Does South Carolina Have a No-Chase Law? Statute, Penalties, Cases

South Carolina has no no-chase law. State statute authorizes officers to pursue fleeing drivers so long as they drive with due regard for public safety, and each law enforcement agency sets its own pursuit policy on top of that baseline. A bill now pending in the General Assembly would, for the first time, impose a uniform statewide standard limiting when any South Carolina officer can begin a chase.

What the Statute Actually Says

The governing law is South Carolina Code 56-5-760, which covers the operation of authorized emergency vehicles. An officer pursuing a suspected lawbreaker may exceed the speed limit, proceed through red lights and stop signs after slowing for safety, and disregard certain directional traffic rules. None of those privileges relieve the officer from driving “with due regard for the safety of all persons.”¹ That “due regard” phrase is the statutory check on pursuit decisions, and it drives both departmental discipline and civil liability when a chase goes wrong.

Beyond the statute, agencies write their own rules. The South Carolina Highway Patrol maintains a detailed operations manual covering when a trooper should initiate, continue, or terminate a chase, and when a supervisor must be involved.² Many local departments go further, barring pursuits for minor traffic violations or nonviolent offenses entirely. The practical result is a patchwork. The rules an officer follows in a chase depend heavily on which agency employs them.

A Statewide Pursuit Standard Is Being Considered

Senate Bill 8, introduced in the 2025–2026 legislative session, would create the first uniform pursuit policy for every South Carolina law enforcement agency. The Law Enforcement Training Council would set statewide rules barring an officer from starting a vehicle pursuit unless at least one condition is met: probable cause that an occupant committed a violent crime, sex offense, or jail escape; reasonable suspicion of impaired driving; or a determination that the driver poses an imminent safety threat outweighing the risks of the chase itself.³

Supervisor authorization would be required before a pursuit begins, with the supervisor weighing speed, weather, traffic, and whether minors are in the fleeing vehicle. If those factors make the chase too dangerous, the supervisor must order it terminated. At agencies with fewer than ten officers, an on-call supervisor must be notified, and the pursuing officer must evaluate the safety factors independently. The bill also prohibits firing at a moving vehicle unless someone inside is using a deadly weapon. As of early 2025, S. 8 had been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee and had not yet received a floor vote.³

What Happens to Drivers Who Flee

South Carolina Code 56-5-750 sets the penalties for failing to stop when signaled by a law enforcement vehicle. Amendments effective May 12, 2026, substantially raise those penalties, with the sharpest increases for high-speed pursuits and chases that injure or kill. A first offense with no resulting injuries is a misdemeanor carrying a mandatory minimum fine of $500 and up to three years in prison, plus a driver’s license suspension of at least 30 days.⁴ The $500 figure is the floor, not a cap. Courts can impose higher fines.

Consequences escalate from there:

For convictions involving great bodily injury or death, the Department of Motor Vehicles revokes the driver’s license for a period covering any imprisonment, suspended sentence, parole, or probation, plus an additional three years after that ends.⁴

If You’re a Bystander Hurt in a Chase

Someone injured during a police pursuit has two potential targets for a civil lawsuit: the fleeing driver and the law enforcement agency. The fleeing driver is usually the primary defendant because the decision to run is treated as the direct cause of any resulting crash. Available damages include medical bills, lost income, property damage, and pain and suffering.

Suing the agency is harder. Under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, government entities have broad immunity that is waived only in limited circumstances. To hold an agency liable for a pursuit, a plaintiff generally must show gross negligence rather than ordinary carelessness. Recovery is also capped: no individual claimant can collect more than $300,000 from a single incident, and total recovery across all claimants from one incident cannot exceed $600,000, no matter how many agencies were involved.⁵

Insurance adds another complication. Many auto liability policies contain criminal act exclusions that deny coverage for injuries caused while the driver was committing a crime or fleeing from one. If the fleeing driver’s policy excludes coverage, or if the car was stolen, victims may have no insurance payout available from the at-fault side. Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is often the only reliable source of compensation in that scenario. If you were working when hurt, an employer’s commercial policy may also provide uninsured motorist benefits.

Drivers who encounter a pursuit on the road still have a legal duty to yield. South Carolina Code 56-5-2360 requires every driver to pull aside for an approaching emergency vehicle using lights and sirens, and failing to do so can result in a citation. More importantly, freezing or making an unpredictable move during a chase puts everyone at greater risk.

Court Decisions That Shape What Officers Can Do

Two cases do most of the work defining pursuit liability in South Carolina.

Clark v. South Carolina Department of Public Safety

A suspect fleeing a state trooper crossed the center line and killed a motorist, Amy Clark. Her father sued the Department of Public Safety, arguing the trooper was grossly negligent in starting and continuing the chase without supervisor involvement, in violation of the agency’s own pursuit policy. The jury found the department grossly negligent.⁶ The Court of Appeals and the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the verdict, confirming that gross negligence is the standard for evaluating pursuit decisions and that an officer’s failure to follow the agency’s own policy is powerful evidence of that negligence.⁷

Scott v. Harris

In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed when officers can use force to end a chase. An officer rammed a fleeing driver’s car, leaving him a quadriplegic. The Court held that the Fourth Amendment does not prevent police from using potentially deadly force to stop a high-speed chase that threatens bystanders’ lives, even when doing so puts the fleeing driver at serious risk of injury or death.⁸ The decision sets the constitutional floor for any Fourth Amendment challenge to pursuit tactics used by state and local officers in South Carolina.

Together, these decisions frame the current law. State courts can hold agencies accountable when officers ignore their own safety policies, while federal law gives officers constitutional room to use significant force when a fleeing driver genuinely endangers the public. Until the General Assembly passes a uniform statewide standard, that framework, along with each agency’s internal policy, is what governs police chases in South Carolina.

1
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 56-5-760 – Operation of Authorized Emergency Vehicles
2
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Highway Patrol Manual of Operations
3
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina General Assembly S. 8 – Vehicular Pursuit
4
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 56-5-750 – Failure to Stop Motor Vehicle When Signaled by Law-Enforcement Vehicle
5
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code of Laws Title 15 – South Carolina Tort Claims Act
6
South Carolina Judicial Department. Clark v. South Carolina Department of Public Safety (Opinion No. 3565)
7
Justia. Clark v. SCDPS
8
Justia. Scott v. Harris – 550 U.S. 372 (2007)