Street Racing and You

[FieroBUZZ]

The PM is after street racers
http://sympaticomsn.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060525/street_racing_060525

Ironically, the Ottawa Police say this:
Auto racing danger not a teenaged problem


Subhead: It's the "regular folks" who are causing the crashes


You fear the menacing street racing teens with shiny cars and powerful motors who wait for the light to turn red before disappearin in a cloud of howling burnt rubber.


The police say those kids should be more afraid of you.

The 30 road fatalities we average each year in Ottawa doesn't have anything to do with hotroding teens. Rather, it's the office worker weaving in and out of traffic trying to get the edge on every other driver or doing everything but paying attention to the road.

Constable Christian Parent, of the Ottawa Police Service, says that after spending years working with teens interested in racing he has come to the conclusion that the real threat on the roads is the average driver who drives too fast or doesn't pay attention.

"It just seems a little easier for the general public to point at a shiny car with chrome wheels rather than point the finger at themselves," said Parent.

"When you think about morning rush hour, you will see regular folks on their way into work doing 20 or 25 kilometres over the speed limit, on the cell phone, trying to rush through amber and red lights while tailgating and eating breakfast."

A few years ago Parent decided to study crash statistics to see if racing was a problem in the Ottawa area. He found that in the previous 10 years only one crash could be blamed largely on street racing. Three other fatalities involved racing but alcohol was considered the primary cause of those deaths.

Nevertheless, he saw a need to educate teens. He set up a program where teens would come to the Capitol City Speedway to see hot rods and listen to a sobering message designed to keep them from losing their licence, demerit points, vehicle, or worse, their life. As a result of running this program several times over the past few years fellow officers report a drop in racing incidents.

Even so, since Ottawa Police started collecting data on racing complaints last July, only 20 complaints have arisen and all but one were noise complaints. Just one person complained about being overtaken by racing cars while being at the center of a potentially danger situation.

So Parent now talks about how racers are created by parents whose example to their children involves speeding and other dangerous driving habits.

"In school zones, still today, you see mostly mothers driving their children to school in the 40 kilometre school zone doing 85 kilometres per hour. The people complaining about the teenagers are the people who create them by never following the rules themselves."

Although police generally believe they do not have a racing problem there are reports of cars revving up their engines at stoplights and racing when the light turns green. Police are also aware that racers in their twenties gather occasionally in mostly semi-rural areas on predominantly empty stretches of road to race.

"Don't get me wrong, its illegal. But these aren't the people in our fatalities," said Parent.


Time to drop a note to your MP to let him know not all car nuts are 'nuts'.  Otherwise don't complain when your local gendarmes suddenly have the power to charge you with a very serious offence.  You will not be able to refute the charge (why would the officer lie?) and it will cost you big time, even if you win.  It one of those times that you are guilty until proven innocent.  Unfortunately proving the same is hugely expensive and time consuming.

[lercs]

do you happen to have the address so i can write a letter?

[dguy]

do you happen to have the address so i can write a letter?

You can look up the contact information for your MP here.

edit:  whoops, that should be MP (federal), not MPP (provincial).  link corrected.

[dguy]

Regarding the article...

I see nothing in there that targets, well, any group of drivers in particular.  Just a bunch of political chest-thumping about "street racing = dangerous driving = bad" and they want to increase the penalties for racing and/or dangerous driving.

With the exception of exceeding the speed limit by 50km/h+, "dangerous driving" has always been a subjective accusation.  Cranking up the penalty for being found guilty of doing so doesn't change that.


Did I miss something obvious in either the article or C. Parent's comments, or am I just unusually complacent this morning?

[aaron88]

The article says the problem isn't street racing, it's bad driving.  But since it's hard to prove a bad driver they don't know what to do.

Perhaps if someone finds a real solution, they can wright the police about it.  Ya never know!

Aaron

.

[lercs]

the problem is to the police and the general public, the only people that street race are the same people that modify their cars.

that is the problem for us, as we have modified cars, so we are obviously just doing it to street race

[MacPhail]

http://www.canoe.ca/CanoeClassic/home.html

What should be done about street racing?

A zero tolerance policy forbidding it   65%
A track/facility to accommodate it    24%
Nothing. The drivers know what they're getting themselves into.   4%
Restrictions on souping up vehicles.   7%
 

Total Votes for this Question: 1228 

[dguy]

I picked this up from another local forum today...  I would consider it to be mostly hearsay, but you never know...   

Talking to my girlfriend about this law, as its one of her "files" she deals with on a daily basis, it's not QUITE as bad as i thought.

I was originally under the assumption that you'd be pulled over, and given a federal "Street racing" charge at the officers discresion, much like "Careless driving" is now.

With the proposed law, the cop can't JUST give you a street racing charge, it has to be added to another offence as well. Like if you drove into a house (or ran into a couple driving down the Don Valley Parkway), you'd get careless driving AND THEN they could slap "Street racing" on top of that.

As well, if the street racing "law" got passed, you would not be going to "traffic court" for this. It'd be the same type of legal battle you'd be looking at if you were charged for theft, assault, etc.

So in theory you wouldn't get cops nailing you for street racing because you accellerated faster than the old lady in the buick beside you. And if you DID that cop would have a TON of paperwork (including the subsequent investigation required) to be able to prove it in court. And they'd probably have to nail the old lady too, because i don't think they're gonna allow for a "oh, i saw him "street racing" this old lady in a buick from a light, but i neglected to get ANY info on the other person involved who was also driving RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME"