Atlanta May Offer A Designated Street Racing Location
As traffic levels in the USA have dropped due to nationwide Covid-19 shelter-in-place orders, speeds have increased. Fines involving big speed limit infractions have risen, with one Dodge Challenger drive in Michigan infamously clocked at 180mph in a 70mph zone. The Cannonball record has fallen twice amidst a spate of attempts making the most of quiet roads, while in Atlanta, the already busy street racing scene has exploded.
The city has an unconventional idea which might drastically curb its illegal street racing issue, however - make it legal. Well, sort of.
The idea, based around a suggestion from the 18-year-old son of Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, would be to offer a âdesignated areaâ for street racing. Most likely, this would involve closing off a section of road for sanctioned competition, much like Detroitâs Roadkill Nights.
It isnât the only potential solution on the table, however. Atlanta officials have been working with Bloomberg Associates, the consultancy set up by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to look at various solutions to its street racing problem.
âAlong with Bloomberg, who weâve reached out to help us do some bench marking and assessment of whatâs happening in other cities has been to consider a designated space for street racing,â Mayor Bottoms told the City Council on a call, CBS 46 reports.
If it is Atlantaâs chosen solution, there would inevitably be opposition - not just from the public, but also from officials. Atlanta Council member Dustin Hillis, whoâs behind a new anti-street racing law, doesnât think a legal spot for such antics will be a sufficient antidote since officially-sanctioned activities would remove the illicit thrill.
Either way, itâll be a while before anything happens, with the Mayorâs office confirming to CBS 46 that its research is still in an early stage.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Omg thatâs amazing
veri nais
Seems similar to the logic behind legalising weed
this is better than making weed legal in the US. Speed is more enjoyable than smoking weed in my opinion.
Well, not having a place to safely race or have fun driving is the main reason for street racing. I wish there was a place like that near meâŠ
Same here the closest Public Race track is the Hockenheimring wich is around 400kms away
Well, itâs also a problem down here in Surabaya, Indonesia. Despite thereâs a local race track everyone still doing street racing illegally. On my case, though, the problem was on the local government and also the adequacy of the track itself . The local governing body for motoring [IMI - Ikatan Motor Indonesia, or Indonesian Motoring Union if roughly translated to English] on the East Java Province in Indonesia didnât collaborate with the local police to hold amateur/grass-roots level motorsports events to dampen the number of street racing around Surabaya area (which is where I live). The local police in Surabaya only did preventive measures on them, mostly by raiding the street racing scene so street racers would , sort of, play hide and seek with the local police officials. I think that this isnât enough to handle the street racing problem because the people with authority only tell them not to do street racing, without facilitating the street racers so they would reduce their street racing activities and focus to do something else, or going the legal way to fulfill their passion in going fast. On the case with the local race track, though⊠I never been there, but my buddy in college did. He said that the track was too small and the main straight wasnât long enough to let anyone with higher engine displacement to go at full throttle [by the way, I think street racing and track days can be done on both two and four wheels, right? In Indonesia street racers usually raced motorbikes because they are far cheaper than cars in any way possible, and so in Indonesia the motoring culture was dominated by those on two wheels and an engine in the middle, sitting under the riderâs crotch]. I checked the location via Google Map and found another problem, the track safety wasnât good enough and lacked of run-off areas [too much of it can make the track very dull to drive on, too little and thereâs too little space for any vehicle to go off-course in case something went wrong]. The trackâs layout was too simple it provide limited challenge - itâs only 4 hairpins connected by short chutes after right hand turn off the main straight, followed by a simple s-curve and a sharp hairpin turn into the main straight. Itâs not quite adequate and not quite challenging track to race on. Thatâs why people still do street racing down here in Surabaya.
The heroes we donât only need but we want.
This seems like what has been needed all along, everyone would get their space to do what they want, and everyone benefits.
Midnight Club 3 Dub edition vibes intensifies.
As long as the Police are there and they run it well it will be good for them
We need more people like the Mayorâs son
Cya later guys Iâm moving to Atlanta