What do you think?  Feasible?  Desirable?
 
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Police prepare stunning end for high-speed car chases
BY GILES WHITTELL AND NIGEL HAWKES, The Times, London, 10 Aug 1996
 
It could be the end of the car chase as we know it. With the
automotive equivalent of a stun gun, science fiction is coming to the aid of
law enforcement.  A high-powered electrical device under development at the
Pentagon's Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Maryland, is to be tested by
police and border patrol agents and could be in use by next year.
 
The car stopper works by focusing an intense electromagnetic charge
on the electronic systems that manage most modern engines, disabling them
and paralysing the car. In the jargon of its inventors, the 150 kilovolt
charge is a nemp, or non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse.  Contractors are
bidding to produce a police version.
 
Very precisely directed beams are required, but even then there will
be problems. A pulse powerful enough to disable an engine at any reasonable
range would also be likely to disrupt communications, damage television and
radio sets, disable computers and even stop heart pacemakers. There is also
the danger of loss of control when a car is being driven at high speed.
 
Counter-measures would include using old-fashioned engines with no
electronics, or perhaps surrounding the most delicate components with
shielding. The best might be to get hold of one of the stun guns and use it
to disable pursuing police vehicles.

15 responses total.

This sounds like an attempt to find a usefule application for EMP.
(Electromagnetic Pulse). This really could work, but as you point out it has
these risks.

EMP destroy microelectronics. 
It can be shielded against (expensively).

EMP is a side effect of atmospheric nuclear exposions, too. I think that is
how this destructuve effect was first observed. Of course we are talking about
an alternate way of producing EMP here, not pocket nuclear weapons.  :-)

Shielding against EMP isn't necessarily expensive.  You can do an
amazing amount with little more than aluminum foil.  What it is,
is difficult and tedious.

Considering that all automotive engine systems are designed to be
immune to nearby radio and TV transmitters, radios in the vehicle,
ATC radars and whatnot, designing an electronic zap gun to take
out a vehicle is going to be mighty tough.  You could probably
shield a car quite effectively by screening the windows to shield
electronics in the passenger compartment and connect the hood to
the fenders around the entire edge using finger stock or conductive
foam.  Continuous conductors form a Faraday shield which is largely
impenetrable to electromagnetic anything above a certain critical
frequency.

On the radio I heard of another scheme for stopping high-speed
chases:  harpoons for cars.  I think it was Norwegian.  The
harpoon could be used to pull the vehicle to a stop or pump tear
gas into it.  IF the head broke off, it had a radio transmitter
in it to allow the vehicle to be tracked.

Sounds a lot more workable than stun guns, but nasty if it
happens to harpoon someone in the back seat, eh?

Sounds like people are too concerned with trivialities..

Use a laser sited, comp-locked mingun and just call a cleanup squad fer
christ's sake: if they are gonna flee and have a car chase, then yer
looking at an accident in the offing..

Shred the vehicle, get it on videotape and clean up the mess..

        re #4  Are you for real or are you a Rush Limbaugh bot?

Hm, in principle, it doesn't sound like that bad an idea to me.  In practice,
though, I'd be concerned about potential other passengers, who might not 
approve of fleeing from police.  Of course, you'd want a clear shot nowhere
near other people/cars, and you'd want to make sure it isn't just a case of
a motorist's brakes not working or their being oblivious to the pursuit.

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And much less collateral damage, too.  I like it!

The only trick is to correctly assume where the car is going next.  What if
they veer off down an alley or something?

Generally they have to slow down for the turns. ;-)

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BTW, does the "Chinese yo-yo" sound like the STD's in "Snow Crash" to
anyone besides me?

re: 12 
        Yeah...

RE #10 -- Yes, they do, but you still have to anticipate that they're turning
there, and then get someone in position ahead of them, meanig that that person
has to be going faster.  It's all split-second timing, which is difficult in
a cat and mouse chase.  The only scenario I can see it working in is on a
freeway, where you have many miles of straightaway and you can position people
at upcoming exits.  A highway would work too, but in-town chases just seem
to involved for this.

Who has the speed advantage, crook at 90 MPH or radio at 670,615,200 MPH? ;-)

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