In Wisconsin, and a majority of other states, fleeing an officer is an unclassified felony with a maximum sentence of three years if convicted. Case law is well established.
Stat. § 346.04(3) into three parts, each expressing a distinct thought or idea:
(1) No operator of a vehicle, after having received a visual or audible signal from a traffic officer, or marked police vehicle,
(2) shall knowingly flee or attempt to elude any traffic officer,
(3) by wilful or wanton disregard of such signal so as to interfere with or endanger the operation of the police vehicle, or the traffic.
As an alternative to proving that a driver attempted to elude a traffic officer "by wilful or wanton disregard of such signal so as to interfere with or endanger" other vehicles or persons, the State may show that the driver either increased the speed of his vehicle and/or extinguished its lights "in an attempt to elude or flee."
There are 250,000 police pursuits annually nationwide. Each year, about 500 deaths occur in speed pursuits; an average of one death a day during a high speed pursuit. At 100 MPH, the impact of a vehicle crash is comparable to a 30-story drop of a 2,000 pound object. Overall, 57,000 persons are killed or severely injured annually in the United States alone. One in four pursuits result in a crash; the majority of high speed drivers are males 18 to 25 years old; chases have lasted from one minute to several hours; covered a space of 100 yards to 200 miles. The highest incidents of high speed chases and fatalities occur in metro Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Houston and Chicago. Los Angeles recorded 7,000 police pursuits; 1,200 injuries to innocent victims; another 980 injuries to police officers in the latest annual FBI statistics. Los Angeles has one deadly pursuit every 4 1/2 hours; resulting in 1,000 deaths and injuries a year. One-third of all high speed chases deaths are innocent bystanders. About 10 percent of high speed chases are begun by felons while the vast majority begin from a simple traffic stop for a minor infraction.
