Atlanta May Offer A Designated Street Racing Location

Officials in Atlanta are mulling over a drastic solution to illegal street racing - making it legal
Remote video URL

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.

Remote video URL

The idea, based around a suggestion from the 18-year-old son of Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, would be to offer a “designated area” for street racing. Most likely, this would involve closing off a section of road for sanctioned competition, much like Detroit’s Roadkill Nights.

It isn’t 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.

“Along with Bloomberg, who we’ve reached out to help us do some bench marking and assessment of what’s happening in other cities has been to consider a designated space for street racing,” Mayor Bottoms told the City Council on a call, CBS 46 reports.

Remote video URL

If it is Atlanta’s chosen solution, there would inevitably be opposition - not just from the public, but also from officials. Atlanta Council member Dustin Hillis, who’s behind a new anti-street racing law, doesn’t think a legal spot for such antics will be a sufficient antidote since officially-sanctioned activities would remove the illicit thrill.

Either way, it’ll be a while before anything happens, with the Mayor’s office confirming to CBS 46 that its research is still in an early stage.

Comments

Myrmeko (#CTSquad)

Omg that’s amazing

05/18/2020 - 09:22 |
50 | 0
Anonymous

veri nais

05/18/2020 - 09:45 |
8 | 0
Latooman

Seems similar to the logic behind legalising weed

05/18/2020 - 10:39 |
40 | 0

this is better than making weed legal in the US. Speed is more enjoyable than smoking weed in my opinion.

05/18/2020 - 19:41 |
18 | 2
Anonymous

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 me…

05/18/2020 - 11:25 |
28 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Same here the closest Public Race track is the Hockenheimring wich is around 400kms away

05/18/2020 - 19:13 |
2 | 0
Yusuf Ashari

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Well, it’s also a problem down here in Surabaya, Indonesia. Despite there’s 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 didn’t 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 isn’t 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 wasn’t 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 rider’s crotch]. I checked the location via Google Map and found another problem, the track safety wasn’t good enough and lacked of run-off areas [too much of it can make the track very dull to drive on, too little and there’s too little space for any vehicle to go off-course in case something went wrong]. The track’s layout was too simple it provide limited challenge - it’s 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. It’s not quite adequate and not quite challenging track to race on. That’s why people still do street racing down here in Surabaya.

05/18/2020 - 20:47 |
8 | 0
Zubayer Rezoan

The heroes we don’t only need but we want.

05/18/2020 - 12:25 |
10 | 0
Dante Verna

This seems like what has been needed all along, everyone would get their space to do what they want, and everyone benefits.

05/18/2020 - 12:44 |
4 | 0
Kyubi22B

Midnight Club 3 Dub edition vibes intensifies.

05/18/2020 - 12:51 |
10 | 0
Robert Gracie

As long as the Police are there and they run it well it will be good for them

05/18/2020 - 13:18 |
2 | 0
Anonymous

We need more people like the Mayor’s son

05/18/2020 - 13:57 |
4 | 0
RWB Dude

Cya later guys I’m moving to Atlanta

05/18/2020 - 15:03 |
16 | 0

Topics

Sponsored Posts