Opinion ID: 1752570
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Additional Policy Concerns Underlying the Need/Risk Test

Text: In Chambers, Wadewitz, and Clark, we recognized the importance of energetic law enforcement, but we also had to balance an important countervailing public-policy concern: the inherent risks that high-speed driving poses to those utilizing public streets and highways. [1] To better protect bystanders or other innocent parties in a high-speed pursuit situation, Chambers required a police officer to consider both the need to immediately apprehend a suspect and the risk posed to the general public. Chambers, 883 S.W.2d at 656. To ensure that an officer's consideration was more than merely pro forma, Wadewitz went one step further by requiring the officer to particularly and meaningfully balance the need for police intervention in a given case against the countervailing public-safety concerns. Wadewitz, 951 S.W.2d at 467; see Clark, 38 S.W.3d at 586 (applying Wadewitz factors to an officer's high-speed emergency response because a risk to the general public is present to some degree in every police pursuit). Thus, the particularized need/risk factors were crafted in an attempt to tailor a test that would better weigh the risks that high-speed chases and responses pose to the general public.