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Unlawful avenue racing is on the rise and with out “fast motion” from lawmakers, roadways will proceed for use as “doubtlessly lethal drag strips,” Salt Lake Metropolis’s police chief informed a Senate committee Wednesday.
Talking in favor of SB53 — which would come with sure dashing violations underneath Utah’s reckless driving code — Chief Mike Brown mentioned avenue racing is a rising downside on Salt Lake Metropolis’s industrial west facet.
In line with Brown, the division noticed a 467% improve in calls about unlawful avenue racing in 2020, and calls “remained at an abnormally excessive degree in 2021.” The division fielded 71 calls in 2019. That quantity jumped to 409 in 2020.
That is the video shared with us and introduced throughout in the present day’s listening to on Senate Invoice 53. The video was taken and edited by a enterprise proprietor. It exhibits a few of the very regarding and harmful conduct occurring throughout these unlawful avenue racing occasions. #slc#SaltLakeCity#slcpdpic.twitter.com/2Jh73AIwGU
— Chief Mike Brown (@ChiefMikeBrown) February 3, 2022
Brown mentioned avenue races are harmful for quite a lot of causes, referencing a 19-year-old girl who was shot within the leg whereas watching an unlawful race in 2020.
“For individuals who interact in avenue racing, there may be little to no worry of punitive motion and even much less worry of being caught. As it's practically unimaginable for regulation enforcement to navigate their approach by the immense crowds, to the precise offenders — who hardly ever yield and usually flee,” Brown informed the Senate Transportation, Public Utilities, Power, and Know-how Committee. “On the similar time, there may be completely no penalty for the crowds who gasoline this harmful exercise.”
“I've witnessed this problem with my very own eyes,” mentioned Salt Lake Metropolis Council Member Alejandro Puy. “Generally I really feel like I stay in a ‘Quick and Livid’ film — a film that doesn’t have a contented ending, however harmless deaths.”
A substitute model of SB53 addressed the crowds, by proposing to make it unlawful to observe a avenue race. It will have allowed prosecutors to cost spectators with a category B misdemeanor.
Invoice sponsor Sen. Jani Iwamoto, D-Holladay, finally agreed to remodel the language having to do with spectators, after colleagues expressed concern about charging those that are usually not immediately concerned with a avenue race.
Protection lawyer Mark Moffat mentioned he can be fantastic to see organizers of racing occasions charged — particularly anybody who assisted in obstructing roadways — however mentioned that “mere presence on the scene of the crime” shouldn't be inherently unlawful.
“I'd have the identical concern with the invoice ... the spectator portion of it,” mentioned Sen. Jake Anderegg, R-Lehi.
Anderegg moved that Iwamoto rework a few of the particular language earlier than bringing the invoice again to the committee. It's unclear when the invoice is perhaps reintroduced.