Alright, here we go, time for another edition of car crime. We’ve previously seen a muppet in a BMW M3 wipe out into a traffic stop, a Dollar General Marvin Heemeyer crash a skid steer into a cop car, and hands thrown at a Toyota dealership. Today, let’s watch some dashcam footage of a failed getaway in what local news channel Fox 19 reports was a stolen PT Cruiser.
The chase occurred earlier this month in Franklin, Ohio. Pursuit of a stolen PT Cruiser adds a little levity to things, but it’s still an indictment on the state of a society if someone in it feels the need to (allegedly) steal a PT Cruiser of all things.
You can sense a sort of desperation in the tactics used by the PT Cruiser driver during the pursuit, as every trick in the book is tried to little success. Driving on grass? Check. Cutting through alleyways? Check. Traveling in oncoming lanes? Duh. Do any of these things work? Not really.
Even if a driver is pushing a PT Cruiser as fast as it’ll go, the end result still isn’t that fast. Remember, it’s not outrunning if one unit is glued to the PT Cruiser’s bumper the entire time. So why did this chase last more than 20 minutes? Well, there are at least two good potential answers.
For a substantial stretch of the pursuit, the PT Cruiser is driving primarily on neighborhood streets. Generally, it’s a bad idea to attempt a PIT maneuver if there are houses and driveways in the immediate vicinity. In addition, it’s probably not the best policy to go nuclear right off the rip, so we see the cops waiting for the suspect to make a big mistake before going for the PIT. In this case, the mistake was striking a curb and losing the right front tire.
In the end, police apprehended the suspect while possibly totaling the PT Cruiser due to body damage, and no bystanders seemed to get caught in the chase. At no point was there a substantial likelihood that the PT Cruiser could’ve evaded the pursuing Durangos, no matter what PT Cruiser owners believe on the forums. In Motor Trend testing, a Hemi Durango Pursuit hit zero-to-60 mph in 6.5 seconds. Considering the turbocharged PT Cruiser GT managed a 7.2-second dash in Car And Driver testing, this isn’t even a contest. Anyway, don’t even think about stealing cars, and don’t try to run from the cops in a PT Cruiser. You think this would be common sense, but no. Fuck’s sake.
(Photo credits: Cop Camera USA/YouTube)
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Poor PT Cruiser….it didn’t deserve this 🙁
I’ve been looking for a good explanation of the physics behind a pit maneuver but all I find online is video compilations. Anyone know a good source on it?
You’re essentially pushing the car around it’s axis of rotation. By nosing into a corner and applying force you create a lever with which to do so. For example take a pen and lay it on a table, then try spinning it around in a circle. If you do it closer to the end of the pen it’s easier, because you have a longer lever to apply force to. If you do it closer to the center it becomes harder, because the lever is longer and thus more force is needed.
As for why the technique was employed, most older cars were manuals that would stall or had automatics that would damage themselves if they suddenly started going backwards while in gear. The idea was you’d stall the vehicle or severely damage the transmission by spinning it around a hundred and eighty degrees, and then box the vehicle in.
This whole time I’ve been thinking it had something to do with offsetting the drive wheels from the direction of travel and getting confused about how it works on fwd cars, and now I realize I’ve been completely overthinking it. Thanks!
You can outrun a police Charger and more likely a Durango in a dog slow piece of shit like a PT Cruiser. Top speed doesn’t mean jack shit, breaking line of sight and traveling in a direction to keep that light of sight broken does. The skill ceiling to do so in a PT Cruiser however is so extremely high that the entire run is bordering on a suicide attempt, because you’re accounting for your skills making up for a massive performance gap. It’s likely that with the age of the car it’ll die well before you can even hit that skill ceiling as well, odds of success being even lower in a state that salts the roads because we use way too much salt these days.
The smart thieves go for a Ford Flex or a Honda CR-V. Parts are expensive and they’re way faster than they need to be. Of course, smart thieves would have planned everything beforehand to get the car the hell out of there and hidden in a box truck or a parking garage well before the police had a chance to show up.
You just can’t outrun radio. The entire 20 minute video was probably more than needed. And finally if you are going to steal a car and attempt a getaway be smart steal the cop car.
That Allpar link is busted. I think I know the post you’re referencing too: PT Cruiser out-runs 4 Cop Cars — How ? | Allpar Forums
Sure looks like only one person truly believed that the PT outran those cop cars. The others don’t seem to think so.
Just like they wouldn’t think every police department has Hemi Durango’s. But that’s a different discussion later on.
This is a good example of why “pursuit rated” is a necessary metric. The cop cars outlast the outlaw. There is lots of accel/decel/cornering here that would smoke a standard Durango. I went into some background detail in this piece.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2019/06/the-fastest-cop-car-is-not-a-car/
Way back and outside the statute of limitations a buddy evaded the RCMP in a ‘borrowed’ Dodge Reliant, yep a K-car, they broke off the chase really quickly once he got up to speed, I suspect they weren’t allowed to chase unless the crime involved was major
Remember kids, you might be able to outrun a cop car (although, not with a PTC), but you can’t outrun his Motorola.
If I had a small hatchback with the best engine to ever power the mighty Jeep Wrangler crammed into the engine compartment I would be running from the police also.