Let’s be clear: Street takeovers, sideshows, or whatever you want to call them are not held or attended by legitimate car enthusiasts. They often feature stolen vehicles and frequently end with crashes and injuries – many times to the people on the sidelines watching. One Los Angeles suburb has had enough, and its city council recently passed an ordinance directing police to permanently confiscate vehicles seized during the events.
The Pico Rivera City Council also created new fines for spectators, totaling up to $2,000 just for showing up and standing within 500 feet. This may sound harsh, but the number of incidents during and after these takeovers has escalated in recent years. The state of California has passed strict legislation aimed at curbing the nonsense, including charging drivers with vehicular manslaughter if someone gets killed.
Government overreach never sounds like a good thing, but this is one case where the penalty matches the crime. Street takeovers cause towns and residents to lose faith in the car community so that even responsible owners are targeted by police and legislation. Those of us willing to take our angry driving to the track end up being penalized for the actions of a few idiots, and any resulting damage from a takeover becomes the fault of all enthusiasts, not the smooth-brained “drivers” among us.
[Image: DarSzach via Shutterstock]
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via Autobuzz Today
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