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Hardware Technology

Tagging Devices To Aid In Car Chases 394

kthejoker writes "ABC News is reporting that a company called StarChase has invented a device that will allow police teams to 'tag' cars involved in dangerous chases. The device is the size of a golf ball, can be launched via an air-powered shooter attached to police vehicles, and uses a "highly efficient" glue to stick to cars. From there, it transmits its GPS position to a central monitoring station."
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Tagging Devices To Aid In Car Chases

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  • Wicked Idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @09:28AM (#14645465) Homepage Journal
    Its like the spiderman toys we all used to throw at windows and doors.
    Am I the only one who could never get them to stick to friends backs?
  • by aussie_a ( 778472 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @09:30AM (#14645474) Journal
    Shouldn't Peter Parker own the patent to this device? If so, I wondow what the police will be paying in licensing fees.
  • Car chases? (Score:5, Funny)

    by IncorrigiblePunster ( 952102 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @09:44AM (#14645509)
    I am going to have to disagree with this plan. Yes, it might make running away from the police futile. Yes, car chases will be over more quickly. But I cannot and will not deal with the loss of "World's Wildest Police Chases" because some guy who had a spiderman sticky toy when he was 9 invents a spiderman sticky toy that ends police chases. It's not right.
  • WWSD? (Score:2, Funny)

    by EtherealStrife ( 724374 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @09:47AM (#14645519)
    I guess this answers the age old law enforcement question...

    What Would Spiderman Do?

  • by Blue Mandelbrot ( 951902 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @10:21AM (#14645609)
    When we were kids we used to throw snowballs at passing cars. The kids of tomorrow will be throwing sticky GPS tracking devices at cars.
  • by MECC ( 8478 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @10:25AM (#14645620)
    Won't the cops need spidey senses to use it?
  • Tag people (Score:5, Funny)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @10:27AM (#14645626) Homepage Journal
    If everyone has a tag, then you can just track people directly. Even when they are on foot.

    Wouldnt we be so much safer if the government knew where everyone was , at all times?
  • by Blapto ( 839626 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @10:29AM (#14645634)
    Hello seann.
  • by chigun ( 770799 ) * on Sunday February 05, 2006 @10:29AM (#14645635) Homepage Journal
    More interesting would be the meta-moderation of such a system.
  • by Quizo69 ( 659678 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @10:35AM (#14645649) Homepage
    Let's see now. How about this for a hypothetical situation:

    Criminal/drug dealer type buys expensive car with his ill gotten money. Said person then proceeds to install a GPS TRACKER in his expensive car so if it gets stolen, the company can track it and return it to him and he can take the person who stole it to court???

    I guess this is why criminals continue to get caught - because by the sounds of it, most of them are stupid enough to voluntarily put TRACKING TECHNOLOGY in their own cars. Makes it easy for police to build a social network map of the criminal's associates and market now, doesn't it?

    In reality, SMART criminals would work like this:

    Buy aforementioned expensive car. No need to install expensive tracking device in case it gets stolen, because the thief would soon find themselves trying to play Harry Houdini with concrete slippers encased around their ankles....

    Nice and quiet, no need to involve law enforcement, and everyone ends up happy (well, except for fishfood boy).

    Only in America.... land of the stupid criminal mastermind!
  • by doctormetal ( 62102 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @10:36AM (#14645654)
    I don't see why they don't fashion some sort of electrical disruption device, like those trident things out of "2 Fast, 2 Furious" that the cops just shot into a car. Not only were they effective (unless the drive manages to somehow lean out of the window far enough to reach the back of the car and prize the 2 foot spear out of the bodywork while travelling at 100mph), but they look cool too.

    If the car is driving at a high speed and all electronics stop functioning, the car becomes uncontrollable and a crash will be unavoidable, which almost certainly means someone will die.
  • by Daengbo ( 523424 ) <daengbo&gmail,com> on Sunday February 05, 2006 @10:43AM (#14645671) Homepage Journal
    Sounds like a personal anecdote to me. Hmmmm. A cat, you say?
  • by 70Bang ( 805280 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @10:44AM (#14645674)


    if originality == 0
    {
    Gallagher brought this up years ago as a way to save money with the cops. They'd only have to watch traffic driving around and if someone had|has enough of a quota of "a%%holle" markers, pull them over & write a ticket under the premise "if they're driving [1] that many people mad, there's something wrong with them.
    }

    [1] paronomasia intended.

  • Shoot back (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 05, 2006 @10:59AM (#14645714)
    The cops start shooting at you with anything at all for whatever reason their little pea brain has, that gives you the right to shoot back.

    If you are ever involved in a high speed car chase, common sense should tell you you can't outrun a cop car which has a souped up engine, souped up radiator, bigger gas tank, and when they are interconnected out there with radios and a central dispatch. You can learn alot from the discovery channel.

    This is what you do.

    First, you jam them across the radio band with a white noise generator connected to a transmitter you have wired to your beefed up car electronics system. If you're not driving with one of these, you're a sitting duck for any police action against you. They will pull you over, they will search you, they will plant evidence on you, and you will suddenly find yourself doing 10 to life. Pigs have more access to 'drug evidence' they can plant on you than you could ever imagine. In the end, it comes down to your word against theirs, who do you think a jury will believe. I thought so. The only person who will protect you is you yourself. This is life or death.

    Second, you site your automatic weapons on the son of a ****** that is chasing you from the rear seat while someone else drives. Slow down, let them catch up to you, and then aiming straight for the driver you let him have it with the full clip. If that don't kill the SOB it sure as heck will convince him to back the f off. If you can't get the driver, the tires and the radiator are secondary targets.
    Remember to lead your target.

    If you don't have someone else in the car or a weapon, you have to follow Boella's (sp?) Dicta, which says you should always, always, turn and face your enemy at all times. In this case, the bogie is already on yoru tail. Speed up real fast, get him going real fast with lots of inertia, and then slow down, closing the gap, so Piggie thinks he's being supercop and has you now. Then slam on the brakes real hard so he smashes into your rear end. You will be expecting it, he won't.

    Now most amatuers at this point would speed up and try to run for it again. No, that gives him time to speed up and go back into supercop mode. You do what any motherbear would do protecting her cubs. You turn and fight. That's right, swing your car around, and start ramming the SOB. Forward, backwards, forward, backwards, slam in to him, aiming for the weak points in his combat vehicle.. the driver side door first, the radiator second. Once you've beaten him black and blue, then you can leave. Get a good distance a way, ditch the car out of site, and get yourself a fresh vehicle.

    You will want to return and pick up the original car later, as it may trace back to you with prints, etc. So its good to stash it down some logging road in the back woods.

    Or, you can continue to live in your fairy land, that the police are there to serve and protect, and not a police state out of control, only interested in protecting power and fear and slander upon you. And that a defense lawyer, which should be the most honorable profession on earth, meant to be the last stand against the overwhelming power of the state... hasn't been undermined or sold out yet or has no clue how to really defend anybody in court, irregardless of how expensive they are.

    The only one who will protect your rights are you. You have to fight like a pyscho Indian, and yes, its to the death. Why this is? Because for the last 20 years nobody has stood up for civil rights, and everything that was fought for in World War 2 against fascism and police power has been eroded away and is now gone.

    Oh yeah, and when you stash your beat up car, assuming the "paintball golf ball gps unit" is still attached. Stop by an airport, find a plane that is about to take off, and stash it on somebody's carry on. Or if you can't find that, watch for one of those ninja bikes, and when he stops for gas, tag him with it, he should give them a run for the moeny. Or barring all t
  • by falsified ( 638041 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @11:51AM (#14645907)
    Haven't you ever shot a weapon from your moving car before?
    I swear, people these days...
  • by QuincyDurant ( 943157 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @11:56AM (#14645928)
    ..and I'm not sure they pay to dig the bullet out. I wouldn't worry about your cockamamie paint job.
  • by Mad_Rain ( 674268 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @12:05PM (#14645960) Journal
    The device is the size of a golf ball, can be launched via an air-powered shooter

    Hhhmmm. The only person safe from this device: Tiger Woods! [putfile.com].

    ...well, and Chuck Norris [chucknorrisfacts.com], but that goes without saying.
  • by bradleyland ( 798918 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @12:15PM (#14645993)
    Because surely, standing on the side of the road wailing on your car with a hammer is an effective means of avoiding pursuit.
  • by failedlogic ( 627314 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @12:29PM (#14646052)
    As we've all grown up in the virtual crime world of Grand Theft Auto, as soon as our car gets 'tagged' by law enforcement, you just have to go and steal a new car!
  • by totallygeek ( 263191 ) <sellis@totallygeek.com> on Sunday February 05, 2006 @01:24PM (#14646254) Homepage
    Someone going 100 miles an hour while trying to evade the police is probably going to end up wrapped around the nearest immovable object if you kill their power steering/brakes at the wrong moment.



    The problem? Sounds like a great crime deterrent to me.

  • by LootenPlunder ( 941724 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @02:01PM (#14646401)
    spiderman has these, i think he calls them spidey tracers or something. batman has them too. this is just the next step in the slow transformation of law enforcement officers into super-heros. they can already see in the dark, stop bullets, crash through skylights, and see through walls. in about 10 years fat men with moustaches in skin-tight rubber suits will be known as police officers instead of fetishists.
  • by LootenPlunder ( 941724 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @02:27PM (#14646504)
    tire irons are good for so much more than changing tires. sigh... makes me nostalgic.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 05, 2006 @03:48PM (#14646780)
    I've also found that once you get 5 stars you can steal the warthog. That makes it far more difficult for the police to follow you. Alternatively, you can sneak into the military base and steal the tank; it really cant be called a high-speed chase after that. For some added fun, turn the chase camera on and watch yourself from a static position.

    Oh, sorry, I thought we were talking about GTA.
  • by Flunitrazepam ( 664690 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @04:50PM (#14646977) Journal
    It's like when your sister glues your hand to the car because she caught you with the cat

    finally a metaphor i can relate to

    where'd you grow up, idaho?
  • by jeko ( 179919 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @09:09PM (#14647716)
    Ah, to be 18 again. Good times.

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