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LAPD helicopter tracker with real-time operating costs

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Re: LAPD helicopter tracker with real-time operating costs

#141

Post by toast0 »

sneak wrote: post #132
Aurornis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in Germany. The only times I hear a helicopter is if someone is being rescued or if someones missing. I rarely see them at all. Same for me, but I live in America. The specific location matters a lot. The LA area is more population dense and bigger than might be obvious. To put it in perspective, the GDP of the LA area is about 1/4 as much as the GDP of your entire country.

That’s pretty much only because of Hollywood’s film industry. It isn’t comparable otherwise.

The greater LA area has Hollywood film and television and a lot of music stuff too. It has the 16th and 19th busiest container ports in the world (Los Angeles and Long Beach) [1]. It has the 11th busiest airport by passenger volume [2], and several other airports because that one isn't enough for the area. It has a pretty extensive computer industry. There's a lot of petroleum processing. There's a lot of agriculture. There's some financial services (many cities in the US are bigger in finance, but there's still a lot in the LA area). A pretty good amount of manufacturing. Several top tier universities. It drives a lot of tourism.

And then there's all the GDP that arises from the population itself: construction, healthcare, education, real estate.

If you take away the entertainment industry, it becomes a different place, but there's a lot of economic activity and most of it isn't film and tv and music production.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_container_port...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_pa...

Re: LAPD helicopter tracker with real-time operating costs

#142

Post by zimpenfish »

dylan604 wrote: post #79
BadBadJellyBean wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possible but it seems like the chases are not even a US problem but more a "certain places" problem. I genuinely wonder what the cause of this behavior is.

> I genuinely wonder what the cause of this behavior is. Seriously? It's from people not wanting to be arrested and go to jail. If they get away, perfect. If they don't, well, they were going to jail anyways. Now they have a cool story to tell while in jail. These are not people getting pulled over because they rolled a stop sign. These are people doing dirt, know it, and are willing to try something to avoid getting…

> These are not people getting pulled over because they rolled a stop sign.

Although if you watched "Last Week Tonight" recently (S12 E28, 2025-11-02), Mr Oliver's long segment is about police chases and IIRC he covered more than a couple of cases where people were, in fact, being pulled over / chased for trivial matters which then lead to crashes, deaths, etc.

Re: LAPD helicopter tracker with real-time operating costs

#143

Post by swrobel »

NullCascade wrote: post #96

What is the ROI? During the summer of 2017 Denmark flew hourly surveillance helicopters and military SIGINT aircrafts over Copenhagen to stop Sweden-like gang shootings. It was expensive but worked.

“Sweden-like gang shootings” is not a phrase I expected to come across

Re: LAPD helicopter tracker with real-time operating costs

#144

Post by zimpenfish »

wredcoll wrote: post #118
dylan604 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cause of the behavior (as phrased when asked) is not wanting to go to jail. Asking why people are in situations where they are committing crimes that could land them in jail is a totally different question. Typically, poverty. Also common, addiction.

Except that people around the world generally don't want to go to prison, so why do americans have more high speed chases? (assuming they do in fact have more per capita/car...)

> so why do americans have more high speed chases?

Off the top of my head: 1) US cops are more likely to harass, maim, kill you than most other places (whether you've crimed or not); 2) US legal system seems a little hinky when it comes to certain people; 3) "three strikes" (not sure if that's countrywide or state-level? pretty sure it's still around tho'?) can mean life for three trivial crimes; 4) car-centric country - lots of them and everywhere is designed for cars[0].

[0] Imagine a car chase around London[1] or some other wackily streeted city.

[1] No, the godawful nonsense Hollywood comes up with does not count.

Re: LAPD helicopter tracker with real-time operating costs

#145

Post by zimpenfish »

c420 wrote: post #124
wredcoll wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that people around the world generally don't want to go to prison, so why do americans have more high speed chases? (assuming they do in fact have more per capita/car...)

I'm going to guess... because we can? Police here are willing to chase for almost anything in most jurisdictions. I bet there are restrictions on what constitutes a chasable offense in the rest of the world.

> I bet there are restrictions on what constitutes a chasable offense in the rest of the world.

UK has stuff like [0] which contains a whole bunch of "is it worth it?" considerations. Also if a chase causes a death, the officer(s) can be prosecuted[1] - I suspect the nonsense of "qualified immunity" means there's no risk to a US officer for initiating a chase that ends in death.

[0] https://www.college.police.uk/app/roads-policing/police-purs...

[1] e.g https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58889155

Re: LAPD helicopter tracker with real-time operating costs

#146

Post by bigfatkitten »

dylan604 wrote: post #107
samdoesnothing wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're asking why there's such a large population of people willing to commit crimes and then get into high speed chases.

The cause of the behavior (as phrased when asked) is not wanting to go to jail. Asking why people are in situations where they are committing crimes that could land them in jail is a totally different question. Typically, poverty. Also common, addiction.

> Typically, poverty. Also common, addiction.

The latter is often a result of the former. People self-medicating to escape misery.

Re: LAPD helicopter tracker with real-time operating costs

#147

Post by stickfigure »

ripberge wrote: post #62
BadBadJellyBean wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why do you have so many car chases? That seems like an odd problem. There must be a reason.

I have only been to Germany once, but my assessment was that we have a very different population here.

https://www.google.com/search?q=florida+man

Re: LAPD helicopter tracker with real-time operating costs

#148

Post by nandomrumber »

hollerith wrote: post #108
brian-armstrong wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decided to scratch up some peoples' clear coats for a little science experiment?

Could I have damaged the cars even though I saw no signs of damage? It would be nice if someone else with knowledge would chime in here. If this damages cars, then I want to know, so I can stop doing it in the future.

A flexible fridge magnet is probably fine.

Seems like everyone here is assuming you used a 40lb neodymium magnet you dropped in the dirt first.

I like to assume the best in people.

Re: LAPD helicopter tracker with real-time operating costs

#149

Post by stickfigure »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #17
ripberge wrote: post #3

As someone who lives in central LA and has them circle my neighborhood frequently, actually shaking my house, I think this is awesome. These needs should be filled by drones. Way less noisy, dangerous and expensive.

Down in SD at least, the sheriff's office helicopters serve many purposes. They'll use them for firefighting, hike rescues (often! according to their IG), first responder to an aviation accident, loudly shouting garbled messages through their loudspeaker, etc. There's just enough high-speed/timely crime here that I prefer they use these over drones. There's some extra legal protections built into helicopters that dro…

I work with CHP helicopters as part of our fire district's rescue team. We pull a half dozen people a year off of one of the local trails (sometimes as "recovery"). Most of these are via helicopter. There are two helos for a huge area - Yolo county down to Santa Cruz county. By acreage it's a lot bigger than LA.

My point is, two small helicopters are more than enough to do that job as a side-gig from all the other CHP work they do.

Also, Cal Fire has its own air wing. LAPD helicopters are not equipped for firefighting.

Re: LAPD helicopter tracker with real-time operating costs

#150

Post by closeparen »

zimpenfish wrote: post #142
dylan604 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I genuinely wonder what the cause of this behavior is. Seriously? It's from people not wanting to be arrested and go to jail. If they get away, perfect. If they don't, well, they were going to jail anyways. Now they have a cool story to tell while in jail. These are not people getting pulled over because they rolled a stop sign. These are people doing dirt, know it, and are willing to try something to avoid getting…

> These are not people getting pulled over because they rolled a stop sign. Although if you watched "Last Week Tonight" recently (S12 E28, 2025-11-02), Mr Oliver's long segment is about police chases and IIRC he covered more than a couple of cases where people were, in fact, being pulled over / chased for trivial matters which then lead to crashes, deaths, etc.

These are trivial matters in that the penalties are minor, not that they are optional.
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