
The deadly toll of street racing in Los Angeles - wallflower
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-street-racing/
======
olivermarks
The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) was founded to get racing off the
California streets in 1951. Virtually all the drag strips this sanctioning
body promoted races at in urban areas have closed (Lions was a famous track in
Long Beach sponsored by the Lions club to get racers off the streets for
example).

Today youtube is full of street racing for money videos and there is a whole
genre of fake reality TV shows about street racing glamorizing it. Examples

[https://youtu.be/Lf9wlvQuxGA](https://youtu.be/Lf9wlvQuxGA)

[https://youtu.be/Ltc7e9IIPVc](https://youtu.be/Ltc7e9IIPVc)

The NHRA needs to get back to their core remit and support more legitimate
racing venues and local authorities need to help this to happen. There is a
thriving electric street drag racing scene too as traction control on Teslas
makes it much easier to launch and go fast with no talent, winning races.

~~~
Balgair
The NHRA is effectively on life-support, or at least on galantamine.

I grew up in the Nor-Cal racing scene and my family owned 2 dragsters (Only 1
of which worked at a time). Many many Wednesday nights were spent at Sears
Point [0] racing our beaters against each other and chewing on those god-awful
hot-dogs. Hot August Nights were one of the few vacations my Dad took, mostly
to go place '9ers bets in Reno, but still.

The NHRA scene is just too 'rich' and old for the teens. I don't mean in terms
of just money, but also in terms of intelligence and experience. The teens
can't compete with the older Boomer and the Boomers think they are just
idiots. Fact is, they _are_ ; but it's only because they are young and
inexperienced. If the Boomers would find the wherewithal to just invite the
kids over and talk, they'd find a lot of common ground. Also, the teens all
speak Spanish and the white Boomers tend to be Trumpy.

But their cars are also not as easy to muck with. A 2005 Scooby has a ton of
computers and other crud in them. Yes, the aftermarket ODBII cards can help,
but it's almost a cheat. This goes for all the regs California has now (smog,
etc). There is a lot to learn about modern cars and not a lot of teachers
(WyoTech at Las Modanas is pretty good, actually, but rare). Again, the
Boomers neglected to teach the next generation.

Still, NHRA events and the SCCA are just too old. They have 'dances' on the
weekends, but they play _The Supremes_ and _The Beatles_. If you tried to play
anything off the charts today, you'd get screamed at and have a gun waved in
your face. I doubt they even know about Spotify. Then the pit fees and the
tire fees start adding up, let alone race-gas and the Nomex suits (SCCA here).
The weekend to weekend costs are just too much for working at BestBuy,
especially if you don't have the tools already. The upfront capital is insane.

So, what do they do? Sideshows and the like. They go out on the street, where
else? Tracks are not welcoming.

Are they dangerous as all get out? Yes.

Do the girls pay attention?

...

Well, then, who cares how dangerous it is!

What choice do they have?

[0] Sonoma/Infinion Raceway my ass. It will _always_ be Sears Point.

~~~
taneq
I think the part about cars being less approachable these days is huge. Sure,
you can get your ECU chipped or whatever and magically get full, non-
environmentally-friendly power out of your car. But past that, you're looking
at serious money to install and tune some aftermarket MOTEC ECU or something.

~~~
olivermarks
Yes and no. A Fox body mustang beater, a few trips to pick n pull for
turbochargers etc and a couple of thousand dollars spent at a speedparts
vendor such as [https://www.summitracing.com](https://www.summitracing.com)
[http://www.jegs.com](http://www.jegs.com)

will furnish you with an extremely fast race car. Things get spendy when you
start getting into electronics, to go seriously fast previous era engineering
is arguably cheaper and faster.

------
palewire
I worked on the data analysis for this story, which was published at a Jupyter
Notebook of Python code.

[https://github.com/datadesk/street-racing-
analysis/blob/mast...](https://github.com/datadesk/street-racing-
analysis/blob/master/notebook.ipynb)

If you have any questions, shoot.

~~~
gknoy
Do you have suggestions on how I might find information about the _total_
numbers of traffic related fatalities in LA during similar times? (I'm
interesting in knowing what fraction of car-related deaths are due to street
racing.)

For example, 2016 had 260 deaths from car accidents from one source [0], and
only 11 of those were from street racing, less than 5%. (It's possible that
the article I linked counted deaths differently than the data you were working
with, though, so it's hard to compare the two.) Street racing related deaths
are tragic (especially as half of them are _not the drivers_), but I wonder if
we are spending proportionally similar amounts to prevent the larger pie-slice
of automotive deaths.

Good grief, I feel so callous even asking this kind of question. :-/

0: [http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-2016-traffic-
dea...](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-2016-traffic-
deaths-20170403-story.html)

~~~
tekromancr
I don't think it's callous at all. In fact, it's a sort of higher order
empathy. If the goal is to save as many lives as possible, then this is
exactly the right way to think about these things.

It's like how most Americans are more likely to die from obesity related
diseases than terrorism, but we spend orders of magnitude more resources
trying to prevent terrorism.

~~~
Someone
I think it is highly unlikely to be true, but it could be that the money spent
fighting terrorism saves millions of lives every year. That would make it a
bargain.

Similarly, if there were no attempt to stop street racing (not even speed
limits), we _might_ see thousands more deads due to street racing every year.

~~~
mlindner
If that were true you can compare back to when we didn't spend money on
fighting terrorism. Has it changed much? No not really. Terrorism is not a
(major) problem in the world if looking at major causes of human loss of life.

~~~
Someone
Neither is street racing.

Also, I didn’t argue that; I just pointed out that “few people die today, _so
we shouldn’t spend much money fighting it_ ” isn’t a valid argument because
the truth could be “few people die today _because we spend so much money
fighting it_ ”.

------
djsumdog
There are more legitimate outlets. SCCA Autocross / Solo II events are a fun
way to race in a controlled environment. Most courses are one car at a time,
in parking lots set up to keep people under 40mph and are more about skill
than speed.

People who really get hardcore into Autocross sometimes move on to road
courses, buying roll cages and paying fees (or if you're lucky, finding a
sponsor) to race against others on a closed track.

At some SCCA events you'll see all the legit autocrosses lined up and all the
kids with their fast/furious wanna be shit rides around the outside. Once when
we were going over the rules, one such car pulled in and the organizer said,
"Looks like there's another one for the cardboard wing class." and we all
laughed.

So at least some of these racers know about these events and just don't
participate, but really these kids should be encourage to join more legit
events, take on Solo II or drag racing or rally cross, and yea .. it will take
some more money and time, but you'll get involved with a group of people who
aren't idiots and who are responsible about their motorsports. If you do
something stupid and wreck, at least you only hurt yourself and not some kid
on the street.

~~~
rwbt
Street racing is akin to a Drag race. Autocross type circuit events are more
technical with tight corners and I suspect many street racers won't be
interested in them. A better solution is to increase access to drag strips. I
believe many PD's in Nevada and Florida already do events like this
[https://jalopnik.com/5236317/drag-race-a-cop-in-beat-the-
hea...](https://jalopnik.com/5236317/drag-race-a-cop-in-beat-the-heat-
challenge)

------
darawk
179 people over 17 years? In a major metropolitan city? That doesn't seem like
much of a problem at all.

~~~
yongjik
In the same vein, just imagine how much money we could save if we get to say
"300 people this year? More people died this month in car accidents. There's
no need to do anything." every time a plane crashes.

~~~
rlanday
I suspect the death toll from aviation might be a bit higher if that's how we
responded to plane crashes...

~~~
Erlangolem
The death toll from aviation is high, just not the death toll when you only
look at major passenger lines. Add in GA, and the numbers stop looking so
sweet.

[https://www.aopa.org/about/general-aviation-
statistics/gener...](https://www.aopa.org/about/general-aviation-
statistics/general-aviation-safety-record-current-and-historic)

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/12/lies-c...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/12/lies-
coverups-mask-roots-small-aircraft-carnage-unfit-for-flight-part-1/10405323/)

~~~
Macha
I would imagine buses compare favourably to small cars also. GA pilots have
less monitoring, and are more likely to be involved in many of the same
activities that cause car crashes, but in the air. And more likely to be
manually flying also.

The argument was never "planes are inherently safer than cars" but rather
"commercial passenger flights are safer than cars because of all the
precautions (human and technical) we take"

~~~
Erlangolem
I suspected that you were right, and doing a bit of research, you definitely
are. The rate of fatalities in busses is quite low compared to cars and light
trucks.

[https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/transpor...](https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/transportation/comparing-
fatality-risks-united-states-transportation-across-modes-time)

------
lowbloodsugar
You will notice that the police, on the one hand say that street racing is
incredibly dangerous and puts innocent lives at risk (not just the racers),
and at the same time, justify high speed chases, risking pedestrians lives for
the sake of catching petty criminals.

Young people don't make the best decisions. But televised high speed chases
(fictional and real) sure look cool and exciting to me.

Finally, San Diego has reduced street racing by providing a cheap, legal
outlet for it. [1] But we used to have more drag strips and tracks. They get
closed down as real-estate needs expand. If I want to road race, the nearest
tracks require driving through LA.

To be clear, I'm not making excuses for kids. I'm not saying "well they should
be allowed to race because they can't elsewhere" or "we should be lenient on
them". I'm absolutely against street racing.

So, in conclusion, give racers more legal opportunities on the one hand, and
stop glorifying/titilating/excusing car chases on the other.

[1]
[https://www.sandiego.gov/stadium/event/tenants/racelegal](https://www.sandiego.gov/stadium/event/tenants/racelegal)

~~~
dragonwriter
> You will notice that the police, on the one hand say that street racing is
> incredibly dangerous and puts innocent lives at risk (not just the racers),
> and at the same time, justify high speed chases, risking pedestrians lives
> for the sake of catching petty criminals.

Well, except that over the last few decades, high speed chases have fallen out
of favor, and most police agencies have adopted very restrictive pursuit
policies.

~~~
djrogers
Doesn't appear to be the case in Southern California - I see one on TV pretty
much every time I'm down there...

~~~
dragonwriter
> Doesn't appear to be the case in Southern California

It definitely is for every non-federal LE agency in Southern California.

> I see one on TV pretty much every time I'm down there...

Yes, SoCal is a region with close to 25 million people; things that are done
on extremely limited circumstances with tight controls still do happen
somewhere in that region with some frequency, and are note worthy enoguh that
they get covered by TV news.

------
loeg
179 people since 2000 is not a lot for LA? That's ~10 annually, or 0.00025% of
the population. The total traffic fatality rate is about 240-260/year[0], or
~25x that. It seems remarkable that street racing is only ~4% of the total.

I guess the idea is that these deaths are preventable? So are the rest of the
traffic fatalities. These deaths are caused by adolescents making irrational
choices? That's probably not unique to this type of collision either.

I don't understand the goal of the focus piece other than to shift blame off
the majority of traffic fatalities onto some unlikable population (street
racers) that isn't actually responsible for a large portion of the deaths.

[0]: [https://www.dailynews.com/2018/01/30/traffic-deaths-in-la-
ar...](https://www.dailynews.com/2018/01/30/traffic-deaths-in-la-are-down-but-
well-short-of-citys-goal-whats-next-for-vision-zero/)

------
nimbius
as an Angeleno myself, i have to say the statistic seem par for a city of more
than five million.

street racing is an easy demon to hunt in Los Angeles as its a rule that only
a few people break but that has a high profile due to its nature. Its flashy
and comes with its own set of blockbuster movies and spinoffs. Cops would
enjoy a bit of high speed sports car chase I suspect...not so much cranking
out tickets for low speed fender benders though perhaps.

Target something like distracted driving and you'll find far fewer of us are
willing to tolerate the kind of crackdown required to reduce the number of
injuries and fatalities related to it. We love to text and drive, talk on our
cellphones, and even read our e-books while stuck in traffic. Then again who
knows. Many of us would appreciate seeing the CHP print up a few fresh ones
for the classic and clueless luxury sedan drivers mashing away at their
iphones and ignoring the green light.

~~~
allsunny
Are you a local (like grew up in LA) or just live there now? I grew up there
(5th generation) - I remember street racing being a big deal in my teen years
and I think some investment in educating the youth would be worthwhile. 3 kids
from my school I grew up with were killed in a street race in 11th grade.
Sure, if it's this or that sort of thing, invest in the distracted drivers,
but I think the county can work on both...

~~~
mulmen
You're right of course. We have the resources to solve multiple problems at
once. This is the problem with people who say Elon Musk is wasting his energy
trying to get to Mars. That isn't happening at the expense of cancer research.
We're doing both.

Real change happens when people get involved. Yes, cancer or obesity kill more
people in LA than street racing. Saying that doesn't do anything to help
victims of street racing crashes, cancer or obesity.

If we see a problem we should make an individual value judgement and get
involved in fixing it if we think it is important and we can help. It doesn't
have to be the biggest problem to be worthwhile effort.

------
paulcole
> 17 years. 179 victims.

260 total deaths from all car crashes in 2016 alone. If street racing is out
of control, just plain driving is off the charts.

Who is downvoting this and why?

~~~
jandrese
I think if you compare crash-per-mile-driven or crash-per-hour those figures
won't even be in the same universe.

~~~
jessaustin
Transportation is not the point of street racing, so of what possible
significance would that comparison be?

~~~
jandrese
They both involve the same activity--operating a motor vehicle in a city
environment. Besides, the _original comparison_ was between transportation and
street racing!

~~~
jessaustin
The _original comparison_ was between two dangerous activities, not between
two dangerous modes of transportation the danger of which might be
informatively amortized across the quantity of transportation provided.

------
trisimix
The part I hate most about these stories is it's a waste of life for everyone
involved. Assuming the driver isnt a psychopath of some sort they will
probably be regretting this every moment for the rest of their life which may
be mostly in prison. Manslaughter is manslaughter but I wish we had an ethical
way to reform these criminals. In terms of society impact its as if more
people died that night than actually did.

------
erik_landerholm
179 people in 17-18 years...basically no one.

