Streets are no place for pedestrians or gathered crowds unless they’re behind barricades at public events with the roads closed to vehicular traffic (and if the barricaded event involves racing, other provisions for safety having been made).
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If you’re standing in the street, don’t expect to be safe.
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I’ve almost hit a group of Orthodox Jews heading home from the Synogogue on a Saturday night. They always walk in my neighborhood. They wear black. They were observing laws and were at a crossing, but it was poorly lit and they were difficult to see. Fortunately I was not racing or anything like that and coule react soon enough for everyone to be safe.
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Having been a bicyclist and a motorcyclist, and having an interest in not being creamed in traffic has given me a keen sense of the obvious. Stay out of the street and make sure you’re visible if you have no choice but to be in the street.
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…and when it comes to racing, just get out of the street altogether, completely away from the trajectory (or accidental trajectory) of cars.
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COMMON SENSE.

The guy driving shouldn’t have been retarded, when people are Street racing you just dont bother with it. You wanna talk bad about the people that were standing there, why? the guy who hit them is the real moron. Look If It’s illegal then dont worry about them, just get the hell away if you dont like it. In the BAY people sideshow in the middle of the intersection and close streets for hours, there’s nothing the cops can do. So either build free drag strips, or shut the hell up.

From what I heard about the story with that un-related car, it sounds like the classic “ricer fly-by”. Some dummy always wants to prove he’s fast without actually competing.
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In reality, I don’t know what it’s going to take for people to start going to the track. Cheap nights? But in order for that to cover the operating costs there would have to be a huge turnout.
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I have personally looked into buying an abandoned airstrip and paving it. But, too many of those airstrips have been abandoned for far to long and it would cost way too much for a single dumb gearhead to get started.
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Anyways, I’ll use this state as an example. We have wide roads (5 lanes) nearly everywhere. A lot of people do the street racing thing. I used to, now I don’t because I don’t feel it’s worth people’s lives to prove I can run a 1/10 of a second faster/slower than the other guy. But, with 67,000 residents, there is ONE local track. It’s still an hour away. it’s 20 bucks to race. Sturgis dragway, and it’s only an 1/8th mile one at that.
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The entire state has three dragstrips, two are 1/4 mile. One in Pierre, you have to drive 2-3 hours just to get there from either Rapid City or Sioux Falls. and Thunder Valley south of Sioux Falls.
The point is, is that there is a shortage of tracks. here and nationwide.
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I don’t know. I guess it’s going to take people realizing that life isn’t worth proving that you’re faster. That or using police sanctioned events on main roads with a 5 dollar buy-in.(if no local tracks exist) restricting access to the locations to eliminate the infamous “ricer fly-by” which seems to be the main cause of this tragedy.

As far as the people standing in the road are concerned, well, Darwin had a keen eye for the obvious.

THERE IS A SHORTAGE of local tracks. I’ve always felt that large cities, Philadelphia for example, should build 1/4 mile track facilities for PUBLIC use. Sign a waiver, provide license, insurance and registration and pay a $5.00 fee per race.
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A large part of the reason folks don’t go to established tracks like ATCO is because it’s not SIMPLE to do so.
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People race because it’s exciting, and unlike Football, Hockey or Basketball it’s a sporting event that they can go to AND participate in themselves.
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Not providing facilities for people to race is like Prohibition was… let’s have a little reality here folks… you can ban it all you want and say it’s wrong blah blah blah but unless you let people do it without jumping through all kinds of hoops… they’re gonna do it. Period.

The first thing I said to my wife when this story broke was what the hell were a 60 yr old and lil kids doing out along a highway in the middle of the night? Old guy out for a stroll after a failing prostate kept him up half the night? ok. I’ll buy that, but toddlers? Some parents are just dumb! Everywhere you look speedways and dragstrips are closing up shop when the street racing scene is bigger than ever. $10 for a timed run and bragging rights in a safe environment, Better lighting to see the hotties. What’s not to love? I have read about the California police sponsoring a drag night and it was successful but not a huge money draw so was in jeapordy because of funding. I live by a police driving training facility and thought to myself that would be a perfect location for drift events. Most police forces are under age 35 and love driving as much as the rest of us. Mention it in your area to a friendly looking officer, Not the one with the high and tight hair cut cause he’s new and has no influence what so ever.

Sad.
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Sad and Stupid.
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I suppose that driver that hit the spectators will probably get sued, since it’s probably all the driver’s fault, in the eyes of those spectators.
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Again, sad and stupid.
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WTF did they THINK would happen?
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Standing in the middle of the road…
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Stupid.

I guess the main lesson to take away from this is simple: If you stand in the middle of the road at 3 am, you will probably be run over. I don’t care if the car that hit them didn’t have their lights on, or he was old, or had a heart attack, or was drunk, or whatever. No one with any common sense should be watching an ILLEGAL race, IN THE DARK, STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD.

Why do they do this? Oh I know cause there is no raceway near by. That’s why you see it around here. The Local race track here get’s used but, certainly not to it’s capacity, and now there is talk of it getting squeezed out by local residents. God I hate it when they build homes around race tracks and then complain that there is too much noise…..

lets see, DON’T STAND NEAR ROADWAYS FULL OF SPEEDING CARS!
I’ve always wondered why more rally spectators don’t die.