With lights flashing and siren blaring, the divisional van reached speeds of 150km/h trying to catch a fleeing driver, but he just kept going.The officer radioed back to his police station.He was heading out of the town of Morwell, east of Melbourne, and the suspect had just swerved into oncoming traffic on a major freeway.“He’s on the wrong side?” a police shift supervisor radioed back.“Terminate pursuit. All right? Terminate pursuit, please.”He did.But less than 60 seconds later, in a shaky and trembling voice, the officer passed on some grim news: “There’s been a huge accident...”It was a head-on smash.The speeding driver had collided with a family car, killing himself and Jason Govan, a young father on a weekend holiday with his wife, Rhiannon, who suffered serious injuries.On January 21, Mr Govan had become the fifth fatality linked to a Victorian police chase in only a two-month period – compared to no fatalities in 2010.And less than a week after his death, another fleeing driver was chased by police, crashed his car, and died later in a Melbourne hospital, bringing the toll from police pursuits to six.The number of police chases is on the rise, too, up to 716 in 2011 from 658 the year before.In Ballarat, where the couple had lived, the reaction has been a mix of outrage, sorrow, and confusion.And a debate is now spinning on what can be done differently to stop innocent road users such as Mr Govan from becoming collateral damage of another high-speed pursuit.Victoria’s senior police train all frontline officers to stop chasing suspects in their vehicles when there is an unacceptable risk to public safety.But victims and experts argue that advice is still flawed, considering the recent spate of fatalities, while other states have enacted what are seen as far tougher pursuit laws and policies.Mr Govan’s sister-in-law, Stacey Daciw, said the family wanted police chases in Victoria banned altogether. “We definitely want the policy changed,” she said last week, saying it was “not worth the risk”.“If a driver decides they are not going to stop... (then) they’re not going to stop until they hit someone or something.”And at Mr Govan’s workplace, colleagues have been questioning why there aren’t harsher penalties for those who flee. “It’s a very hard issue to deal with,” said his boss, Peter Clifton, at Ballarat’s Deutscher Mowers.“The general consensus around here is that the penalties for people who do a runner from police are too low. They just get off too lightly.”In 2010, NSW passed “Skye’s law” in response to the death of a baby girl in a high-speed police chase.Drivers who now flee from NSW officers can face a new charge of aggravated dangerous driving, resulting in a three-year jail term, or up to five for repeat offenders.In passing the legislation, NSW MPs had pointed to Queensland and South Australia as jurisdictions with tougher laws that resulted in a significant drop in the number of pursuits.But Victoria doesn’t have a similar law. Police typically charge offenders with dangerous driving, conduct endangering life or other traffic offences, a police spokeswoman said.Road safety expert John Lambert said the latest research clearly showed that police chases were incredibly dangerous.While only one in 10,000 motorists tries to flee police, he said at least one in 300 pursuits would kill someone, almost one in seven would result in a car crash and one in 20 would cause serious injury.“I can’t understand why the police feel that taking part in any activity that generates deaths is appropriate,” says Mr Lambert.At the least, he said police should ban pursuits that involved minor traffic offences, such as stolen vehicles or speeding fines, and save the high-risk nature of such chases for catching serious offenders such as murder suspects.In 1999, Tasmania effectively banned some kinds of police pursuits, he said. Tasmania’s new policy states that a chase can only occur when there is an obvious and immediate danger to human life.“The principles behind the pursuit policy are that the safety of police, the public and the occupants of the vehicle being pursued is paramount and must be the overriding consideration in the management of any pursuit,” a Tasmanian police spokeswoman said.Victoria Police says it is undertaking an internal review of the current pursuit policy.The issue will also be discussed within the Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency, which could result in a recommendation going back to police forces across the country.But it’s clear there is already some resistance to change among Victorian police members, who have grappled with the issue for years.Commander Trevor Carter said preliminary findings of the ongoing policy review showed officers already struck the right balance.“It has the right checks and balances in it and it’s got the risk assessments that need to be undertaken,” he said last week.The state’s top traffic cop, Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe, has also defended current practice.“There must be a consequence for people who do not stop when requested to by police,” he said.The state opposition is calling on the government to ensure the police review will not be brushed aside and put in the “too hard” basket.“We want this review to critically analyse what will work,” said opposition crime prevention critic Jill Hennessy. “Are there better ways to reduce the prospect of the police being put in circumstances where there is a pursuit?”The next move rests with Premier Ted Baillieu, but he’s expressed hesitation to dive into the complex issue without more information.Mr Baillieu has asked senior police command to come back to him with their thoughts on the latest spate of fatalities. But no deadline has been set for police to respond.– AAP