TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Street racing is popular—and dangerous—and weekends are a prime time for it. Pima County Sheriff's Deputies are spreading the word they are in a street racing crackdown that is not just on the streets.
With wide, smooth pavement, Valencia can be a street racing hotspot.
Besides enforcement on the streets, Deputies are fighting street racing on the information highway, pushing against the social media used to gather people together to take over the streets.
When some people roll through the weekend, they do it far too fast.
Racers sometimes take over streets and parking lots for high speed runs and tire smoking stunts.
The Pima Sheriff’s Department says so far this year it’s arrested 19 drivers for racing, 38 for reckless driving and it’s impounded several cars.
Joe Miller had led the Midvale Park Neighborhood for many years. It’s close enough to the high speed lanes of Valencia to make it easy for law-abiding drivers to end up on the road with racers who put speed first and safety last.
He says, “The kids don't understand how dangerous this can be. And then, on top of that, you have some people who are trying to up the game, get their hits on social media. So they'll...have guns out there and they'll shoot guns up, not trying to hurt anybody, but those bullets got to come back down, and they just don't have enough experience to understand how dangerous it all is.”
Deputies are steering part of the fight onto social media—it’s where race promoters rev up interest and spread the word about where to meet.
They searched one residence and arrested a suspect on charges related to racing: Disorderly Conduct, Obstructing a Highway, Public Nuisance and Racing on a Highway.
Joe Miller says there are safe places you can race. Go there.
“There's reasons that certain things are against the law, because it's just dangerous. And we really care about people's safety. We care about them. And it's kind of a nuisance. We'd like to sleep at three o'clock in the morning.”
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Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.
