Street Racing Essay Example for Free

Street Racing Essay Now lets talk about a 15-17 year old kid who does not have the best judgment and make a traffic mistake, or a 17-25 year old who also makes a mistake, but should those traffic mistakes make him or her a convicted felon. Street racing goes on all over the U. S. and is so underground right now that you would not know it is even going on. We raced on the NEWS one mile from the police station. The news reporters had been at that same police station the night before interviewing the cops and the cops said they did not have a street race problem in their town, or one that they knew off. San Diego has even told the mayor it worked for them with Qualcomm Race Legal Program, but the mayor already knows that caused it worked here first with T. I. They put all these new laws into effect and this months street racing incidents have gone up with deadly results. The laws were ineffective. The Harbor Commission is all about the money, they got billions from China to land fill the area and increase the Harbor to make more land but failed to include a spot for the track, but on the other side of the harbor there is 2 vacant lots that has been sitting there for 9 years+ that could hold a track. Willie has told the mayor he could be up and running in a matter of weeks, it was up to the mayor to give him the OK. So the mayor has assigned someone from his office to work with Willie and to go over the land site. As Willie said to the mayor, there is nothing to go over I am ready to get started. But it is still the mayors call so we wait and keep calling his office and asking when is Terminal Island going to open? A soon as Terminal Island closed, San Fernando Rd in the SFV got busy, Compton and Main got busy, Alameda and Del Amo in Carson got busy, 4 lanes in City of Industry got busy (1 mile from the police station) Santa Ana Rd in Ontario got busy, Sand Canyon Rd in Irvine got busy, Nabisco in Buena Park got busy, The Box Factory in Whittier got busy, Aviation Rd near LAX got busy, Edwards in Anaheim got busy, Dale Rd and Commonwealth behind Fullerton Airport got busy, 210 frwy in San Dimas got busy (before they finished it), Bolsa Chica and Westmister Bl in Seal Beach got busy. Bolsa Chica and Bolsa near Skylab Rd in Huntington Beach got busy (Yeah NASA and again a police station a couple miles away). And there is a lot I am sure I missed, and not to worry about rat-ing out these sites, major busts happen at most of these places, and others dont exist any more, but after T. I. shut down street racing exploded again, and is still going on. That is Terminal Islands track we are talking about, it was a street racers track, if you look at the cars in the staging lanes, the street cars out number the full race cars in the evening hours. During the day the race cars would use the track, during the night the street racers used the track. When T. I. (Terminal Island) was open, street racing in Los Angeles, San Fernando, Ontario, Riverside and Orange County areas were down to null. Its city politics that keep them from opening it back up, they would rather spend millions on a street racer task force then the track. Why? Well, the task force is paid by the federal government, so the extra cops dont show on the city budget and they use these cops for other things including drug busts. In drunk driving (as many people will know) the drunk usually goes home in cuffs with a few scratches while the other cars passengers families are notified by an officer in the middle of the night. Sources: www. madd. org and www. NHRA. com The street racers I know do not condone street racing, but they do street race. It is more orginized but still just as dangerous and illegal. The street racers that make the news are the ones getting killed/or killing someone racing from stop light to stop light. I think it is a normal reaction when you are young to answer the challenge even if you are not a street racer. We had a solution it was Terminal Island. Now San Deigo had took the same steps and started Quailcom. They gave an alternitive to street racing, a place to answer the challenge. Here is how the did it. With funding from the California Office of Traffic Safety, both RaceLegal. com and San Diego Police Departments Drag Net Unit were formed with the express intention of addressing San Diegos epidemic of illegal street racing activity. A grass root community based coalition entitled the Closing the Loop approach to intervention was also developed. The coalition involved city/county government, law enforcement, Bureau of Automotive Repair, Superior Court, City Attorney, District Attorney, county probation and the safer and sanctioned track alternative to street RaceLegal. com. The award-winning program to redirect would-be street racers into organized drag racing. RaceLegal has a grant of $350,000 from the California Office of Traffic Safety. With funding from the California Office of Traffic Safety, both RaceLegal. om and San Diego Police Departments Drag Net Unit were formed with the express intention of addressing San Diegos epidemic of illegal street racing activity. A grass root community based coalition entitled the Closing the Loop approach to intervention was also developed. The coalition involved city/county government, law enforcement, Bureau of Automotive Repair, Superior Court, City Attorney, District A ttorney, county probation and the safer and sanctioned track alternative to street. The highly successful RaceLegal program hosts Friday night runs at Qualcomm Stadium. Through the middle of 2003, RaceLegal was run out of a San Diego State University program founded by Dr. Stephen Bender. When Bender decided to retire, he also decided to shift the program from the control of San Diego State to the city of San Diegos Traffic Division. Our purpose in this paper is to inform people of what is going on in So Cal. Things start here, positive or negitive, and end up spreading like a cancer to other states. Dragracing claims to have started on the West Coast. So Cal had more Dragstrips than anywhere else, and then for a while there were none, all were closing. A new interest in dragracing has developed today and more tracks are starting to open up again. One track in particular is Terminal Islands Brotherhood Raceway, whose purpose was to get street racers off the street, and did it effectively for many years. City ** politics closed it down 11 times, and it is on its 12th time of reopening again, after 13 years of being closed. There are many naysayers out there, but if this track serves as an example as how not to give up, and a track in another part of the country opens up, well, that would make it worth while to post it. Sorry there is a lot of rhetoric, but many are posts from other forums and re-posted threads that may not make as much sense if edited. Many members of the Brotherhood of Street racers from as far back as the 70s have moved all over the country. They were a part of history and like to have the heads up on current activity with the Brotherhood. This is just some history of what has been going on and how many people have helped from the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles city coincil members, to the Mayor of Los Angeles to name a few. We are even getting a little help from Teamsters and residents of the various streets that are being used as race tracks. I wish I was a writer and could make it more clear, but Im not, and it its very raw but very real. All constuctive criticisim is welcomed. I have reuinited with many street racers through many forums, cause car guys are car guys, even if they are into different cars, different types of racing, or just into cruising. At Brotherhood Raceway all were welcome and all got along. It was a place were the head of the notorious Crips gang got along with a head engineer from Genral Motors. Jim Wagner, head advertising from Pontiac fequented the track to name a few. ) Stop the violence, increase the peace. -Big Willie Robinson. In the Los Angeles area we have experienced many street racing deaths since a certain track that was located in the Habor of Los Angeles was closed. For ten years now, Big Willie has been fighting to get this historic track reopened. It has closed dow n 11 times in 30 years and now, today it looks like it will reopen before summer or even before next month. The reason this track is different is that it opens on Friday evening and does not close till Monday morning. Many street racers have trouble getting to the track after work and then being frustrated with only getting only one or two runs before the track closes. 2nd many street race cars do not pass NHRA tech. So they go and race on the street. This track is a street racer track. Nobody is turn away, but NHRA rules are suggested and in the long run most racers start to value their lives and start adding the safety equipment. On the street no matter how mush saftey equipment you have, it is no match for a telephone pole. Trying to get this track open is a lot of work from a lot of people, I, myself, have been to many meetings on the streets with different groups, and am attending Nieghborhood Watch meetings plus working a job, so sometimes I dont have the time to post an original post, so I post what has been posted on other boards to try to inform people on what is currentlly going on with the openinng of Terminal Islands Brotherhoood Raceway.