Florida Highway Patrol Cruiser Hits 142 MPH In High-Speed Chase, Promptly Catches On Fire

A Florida police officer was involved in a high-speed chase earlier this year, which ended in an unplanned bonfire on the side of a highway.

As reported by Jalopnik, the highway patrol officer noticed a Toyota Rav 4 driving at 90 mph in the opposite direction. For some reason, he decided it was worth chasing the driver down, likely knowing he himself would have to drive recklessly in order to do so.

He made a U-turn over the center median, casually saying “Don’t try this at home, kids,” and then quickly accelerated to catch the Rav 4.

From just over 30 mph when he hit the tar on the other side of the road, the officer accelerated to around 140 mph, weaving in and out of traffic, even using the emergency lane, to catch up to the Rav 4. When he did, he flashed his lights to pull the driver over, and both cars pull off onto the dry grass in the center median.

Unfortunately, this was where things went horribly wrong for the cop. With his car running hot from the sudden acceleration to 140 mph, he suddenly realized there was smoke coming up from the vehicle.

“It smells like smoke,” he eloquently observes, before pulling the car back slightly.

It was at this point that he noticed that some of the dry grass he had stopped on had caught fire. As he pulled a fire extinguisher from the car, more and more smoke started to rise up from it, until flames appeared to engulf the vehicle.

While the car goes up in flames, the officer is having a hard time operating the fire extinguisher, which, let’s be real, is not going to put out the inferno that was once his squad car.

As a result of the unfolding disaster, the cop ends up telling the driver of the Rav 4 that seems to have been the cause of this entire mess to “go, just go,” realizing that his high-speed chase was very definitely not worth it, causing more trouble than a driver going over the speed limit.

At the end of the day, the police officer’s actions in his attempt to catch the speeder had far more dangerous consequences, with his car, with his keys, computer, and a lot of Glock ammunition. The officer went to all that trouble to catch a driver who he had to let go anyway and lost a number of his possessions — and likely a fair bit of his dignity — in the process.