Police chases are dangerous – and sometimes deadly.

New technology promises to prevent them, but Connecticut lawmakers are putting the brakes on it due to privacy concerns.

If a high-speed chase looks terrifying, imagine being in the middle of one.

“Police chases are extremely dangerous, and there’s a lot of liability,” says Watertown Police Chief Josh Bernegger.

Bernegger is chair of the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association's Traffic Safety Committee. The group is pushing for a safer alternative – a GPS dart launched from a police cruiser that lets officers track a car without chasing it.

“To attempt to avoid the pursuit and still be able to track and locate the offender,” he says.

The manufacturer says it has prevented 10,000 pursuits across the country and recovered $150 million in stolen assets.

Several states, including Texas and Florida, already use the technology. So does the Old Westbury Police Department on Long Island.

“I know that they had 11 stolen vehicles last year and a slight uptick in burglaries," Chief Stewart Cameron told News 12 in March 2023. "And I knew at times, people would run from police."

State lawmakers were considering a one-year pilot program for three police departments to try out GPS tracking darts. But the Legislature’s Transportation Committee let the bipartisan bill die without a vote this week.

Why? Partly because critics aren’t sure the devices are legal. Generally, police need a search warrant to place a GPS tracker on a vehicle.

“There is simply no question that permitting a police officer to launch or place a GPS system onto another vehicle WITHOUT A WARRANT is unconstitutional,” Deborah Del Prete Sullivan, director of the Office of Chief Public Defender, told lawmakers. “Justice Scalia held that attachment of Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device to a vehicle, and subsequent use of that device to monitor vehicle’s movements on public streets, was a search within meaning of Fourth Amendment and therefore required a valid warrant.”

Civil liberties groups oppose the trackers too.

"Expanding police powers in this way not only invites abuse, but deepens the mistrust communities already feel toward law enforcement,” said Chelsea-Infinity Gonzalez, the ACLU of Connecticut’s public policy and advocacy director. “Giving police the authority to launch GPS trackers onto people's cars without a warrant raises serious civil liberties concerns. We should be protecting people's privacy and rights, not creating new avenues for unchecked surveillance.”

But the U.S. Supreme Court has yet weigh in on this specific technology. There may be exceptions if police have probable cause that the car is fleeing a crime.

“In this particular case, it’s an active, exigent case,” argues Bernegger. “Instead of pursuing the vehicle, we’re tagging the vehicle and constantly monitoring its location, as we would, say, air support.”

For lawmakers, it’s a difficult balancing act.

“How can we make our roads safer without eroding individual liberties and rights?” said state Sen. Tony Hwang (R-Fairfield), the top Republican on the Transportation Committee.

Police chases are already rare in Connecticut.

“A police officer may only engage another vehicle in a pursuit if the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that the driver or occupant has committed or is attempting to commit a crime of violence, or there are exigent circumstances that warrant the need to apprehend the suspect in a timely manner because of the potential for harm to the public if the apprehension does not occur,” according to the Police Officer Standards and Training Council policy.

This year, lawmakers rejected a Republican proposal to expand when officers can pursue a fleeing suspect.

“Police can only pursue in instances in which there have been crimes of violence," said Senate GOP leader Stephen Harding (R-Brookfield). “We would change that to give officers more discretion and allow them to pursue in instances where there are crimes of felonies.”

Leading police on a chase is a misdemeanor. The GPS tracking dart bill would have made it a felony, punishable with up to five years in prison.

The legislation would have also made driving with tinted windows a reckless driving offense, which drew strong opposition, too.

“The Office of Chief Public Defender opposes elevating these traditionally minor offenses into offenses subject to sentences involving incarceration,” Del Prete Sullivan wrote.

Lawmakers said that other parts of the bill, including new Highway Safety Corridors with higher fines for traffic violations, could be passed separately this session.