Comments?
 

Two vehicles were impounded and charges laid against two males in Nanaimo for the first recorded incident of street racing in over four years.

A caller to the Nanaimo Communications center alerted police to the vehicles on the evening of April 15 shortly after 8 pm.The caller said the vehicles were side by side and travelling at excessive speeds south bound on Highway 19a .

Patrol units were dispatched to the area and sure enough the two vehicles drove past in the opposite direction being clocked on radar at 135kms per hour in a posted 70 km zone.The member acitivated his emergency equipement and after some heavy braking by both vehicles, described as a newer model Ford Mustang and a Toyota Celica came to a stop for the officer.

Given the information provided by the caller and the officers observations the drivers of the cars were issued with a ticket under the Motor Vehicle Act for Excessive speed which carries with it a $483 dollar fine.The two drivers ages 18 and 20 then had their vehicles towed from the scene and both were also given a 15 day Driving prohibition for street racing .

The investigating officer Constable Derek MacFarlane ,said the two drivers "just didn't get it" when told why they were having their vehicles towed because of street racing.

"Street racing is prohibited and kills innocent people every year in our province.These two young men should feel lucky they were stopped before their actions turned tragic" stated Constable Gary O'Brien Media spokesperson for the Nanaimo RCMP.

:lol

n00bs. They had it coming to them.

I caught a guy going 118km/hr in a 60 zone once. As soon as he saw the lights, he hit the brakes HARD. When I walked up to the driver's door, i could smell the hot brakes from the front of my PC, a good 15 ft back from his front wheels. He was going so fast that he missed the sign indicating a speed change, and then the 2 signs stating it was a 60km/hr zone. He thought he was still on the highway, despite the housing complex right beside where we were pulled over.

Did he dispute the ticket?

Not sure.

Sho BC...ever threshold brake from 170 plus on a Harley when the idiot you are closing the gap on finally "sees you" and realizes he is getting stopped...and hammers the brakes? That smell is even better than CV or Impala burn. The Impalas brakes were good for about 1 really hard stop at freeway plus speed, till you warped the tin can rotors.

sorry its off topic but zulutango check your pm's please~~

Don't have a class 6 and the Harleys are for our traffic guys.

I have a hard enough time fitting into the crown vics, the impalas are horrible. Slow, cramped cockpit, and like you mentioned, brakes like wafer cakes. We've got a Suburban now, which I like to drive. The only downside I've found so far is the turning radius. It even has leather seats for the arrestees. ;)

if they are side by side, for a long period of time (probably 10 mins + between women seeing / calling and police seeing, they are not racing, they are speeding together.

if they were racing at one point one would lead the other. the definition of race means one is trying to beat or outdistance the other. sounds like they were doing the complete opposite of racing, by staying together.

no 2 cars will be side by side durring a 10 min race.

there is my comment.

leather? the people you arrest ride in more comfort than I do :(

I looked ti up for my own information. IF they argue it well enough they may be able to get ti changed to excessive speeding as the "definition" of racing below states that they must be trying to pass each other/beat each other going somewhere. Seeing as how they where tandem and not passing, they could argue that. But they shouldn't have been going that fast anyway :P

Definitions

241 In this Part:

"race" means circumstances in which, taking into account the condition of the road, traffic, visibility and weather, the operator of a motor vehicle is operating the motor vehicle without reasonable consideration for other persons using the highway or in a manner that may cause harm to an individual, by doing any of the following:

(a) outdistancing or attempting to outdistance one or more other motor vehicles;

(b) preventing or attempting to prevent one or more other motor vehicles from passing;

(c) driving at excessive speed in order to arrive at or attempt to arrive at a given destination ahead of one or more other motor vehicles;

"serious offence" means any of the following:

(a) a motor vehicle related Criminal Code offence;

(b) an offence under section 90.4, 95, 100, 102, 224, 226 or 234 (1) of this Act;

(c) an offence under section 144 (1) or 148 of this Act, if the charge is to be commenced by the laying of an information in Form 2 of the Offence Act.

^ Agreed. Clearly, the Mustang would have spanked the Toyota POS a long time before that.

Excessive speeding together... not actually racing. If you'd caught them doing it all F&F style with spectators and a start and finish line - that's racing.

oh please.

"Given the information provided by the caller and the officers observations " Not knowing the entire story as it was not detailed in the media release, one would have to believe that this gave the Member the grounds to arrest for street racing. The grounds as outlined in Section 241 would have had to be met in order to do just that.

IF the cars were simply both driving side by side at excessive speed the whole time involved, from the citizen complaint to the Police observation, without any of the (a) (b) or (c), that alone does not meet the definition above. The act of them outdistancing or passing other road users while excessively speeding etc would qualify under (a) or (c). Dangerous driving or drive w/o due care could also apply in that case. As they were hooked for street racing I think we can assume they were "street racing" by definition under the Act.

-sorry but there is no official statistics to back that up, not to mention the first line of your post states that this is the first incident in 4 years.

If they were street racing i'm pretty sure ludacris would have been there.

The first incident in Nanaimo in 4 years, not in all of BC. I would guess that most of the fatalities occur in the Lower Mainland.

How about the first "reported" and caught incident in Nanaimo? I used to work the Highways in the Nanaimo area and was aware of many. Going home in my own vehicle one night I even saw a Ducati and a Dodge street racing in rush hour traffic one night, northbound from Lantzville to Parksville. The Dodge had the web address of Arrowsmith Homes on the back. The Duc was red...going too fast to get plate numbers. Just suicidal. You guys in the car scene...I bet you are aware of at least one legit street race in the past 4 years? I'm not asking for true confessions...just the fact that it goes on all the time. Only when it gets spectacular, it gets public.

a Ducati vs a Dodge? what the hell?

then again, I've had more trucks "race" me than cars. quite a few are work trucks.

to me a "legit" street race takes place far away from main roads, traffic and homes, with spotters and such to try to ensure noones at risk but the drivers themselves, and a few bugs. the idiots who race down major highways/main roadways around other traffic, are just stupid and deserve to get caught.

We used to use a long section of the TCH in the middle of nowhere, that was approached from around a corner on each end. Had cars with radios watching for traffic on the corners. Nothing at all coming and the flag dropped. Everyone was well off the roadway and nobody at the start or finish line anywhere near the road. Times have changed since then though. Too many races in populated areas where people stand around and get hit when drivers loose control. Getting a 427 Chevelle or a 390 AMX up to speed was a little harder than a NOZ Skyline with adjustable HP on tap. Cars were a lot bigger with real steel when they crashed.

Street racing in general is stupid...

But let me actually find out... How many street racing accidents/fatalities in recent history have NOT had alcohol as a contributing factor in the crash...

Street racing is sensationalized my the media... this was demonstrated by an incident a few weeks ago in the okanagen where two 50 year olds were "racing" and someone was killed... Article headline Street Racing kills etc etc... then 3/4's of the way down the article it is mentioned the Alcohol may have been a contributing factor...

Most public incidents of street racing where people are "racing" down public streets in traffic etc the people are usually intoxicated as well... A headline reading "Dumbass Drunk kills innocent bystander" just doesn't seem to have the sex appeal... go figure...

I guess I'm out of the car scene nowadays, because I don't meet up with guys anymore... but "back in the day" I used to attend the Richmond street races, where you'd go down to a back street in an industrial park somewhere, park a couple cars on both ends to effectively close it off, then people would race down the roadway. So yeah, I remember what that was like... we had little FRS radios to talk to each other... which worked great until someone got spooked and everyone decided to run at the same time.

If I recall correctly... the accidents usually occurred when people were rushing to leave, never at the scene of these so-called 'races'.

and the all the street racing deaths + crashes started after all the back road areas were targeted and attacked. because people stared using random main roads.

good job cops! nobdy was dying before you chased all the back streets away.

travelling 170 on your harley isn't condoned by your supervisor, is it?

sounds like alderbridge way?

they generally have to catch people to give them tickets, highly unlikely that people would pull over and hang around for the officer to catch up...