A Tale of Two High Speed Chases

 I was running an errand west of town along a seldom used two lane blacktop road when off in the distance I saw the lights of a police cruiser on and coming towards me. As we are supposed to do, I pulled off to the shoulder of the road and watched as a small black car going maybe 50 mph with a teenager looking young man nonchalantly driving it pass me by going the opposite direction with the police car close behind with sirens sounding and lights flashing. There were two other vehicles in close proximity following the police car due to the slow speed on a road where traffic usually travels 60 mph. It struck me odd that the young man driving the small black car was so nonchalant and I guess I assumed he was being escorted by the police though now that I think back, the police car would typically be in front in that situation. Regardless, I finished up my errand and 20 minutes later was heading back towards town and right on the outskirt of town, I saw the police vehicles, now it was a two cars and two SUV's, all flashing their lights blocking my lane of traffic. I couldn't really see what was going on ahead and had to wait for about 10 minutes before their was a break in traffic before I could safely swing into the oncoming lane and pass everything. (A side note here. The traffic was very light but oncoming traffic, seeing all the flashing lights would slow down and gawk as they drove by allowing vehicles that had been way behind to catch up to rinse and repeat. The end result was that it took 10 minutes before there was a big enough break in gawkers to get around.) What I saw as I passed by was the small black car, minus the young man and minus and inflated front tire. Not sure if it was shot out, a spike strip had been deployed or blew on its own. The young man may have been sitting in the backseat of one of the vehicles by that time but I couldn't drive and verify that safely so didn't. But this marks the second time I have seen a "high speed" chase in progress and the aftermath.

The first time was when I was around 19 or 20 and was in the process of shuttling my parents vehicle from California to Iowa after dropping them off for a bicycle ride in San Diego. I was with my brother and we were driving somewhere in the plains of eastern Wyoming where it is dead flat and straight for seemingly hundreds of miles in the wee hours of the morning. I was lost in thought and so didn't see the vehicle until it went zooming past me going probably around 120 mph or even faster. I had about as much time to say "holy cow" and check my own speed before about three police cars went flying by going even faster and with their lights and sirens going. They were going so fast that I hadn't heard their sirens until the fraction of a second between the first car going by and looking down at my own speedometer. I was mulling the events over, now high on adrenalin, when I saw the flashing lights appear off on the horizon again. As I approached, I saw the first car overturned in the ditch and two police officers crouched behind the doors of their vehicles with their guns drawn. Needless to say I kept the gas pedal pushed and put some distance between me and the outcome of that situation, whatever way it ended. 

I'll be fine if I never see a third one.