lol no you'd be pitting yourself that way.
you could slam on brakes and maneuver to their rear to pit them, but that probably won't turn out well either.
this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2026
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Lol some Looney Tunes shit
The reason the PIT maneuver works is physics. Cars are typically heavier on the front end, steer from the front, drive from the rear, and the tires are 'stationary' in reference to the ground so they are using the coefficient of static friction rather than the coefficient of kinetic friction (an aside, if you're trying to use a pickup line on an engineer, hit them with the 'ole 'Is there ever a case where the coefficient of kinetic friction is greater than that of static friction? No? Then the hardest part of this conversation is over, eh?').
What that means is everything is in favor of the car using its front end to push the rear end to the side. The front tires are turned in the direction of travel, so they have the static friction still going in a manner less likely to lose it. The rear tires will lose the higher traction from the static friction and suddenly be 'drifting' as they switch to the friction forces using the kinetic friction coefficient, whereas even if the front tires were to momentarily lose traction, they wouldn't have the driving force of the engine keeping them in the lower friction state. The heavier weight from the front is more likely to be able to push the lighter rear.
There is also another factor, slightly less important to the pit maneuver itself (the tactic) and more along the lines of the overall goals of the chasers and the runners (the strategy)... and as a matter of fact, why cops don't typically use the pit maneuver much anymore. Even with the specialized bumpers they once had, damage to the cop's car is pretty typical. Damage to the fleeing car is very likely, and damage to people that might be around is common. Cops nowadays are pretty happy to just chase you, keeping a moderate distance, until you make the mistake and wreck or give up, either on the car and try to flee on foot, or by heading towards what you think is a 'safe' spot. In fact, if they get a helicopter up, you might not even see the cops anymore as they maintain a distance back and turn off lights. That one is pretty rare, but it occasionally happens, and more often than a pit maneuver. Anyway. If you tried to 'reverse pit' them, you'd be slowly taking your one advantage away. They have a lot more cars than you. They can afford to take a little damage if it means slowing you down if you want to start playing the nascar bump game.
I really hope that is true. Every time a police chase is posted, people get enflamed that the cops wont stop the suspect and it enrages me. Its like people dont understand what happens when someone loses control of a 1 ton slab of metal moving at 100 mph. I always say the cops need to get a heli and just drop the chase, because a fleeing suspect is so much more of a danger.
Nearly all road vehicles are front heavy, but FWD has been dominant in the passenger market for 30 years. PIT works fine on FWD, so the drive wheels aren't important. Static vs dynamic friction is not the primary mechanic. In fact, the drag from the skidding rear tires is imparting greater force to the road than the rolling front tires because the front tires are nowhere near the limit of traction at straight, steady speed. Think about this: isn't it hard to do a burnout in most cars? And even if you burn some rubber, it may only be one wheel, or it may only be up to 10 or 20, and it probably only happens in 1st gear. Very few cars can spin the wheels in 2nd, so 3rd-6th is, effectively, impossible. There's plenty of grip left.
It's entirely about the timing of the impact and placement of the steer wheels. A police sedan can PIT an SUV that has more weight on its rear axle than the cruiser's front. A cruiser can pit a Porsche coupe with a rearward weight distribution. A Porsche can PIT another Porsche, as it's effectively seen in GT racing. Losing front traction, as happens to the PITing vehicle, is very manageable because the steer wheels can be turned to regain and maintain control directly. Losing traction in the rear wheels becomes an inverted pendulum situation because the rears are not steerable. But, as you can practice by tapping your e-brake, a rear slide is self-recovering unless it's slid past the tipping point where the vehicle is rotating faster than the sliding rear wheels can drag themselves rearward again. Crossing the tipping point is caused by the PITing car's momentum. I specify tapping the e-brake because a skid in a PIT spin is not simple - the rear wheels are still spinning and are imparting a directional force. A locked rear wheel is a plain skid opposing the direction of travel. A rolling skid means the total force is pointing somewhere between opposite the directional of travel and opposite the direction of the wheel.
There's plenty of failed PIT maneuver videos for taps that are too light (causing the runner to just wiggle), taps that are too brief (runner wiggles), and taps that are too far forward (runner laterally slides but maintains control). It's tricky to pull off correctly and many cops do it wrong, which is another main reason it's banned in many places.
A J-turn is caused by the same physics: imparting a rotational force that overcomes the wheels' grip, past the tipping point. It doesn't even start with a slide. By going fast in reverse and turning the wheel, the mass of the car is sent into a powerful rotation because the steer wheels are at the far end of the rotational center. The rear wheels sometimes don't skid at all at lower speeds. But it still comes down to the same thing: a sideways force causing the "rear" wheels to overtake the "front" wheels
The most common tactic these days is raeio ahead and some other cop throws a tire puncture device in front of your car. You won't go fast with flat tires. They have to be careful not to get other cars but otherwise that is safest for them.
This guy pits.
This possibly the most effective recover from multiple pits I'm aware of in a real chase... And he still gets caught.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rK4lcTZZis
Once the helicopter shows up......
If you start to hit police cars first, that becomes attempted murder which will escalate things
Holy hell that was an amazing recovery a few times!
Your best bet would be to hit the gas as that will transfer weight to the rear and make it less likely that they would successfully be able to spin you. Otherwise you could stand on the brakes as that would put them suddenly ahead of you then you could pit them, although you would risk wrecking and being caught.
Turn into the skid and accelerate is how you're taught to evade/counteract a PIT maneuver.
Drive a train
A semi or multiple rear axles would also help.
Use a car with heavier rear end than the cop car front end.
Tow a boat.
Ive always thought the best way to escape would be to tap the brakes suddenly so the police car slams into the back of the car its chasing just hard enough to damage its radiator. The police car would overheat within a short distance. Would that work?
Best bet is sell whatever car you have and buy a high performance MidRear vehicle. That shifts the center of balance making a PIT much harder/higher risk to the point where they won't try
Wow.... That's now how that works at all.
More weight in the center/rear means it spins faster when the tipping point of the slide is reached, and that tipping point is sooner as the end sliding has more momentum than that of a front engined vehicle.
ROFL, you think they have the forethought to consider car type before attempting a PIT?
I think they have a run book