By Shawn Henry 
Hold onto your steering wheels, folks. Georgia’s highway chases aren’t just adrenaline-fueled drama—they’re downright deadly. A deep dive into five years of State Patrol records reveals a grim reality: more than half of all cop-led pursuits end in wrecks, leaving trails of mangled metal and shattered lives.
Crunch the numbers from 2019 to 2023, and it’s ugly. Troopers launched 6,760 chases. Then came the carnage. Over 3,400 crashes, nearly 2,000 injured, 63 souls snuffed out. And get this: in 2023 alone, Georgia’s trigger-happy troopers flipped on the blues every single day except two lousy weeks. That’s wild.
Here’s the kicker—most of these chases started over nonsense. Speeding tickets. Seatbelt slackers. Drifting over a line. Petty stuff. Yet somehow, that morphs into a chaos spiral where bystanders pay the price.
Georgia’s playing in a league of its own. Nationally? About 15% of chases go sideways. Here? Over half. Like shooting fish in a barrel, except the fish are minivans with families inside.
What gives? Other states slap rules on pursuits—felonies only, supervisor sign-off—but Georgia? Troopers wing it. Some legal eagles say it’s pure recklessness, like handing out grenades at a fireworks show. Courts are waking up, though, side-eyeing cops who turn a traffic hiccup into someone’s funeral.
Reformers aren’t saying “never chase.” Just maybe… don’t chase everyone? Save it for the real bad guys. But good luck getting state lawmakers to budge before 2026.
Meanwhile, ordinary drivers are stuck playing real-life bumper cars every time a trooper hits the gas. Sure, laws matter—but so do the bodies piling up on Georgia’s asphalt.
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