The poor family! I thought the Police were supposed to abandon a pursuit in the interests of public safety if this sort of thing if likely to happen?
The thing is, no-one knew what was going to happen, and that's the problem, when a pursuit is initiated (and lets be realistic, they DO have to happen otherwise all you have to is travel at 35mph and you'll get away), the problem arises when no strategy is in place to END the pursuit, which needs to be there from the beginning, otherwise all you are doing is driving fast and waiting for something to happen.
Police pursuits are dangerous, to the public, to the (alledged) criminal and for the police. More people die each year in police related pursuits than in shootings, now this is a shocking figure, but they are very different things.
Chasing motorcycles (especially those with no headgear) or children/young drivers in stolen cars will very often be abandoned if the risk outweighs the crime. If they've just held up the local bookmakers with a gun they'd be followed a lot longer than if they'd just hotwired a 20yr old Ford Escort (unless it was mine, then the ends of the Earth aren't far enough away:) )
Pursuit trained drivers can call off the "chase" themselves, although the duty insp can give authority for a pursuit to be made/continue it is the driver who can ultimately say enough is enough and stop (although if he is told to stop and doesn't, THAT can, and will, lead to action being taken against him/her).
When a pursuit is abandoned you don't just slow down and drive normally you have to SHOW that it is over, blues and twos go off and you pull over to the side of the road, and stop.
It's dangerous, it's scary, the adrenalin levels go up, but if criminals run away what are you meant to do ?