quote:
Anytime there is a big car chase scene with multiple wrecks and speeding through stoplights with cross traffic I think about how I've never seen anything like that in real life and how is that such a common scene in movies

I was part of one of those in downtown Denver about 10:30 at night. I was chasing after someone who had just hit and run in an intersection, broadsiding a young couple in the car right in front of me, plowing through a chain link commercial fence, then backed out and drug part of the fence and took off, dragging that fence with him, sparks flying everywhere. I took off after him, and called 911, and was giving the street intersections and descriptions so they could get this guy. He was running red lights, going the wrong way on one way streets, and I was staying right behind him. Never thought to to look in my rear view mirror. We finally got to a street where it was a one way, people were on each side on the sidewalks and all lanes were blocked at the stoplight. He had to stop. I stopped about 40 yards behind him and suddenly these black sedans go past me on each side, tires screeching and smoking to a stop behind and to each side of the guy. Men in suits surrounded the car with guns drawn and I'm on the phone with the police, "are these your guys?" I put my car in reverse, but then another stops behind me and turns on his flashing police lights.

A guy in a suit taps on the window and asks me to get out. I looked forward and the driver of the car I was chasing is on the ground and they're cuffing him. The suited guy is talking into a hand held radio, then he looks at me and says, "Holy shite, nice driving. We couldn't catch up to you."

Turned out they were all federal agents who were in Denver for the Timothy McVeigh trial, the OKC bomber. They were in a restaurant on the corner, saw it happen out the window and ran out to their cars to give chase right behind me and the hit & run guy, who, of course, turned out to be an illegal alien. That was an interesting night. The poor couple though, the driver (husband) was hurt pretty bad and taken to the hospital. That's something you never see from all those movie chases. The real world trauma it puts people through from the accidents those car chases cause.