Listen to the article and then check out the video link below the
picture.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4791099

Here are my thoughts... this coming from a 40+ year old guy who has
done his fair share of illegal street racing, cruising and hanging out.
In my opinion, in *this* video these guys are completely out of
control.  With all the tire smoke, the drivers have no idea how close
the crowd is to their car.  And members of the crowd have to be either
drunk and/or high to have the a.s-end of 3,000 pound vehicles flinging
around to within feet of where they are standing.  These people are
truly stupid!  And in the article where they are molesting women,
getting in fights, etc... they're criminals.  We (cruisers) would
distance ourselves from people like that, and they'd piss us [the
cruisers] off because they'd spoil a good thing.   The "good thing"
being hanging out with friends, trying to meet girls, and... every once
in a while... occasionally... okay every night, there'd be a little
street racing going on.  But we were always cool about what we did.
Here were our rules:

"Hanging out" meant we'd meet on the main drag in town usually in the
parking lot of a local business where we'd talk, bullshit, listen to
music, and watch the other cruisers drive my.  But we never vandalized
anything, or left garbage or beer bottles (hey, it was the 70s/very
early 80s - driving and driving was okay if you only had a couple.) in
the parking lots.

"Meeting girls" meant being on the constant lookout for cute girls or a
car load of girls who were cruising looking for guys.  We'd beep,
they'd beep, we'd motion for them to stop somewhere, and from there it
was the usual teenage trying to get to know you better thing.  Guys
harassing girls was frowned on, and any guy hurting girl was a reason
for that guy to get his a.s kicked (beat up, not killed).

"Street racing" usually meant a progression of "are you interested"
signs.  The blip of a throttle, a drop of a gear before you cruised by,
a little scratch  on a gear change, a quick punch, after which, if the
other guy had returned the signs, the search for some clear pavement
quickly ensued.  The race was on!  Sometimes the race was a quick light
to light job.  But most times any serious stuff/speed was done on the
far end of town where the road was wide and the traffic was really
spread out.  Or we'd head out to the highway and organize a quarter
mile run.  Yeah, it was a little stupid and dangerous, but we tried to
keep it "controlled".  Nothing like the guys in the video who are doing
donuts in a crowd of people.  IMO, these guys are taking what we did to
a *much* higher level.  Our stuff, for the most part, was misdemeanor;
their's is mostly criminal.  The cops would only give us the bump once
in a while if we stayed in one place too long or the crowd got too big.
For the most part, we policed ourselves... stupid people got yelled
at/ridiculed.  On the other hand, IMO, the guys in this video should be
arrested.

However, arresting kids is the not the complete answer though.
Cities/urban areas need to offer the kids some outlets.  Drag
strips/race tracks need to be available.  That way when "exhibitions"
get busted up the cops can say, dude, next time drive 30-60 minutes to
the track instead of paying a fine/ticket.

Does anyone agree with me, or am I just being a hypocrite?  What are
your thoughts?

Patrick
'93 Cobra