Will these ideas stop street racing?

Jun 21, 2007

Wheels editor

RELATED STORY: Crushing cars won't work

• Throw the book at street racers. No arguments there, but the penalties were already increased before this week and the racing still occurred. Fines of $10,000 on conviction, impounding and crushing the cars, lengthy driving bans and brutal insurance rates all help, but mean little in the adrenal rush of the moment.

• Increased enforcement. Again, no arguments, but there must be a cop on every corner to actually prevent all street racing.
  

• Bring back photo radar. Fair enough, but only if it’s used as a deterrent to speed and not as a cash grab, as happened before in Ontario. There would also need to be an intelligent re-evaluation of existing speed limits that considers both safety and actual driving habits. Raise the limits on 400-series highways to 120 km/h and set the cameras at 125 km/h and few people would complain.
  

• Provide more organized racing venues. Great idea! But street racing has an illicit thrill all its own. It’s the difference between the organized school prom and the parents-are-away party. This won’t make a dent in street racing.
  

• Speed limiters on vehicles. This would seem to be the obvious one, like taking the bullets out of guns. After all, there’s no real reason why a vehicle on the street should be able to exceed 100 km/h; many trucks are already equipped with speed limiters, mostly to save fuel. But let’s be realistic here: such a Big Brother move would be massively unpopular. There’d be an immediate aftermarket in disabling the technology to allow drivers to think for themselves, which would prove such an expensive investment to be a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money.
  

• Ban aftermarket performance products. You might as well ban track racing, where these products are intended to be used. Improved — and sensible — guidelines for police would be a good move, though. Sure, ban nitrous boosters, but why impound a kid’s car just because it has cool blue windshield washer nozzles?
  

• Ban tuner cars. Again, the issue is subjective. Why impound a slammed Civic or Impreza while allowing a considerably faster Mercedes AMG or BMW M5 on the road?
  

• Ban or limit advertising that promotes reckless behaviour. This is long overdue. But it’s not as cut and dried as cigarette advertising, in which the product is the problem — the problem is the excessive application of the vehicle’s abilities, so where do you draw the line? The government cannot ban such advertising, but media should instigate a policy that refuses to accept it.
  

• Peer pressure. Ah — this is the only real and lasting solution. It takes a while, but then wearing seat belts and driving sober took a generation to drive home.
  

This is where the media comes in. We must show the consequences every single time, both human and judicial. We must make it clear that illegal racing is stupid and unacceptable.

It will take time to get over the hormones, but eventually the message will sink in — there’s nothing to be proved by street racing, except that you’re a selfish, murderous idiot who can expect no sympathy for your despicable actions.