The sound of revving engines and screeching tires is a recurring problem across Tucson as illegal street racing is at an all-time high in some neighborhoods.
Tucson City Council Member Nikki Lee, who represents Ward 4, wants to see it stop.
Lee and fellow council members met Tuesday to discuss possible solutions, including installing automated speed enforcement cameras.
The council didn’t reach any conclusions but agreed to reconvene in 45 days to consider potential solutions. The council directed city staff and Tucson Police Chief Chad Kasmar to come up with concrete solutions for the council to consider.
Lee brought up the issue after residents complained about street racing along South Houghton Road. Recent road improvements and expansions along Houghton have attracted racing.
Speeding has become a bigger issue since the pandemic, when police relaxed speeding enforcement, Kasmar told council members.
That so-called toxic car culture quickly led to an increase in reckless speeding and disruptive late-night drag racing and street takeovers where racers blocked off all directions of an intersection so they can do dangerous stunts, Kasmar said.
Those events attract criminal and life-threatening consequences, Kasmar said. That includes an August 2022 incident when Tucson police received 55 calls about street racing and gunfire along South Kolb Road in what callers described as “large street takeovers,” the Star has reported.
A month later, police arrested 124 adults and 53 juveniles in a special operation targeting illegal racing, the Star reported.
Street takeovers are designed by organized racing groups that use social media to remain anonymous, Kasmar said. The social media platforms attract younger people to the takeovers, he said.
“This is such a timely conversation because we are trending again this year to set another traffic fatality high number,” Kasmar told the council. “These types of driving behaviors, including a recent drag racing fatality, are just proof that what we’re doing is not enough and we need help.”
Lee pointed to the City of Seattle’s recent plan to combat illegal street racing and unsafe driving with speed cameras and creating designated no-racing zones.
Lee said she consulted Tucson police and the City Attorney’s Office to ensure that the use of cameras would align with what voters endorsed in 2015 under Proposition 201, which made it illegal for the city to prosecute red-light runners if the only evidence came from the cameras.
Other ideas from the council included impounding offenders’ vehicles, targeting drivers’ insurance and constructing preventative road designs to deter speeding.
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