PM to outlaw street racing

[Billip]

PM to outlaw street racing

Broadcast News
Published: Thursday, May 25, 2006

VANCOUVER - Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday his government will make street racing a new criminal offence that will result in stiffer sentences for offenders.

The bill would also include driving prohibitions for those who are convicted of street racing.

"There will be minimum penalties. Those penalties will involve some kind of prohibition. As they escalate, they will also likely involve prison terms as well,'' Harper said.

The prime minister, who made the announcement at the RCMP's B.C. headquarters, said his government will introduce the legislation as part of its efforts to crack down on crime.

The government has already introduced legislation to end conditional sentences for serious offences and establish mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes.

Street racing has been a particular problem in Vancouver where several deaths have prompted outrage and calls for a crackdown.

In perhaps the most notorious case, two men struck and killed Irene Thorpe during a high-speed auto race in 2000.

Sukvir Singh Khosa and Bahadur Singh Bhalru were convicted of criminal negligence causing death in 2002 and given house arrest, sparking a public outcry.

Bhalru has been deported and deportation proceedings are underway for Khosa.

More recently, three men, including two brothers, were killed in a car crash related to street racing on Highway 1 in January.

As well, one man in Edmonton and a cab driver in Toronto were killed in racing incidents since January.

© Broadcast News 2006

Discuss.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/n...2d1842&k=53243
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[Smarty39]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

Three words.....It's about time! There should be stiffer penalties for street racing....go to the track if you want to be an idiot (or have fun, however you want to look at it), atleast you won't harm innicent bystanders. There is no need for it on public roads. I admit that once in a while I give it a bit more gas pulling away from a red light, but I would NEVER even think about street racing.

[dirk_diggler]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

I was just about to post this up!

thumbs down to street racers

[Khyron]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

Question is, will there be stiffer penalties for impaired driving? Doubt it, because too many fat cats do it.

Street racing can be bad, but it's nothing compared to drunks.

Khyron

[James]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

Street racing can be bad, but it's nothing compared to drunks.

yup, totally agree.

And where do they draw the line? If i get busted on the highway at 185kmph am i going to lose my license now? Because really, excessive speeding is racing to an extent

[Khyron]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

And you can bet your ass that if squealing tires at all is stunting, accelerating "quickly" off a red light will be tagged as street racing as well. It's not just the F&F stuff they will target.

My bike goes 0-60 in like 4 seconds, am I going to get tagged for racing whoever happens to be beside me, especially if they try and gun it?

Khyron

[mk4jetta]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

i think its totally acceptable that people get in crap for doing stupid things like going to the street races every sat night and street racing.

but it would be dumb if you got caught speeding and they try to make it look like you were street racing just so they could charge you more, its good there gonna give people who go to actual organized street races **** but i can see them targeting any car on the road that is done up and make up stuff about them street racing.

[Billip]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

As is always the case with such legislation, the devil is in the details. Exactly what constitutes "street racing" is going to have to be quite tightly defined, or the police will definitely try to use these laws in ways perhaps not intended.

To me, street racing means there are at least 2 cars racing against each other. If I took off from a stop light all by myself, that is not street racing... there are plenty of laws on the books which could deal with that infraction.

We'll have to see the wording of the legislation when it is announced to see if it's wide open, or quite focused. I'm hoping for focused.

[Stonewall]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

What if two cars accellerate off the line but don't go over the limit??
I like to see this in place as I almost got smoked by two cars when turning thorugh an intersection last night, both had to slam on their brakes and barely stoped for the light.

[RONDAL]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

i agree with this, too many people are dying in vancouver.
issue is going tobe on what is Street Racing and what is not.

[Road Runner]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

What if two cars accellerate off the line but don't go over the limit??
I like to see this in place as I almost got smoked by two cars when turning thorugh an intersection last night, both had to slam on their brakes and barely stoped for the light.

Agreed, same thing happened to me in September when I was in a car as a passenger, only one of the cars didn't stop in time and clipped us as they were going about 90. It made me livid to think of how someone could have done something so stupid.

[zilla]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

interesting.

This article was published in Ottawa:

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.

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

That article brings up a good counter point that street racing is something to be examined but in reality it is not the biggest problem out there. Now that I drive a realitively slow car I really can't do a lot to get into trouble which is nice but it really shows the attitude of other drivers (and most of them are not street racer types) who go out of their way to pass me at all costs. In nearly a year of driving the Smart I have been passed in some ridiculous ways.

Anyway, I have always felt a huge problem with traffic issues is age discrimenation. The finger and the tickets are always pointed heavily at young drivers while our parents/elders seem to get away with a lot more just because they are older and supposedly more experienced.

I am not against actions like this propsed street racing laws but I don't want to see it used to further punish young people. I still agree that greater work needs to be done to curb drunk driving as I think it is still a huge problem. I know people who seem to have gotten away with pushing their luck for years and years and it makes me sick.

[stefan]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

harpers a twit. nothing he has proposed is of any benefit to me whatsoever. I mean, sure, spend a few mil. to implement this... you are not going to significantly improve anything. I don't disagree with trying to make driving safer, but there are better places to start that can benefit everyone a little more. If vancouver is getting out of control, then let vancouver implement stricter penalties. I think it's a bit of a waste of money. I bet minor things like people driving with tires that are worn out cause more fatalities. Anyways, street racing = bad.. im not going to dispute that. I think, however, that the government is going to put much more in to this program then they will get out of it.

oh wait, harper is saving me 1% GST. Thats like 2 free pints of beer for every 1000$ set of tires I buy. thats SOOO worth it.

[Stonewall]

Re: PM to outlaw street racing

I agree witha that Ottawa article poeple who put lots of $$ into their cars are more then likey not stupid enough to risk it all by street racing in a populated area. The thing they should outlaw is talking on your stupid cell phone.. while doing your makeup and eating breakfast... God I have already been in one accident that I still suffer from to this day and my guess is the twit that t boned me was either on her phone or too distracted to see the other 3 lanes of traffic that had stopped at the light.