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App Alerts Drivers and Bystanders to Police Chase

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It’s not every day you think about being near or even involved in a police chase when you get behind the wheel of your car, but it’s a possibility, a very scary, dangerous possibility.


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To help prevent drivers and pedestrians who are inadvertently involved or find themselves in the vicinity of a police chase from getting hurt, Tim Morgan, a former law enforcement professional and Pickens County South Carolina Assistant Sheriff, developed the app, PursuitAlert. The app is free to the public and sends out alerts to app users who are within a three mile-radius of a police chase. When the danger has subsided or changed, the app will send out a notification.

“More than 5,000 bystanders and passengers have been killed in police car chases since 1979, and tens of thousands more were injured as officers repeatedly pursued drivers at high speeds and in hazardous conditions, often for minor infractions,” according to a USA Today analysis cited by USA Today writer Thomas Frank. “The bystanders and passengers in chased cars account for nearly half of all people killed in police pursuits from 1979 through 2013, USA Today found. Most bystanders were killed in their own cars by a fleeing driver.”


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The app is designed not only to safeguard the public but also law enforcement officials.

“We can now alert out citizens when they enter an area of a high-speed pursuit. That not only improves their safety but increases the safety of our officers as well,” said Oconee County South Carolina Sheriff Mike Crenshaw on PursuitAlert.com.

See how PursuitAlert works below:

News Source: PursuitAlert, USA Today