination A method to eliminate dangerous high-speed police chases (invented in 1997)
Vehicle Diagnostic System Based on Vibrations (invented in 1998)
Tire Pressure Monitor Very accurate and inexpensive (invented in 1995)
Lane Speed Information, for Highway Drivers each lane, every two miles, Real-Time Traffic Conditions (first Internet in 2000)
Daylight Headlights Can Waste Gas Mileage. Driving with your Headlights On (Apr 2002)
Automotive Oil Change Monitor (invented in 1998)
Police Radar and the Physics of how it works (June 1991)
Tires for Automotive Vehicles which are Soft-Riding (first presented on the Internet 1998)
Snow Plow Uses Hydraulics to Compress Snow Into 1/12 as much Ice. Urban Snowplow Truck that Minimizes Snowpiles (invented in 1975)

Link to the Public Services Home Page

index.html

Link to the Public Services Main Menu

index.html

E-mail to: cj@mb-soft.com

C Johnson, Theoretical Physicist, Physics Degree from Univ of Chicago