HOUSTON -- Law enforcement agencies in the greater Houston area came together on a mission to improve their ability to save lives, KPRC Local 2 reported.

More than 50 law enforcement agencies within a 13-county region around Houston agreed to two memoranda of understanding Friday.

The groundbreaking agreements ensure a unified effort when handling child abduction cases and dealing with high-speed chases that cross jurisdictional lines.

In February 2006, a woman and her child were kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend and forced to drive to Houston. A chase began in Montgomery County and ended on the North Freeway near Crosstimbers Street, where she crashed into a truck and she was thrown from the car.

The vehicular pursuit agreement means that individual agencies will establish high-speed chase guidelines that include notification when crossing jurisdictions, self-restrictions on joining pursuits initiated by other agencies, limits on the number of patrol cars involved in pursuits and plans for wrong-way chases.

"Chases are never a good thing," Shenandoah Police Chief John Chancellor said. "Pursuits are never a good thing for law enforcement agencies and our communities, but we want to make them as safe as possible."

Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt said that better communication between agencies is the key to ending police chases and finding missing children more quickly.

"You have more law enforcement people out there looking for suspects or looking for the suspect vehicles," Hurtt said. "Notifying other jurisdictions when we're coming into their jurisdictions, telling them much about the policy, about the pursuit as possible. Or, if there's an abduction, make sure they alert all law enforcement so that they can help us to be on the lookout for suspects and the victim."

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there are more than 30,000 high-speed chases per year in the United States, resulting in about 300 deaths.

The agencies will also participate in the newly created Southeast Texas Child Abduction Response Team (CART), which creates responsibilities for the lead agencies and the role supporting agencies play in providing resources.

The CART program is an arm of the Texas Center for the Missing, a nonprofit organization. According to the center, 59,000 children were reported missing in 2007, including 11,000 who live in the 13-county region surrounding Houston.