The pandemic has freed up L.A. streets from traffic and people have taken advantage of this. Illegal racing is a serious issue, and people are dying as a result.
Photo by Vova Krasilnikov.
On Christmas Day 2020, dozens of people grouped on the sidewalk in an industrial part of Carson. They were there to watch a planned but illegal car race.
The race included multiple cars, driven by various drivers, none of them professionals, just aficionados of street racing.
Two at a time, the vehicles lined up at the makeshift starting line on the city street, flagged into action by one of the race's organizers. Then each set of cars sped down the 900 block of East 230th Street, zipping past bystanders who lined each side of the road.
And all of this was illegal.
How did all these people find out about this takeover, a term used colloquially to define such planned but illegal street races? On social media, of course.
“Once the word gets out…people flock to those locations,” Donald Galaz, a member of the International Brotherhood of Street Racers, told The Los Angeles Times. “That’s their love and that’s their passion.”
Using social media to publicize street races is not new to the pandemic. Street racing enthusiasts have been finding out about illegal races through social media for years now.
However, the pandemic has just exacerbated this issue. With schools and businesses closed and so many people at home, either working remotely or out of work altogether, L.A. traffic has just about disappeared. This has given way to vast, empty stretches of road that were previously gridlocked with traffic.
Photo by Kelly Lacy.
Though less traffic is a good thing for L.A., some have taken advantage of this to stage illegal races. Unfortunately, these races have proven deadly.
Take what happened at the street race on Christmas Day 2020 in Carson. During one of the races, a car lost control, veering into the other car, pushing both vehicles onto the sidewalk, right into bystanders.
The cars struck and killed sixty-six-year-old Daniel Patten II of Long Beach, who was photographing the event. Other bystanders were injured as well, including a fourteen-year-old boy. Yes, people actually brought their children to this event.
Like cowards, the drivers of the wrecked cars fled the scene. They were finally arrested on April 1st, 2021. Both drivers were booked on suspicion of murder, their bails set at $2 million.
The man who organized the race has also been arrested, along with the father of the 14-year-old boy who was injured.
But this street race happened back in December when coronavirus cases were surging in this city. Now we're in a new phase of the pandemic. As more people get vaccinated and Los Angeles enters a less-restrictive orange tier, people will have more to do again. Schools are reopening, and the streets will become trafficky again. As pandemic life eases in L.A., will illegal street racing end?
Experts fear it won't. Street racing has long been an issue in Los Angeles. The pandemic simply made it worse.
Why street racing is an ongoing issue in L.A.
There are many reasons why illegal street racing is so popular in Los Angeles. A lot of it has to do with the layout of the city itself.
“We have the locations. We have lots of flat street. We have industrial parks,” Chris O’Quinn of the California Highway Patrol told The Los Angeles Times.
Photo by Matthew Leland.
Car culture is also a huge part of this city, not to mention the Fast & Furious film franchise was also set in Los Angeles. Some law enforcement officials believe those movies hyped street racing, setting up L.A. as simply the city to race illegally in.
Perhaps for this reason, car clubs from other parts of the southland travel to Los Angeles to compete against each other.
But obviously, the pandemic has only aggravated this issue.
The pandemic has made it more difficult for police to break up and arrest the organizers and participants of illegal street racing.
One law enforcement official who spoke to The Los Angeles Times anonymously said that another reason illegal street racing has increased during the pandemic is because racing crews are "under the assumption that law enforcement is busy with the whole pandemic situation...we’re too busy to deal with them."
But even when the police do have time to break up takeovers, they still find it's been difficult to arrest people during the pandemic.
CHP Officer Ryann Grimes told The Los Angeles Times: “We’re more noticeable getting there because the streets are empty. When we get there the streets are still empty so it’s easier for them to flee…and they’re going fast on the freeway to get to their second location.”
This means that police have all but been helpless to deal with the problem of illegal street racing.
Spontaneous racing has also increased.
To make matters worse, open, trafficless streets during the pandemic have also led to more spontaneous racing. This kind of racing emerges unplanned between a couple of vehicles who meet spontaneously while out driving.
The drivers may decide to race while stopped at an intersection. They rev their engines, and as soon as the light turns green, the race is on. Or these are "rolling races," where the cars are already moving, and both cars attempt to achieve their top speeds.
However, both forms of spontaneous racing are equally dangerous. Authorities believe that thirty-two-year-old Monica Munoz died as the result of a spontaneous race.
Munoz was killed when her Lexus was struck by a Lamborghini driven by a seventeen-year-old boy during what was probably a spontaneous race against an Audi. When the driver lost control of the Lamborghini, it slammed into Munoz's vehicle. The Lamborghini was speeding so fast that when it struck Munoz's car, it split her car in half.
Photo by Kevin Bhagat.
If you still believe spontaneous racing isn't happening all over Los Angeles, I can attest that I've witnessed this kind of street racing myself. I've seen cars racing through downtown L.A. Just a week ago, my boyfriend and I were eating lunch on the patio of EK Valley Oaxacan Restaurant in Culver City when two cars sped down Washington Boulevard right past us.
They were driving fast—very fast. They were clearly racing.
And it was terrifying to be seated on the sidewalk when they drove past us because one or both of these vehicles could have so easily lost control and crashed right into us.
Speeding alone has been a huge issue during the pandemic.
Unfortunately, cars don't even need to be racing against each other to be dangerous on pandemic L.A. streets. Take what happened to sixty-eight-year-old child psychologist Larry Brooks last May when he went out for a walk in his neighborhood in the Arts District of downtown Los Angeles. He was hit and killed by a McLaren racing at top speeds through the empty city streets.
Speeding, in general, has been a huge problem in L.A. during the pandemic. Even back in March 2020, the problem was bad. The California Highway Patrol reported that although traffic volume had decreased by 35% in the month of March, the number of citations for speeding over 100 MPH had increased by 87% from the same time the previous year.
I witnessed one such speeder back in April as I drove down the 110 southbound in Highland Park. Suddenly, a convertible Mercedes zoomed past me at speeds of over 100 MPH.
The 110 in that area is narrow and full of curves. The driver rounded one of the bends and lost control.
I freaked out, thinking he had crashed and suffered serious injuries. When I caught up with the driver, he was sitting in his unmoving car in the middle of the freeway. However, he was perfectly unscathed. We met glances and he gave me sheepish smile.
He was embarrassed he'd lost control of his car and simply backed up and drove off. I became irate. He could have killed someone. He could have killed me.
Photo by Samuele Errico Piccarini.
I never thought I'd be happy for traffic to return in Los Angeles, but in the case of speeding, maybe it will be a good thing. As streets become more crowded again, there will be less spontaneous racing as well.
However, takeovers will most likely continue to be a problem in this city. Post-pandemic, police will hopefully have better luck in breaking up such planned illegal street races though.
Fingers crossed.