Cities across the country crack down on drag racing

Joshua Eferighe, Sloane Glass, and Natasha Zouves

2 years ago

Street racers gather the evening of Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018, in the parking lot of the Goodwill on Northeast Marine Drive and 122nd Avenue in Portland, Ore. Across America, police are confronting illegal drag racing whose popularity has surged since the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns began. Drivers have blocked off roads to race and to etch donut patterns on pavement with the tires of their souped-up cars. From Portland, Oregon; to Albuquerque, New Mexico; from Nashville, Tennessee; to New York City, officials are reporting a dangerous, and sometimes deadly, uptick in street racing.(Anna Spoerre /The Oregonian via AP)

CHICAGO NewsNation —Today, the Chicago City Council handed the Chicago Police Department a new and powerful tool to combat illegal street racing.

Using camera systems, license place readers, and good detective work, the new law allows Chicago police to take immediate action and impound cars regardless of whether the owner is present. This is one city’s way of reducing a nationwide problem.

“We can find the cars and take them whether someone is with the car or not,” Alderman Brendan Reilly said on Wednesday’s “Rush Hour.” “So I do think this will be an effective tool. Our police commanders say they will take full advantage of this.”

But while cars of known drag racers can be impounded wherever they are found, and big fines imposed, on any given weekend, illegal racing and street takeovers are popping up all over the country.

“These events are killing innocent people,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Sitzer.

Racing fatalities in the U.S. nearly doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 77 to 142. It’s a problem that exploded during the pandemic, when there were fewer cars on the road and racers took advantage of the opportunity.

That same year, calls to police reporting street racing went up by 476% in Salt Lake City. Utah cracked down by passing a law that didn’t just target the drivers but also prohibited spectators.

“Assaults. We’ve had fatal deadly crashes out there, serious crashes. We’ve had gambling. We’ve had drug problems. We’ve had alcohol problems, the litter, the property damage, so it’s not just the racing. It’s also the other things that are associated with the illegal street racing,” said Sergeant Mark Wine of the Salt Lake City Police Department.

Now that normal traffic patterns are back, these pop-up events have become even more dangerous and deadly. In California this year, two people were killed in a fiery crash while traveling in a pack of suspected street racers.

Police departments around the country say the increase in calls about drag racing can take away from more urgent problems, like emergencies and gun violence.