Those who live in southern MD -Charles County, which I believe I am the only one on this forum, know that 210 Indian Head HWY is a open road known to have motorcycles and cars race. It doesnt have alot of traffic in Charles county and people race here all the time. It has been a big deal (this accident) and Charles county police who are known to be cool with modded cars are starting to crack down.
The two cars that raced took off and another car that passed by hit the spectators. This is 15miles from Maryland International Raceway Budds Creek. My condolences to the families of the victims in this tragedy.

msnbc.com Video Player

Racing clubs ‘pretty sophisticated’
"We are putting things in place to address the issue," Copeland said. "It's a problem we have dealt with, and we are dealing with."

Maj. Joe Montminy of the Charles County Sheriff's Office said law enforcement officers have had problems with street racing for years. "It's pretty popular. Some of these racing clubs and street racers, we've had trouble with them and had to run them off."

He said racing clubs monitor for police cars to protect their racers. "It's pretty sophisticated," Montminy said. "They have lookouts, and they know we're coming for miles."

But street racing is not as bad as it was decades ago because many racers are opting for legal drag racing tracks, such as one in Budds Creek, instead of the street, said St. Mary's County Sheriff Timothy Cameron.

"We're not getting the complaints we used to . . . and I think a lot of that is thanks to Budds Creek," he said. "There's too many people and too much traffic on these roads now, and some people just want something safe and monitored."

-source MSNBC

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Cayman GT
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some people like the regular stock factory look, cool people modify the car.

As a reformed street racer, I can tell you the two biggest problems with organized street racing, which are exactly why I don't want to be involved or attend any such events:

- Spectators
- Dumb kids

Basically, if you take two experienced drivers out to an isolated stretch of road, its probably pretty safe to drive a straight 1/4 mile (mostly the kind of racing that is done) and the only people at risk are the well informed drivers themselves.

If you take a bunch of 15-18 year olds in their mom's or dad's cars out to a street and fill it with disorderly spectators, sooner or later someone is going to die.

I'm all for stopping this kind of thing, but I also fear an over-reaction by authorities. Some would say that no amount of force and punishment is too great to stop these kinds of tragedies. However, we need to put it in perspective, and the best way to fight this is with education for (usually) younger drivers, along with responsible parenting. If we look at cities where authorities have 'cracked down on street racing' in the past, including where I live, there are a lot of cases of unfair or excessive use of police force, discrimination or racism, or people's lives ruined beyond the measure of their crime and willingness to take responsibility just so that they can 'be examples'. Justice means fair and equal punishment that does not hurt our freedoms, human rights or way of life.

Anyway my heart goes out to those involved in this accident. Remember though that thousands die yearly in car accidents to much dumber things than street races. Innocents are run down by drunk drivers, people with cell phones in their ears crash into minivans full of kids, all kinds of horrible stuff that happens daily not just once every couple of years, and that could use our attention much more than this.

In the Post, the last couple of days, there were front page articles on this. One of the more interesting comments was something about Annapolis wanting to change the laws to confiscate the cars of spectators.

I would support that. You watch illegal street racing, you pay. I'd think that might cut down on these events if no one showed up to watch them.

I disagree. I vehemently oppose confiscating the cars of spectators. A) watching a street race is NOT the same as condoning it or participating in it; B) if you're anywhere near this, even if you're not watching, they will still seize your car; and C) what ever happened to due process?

Other jurisdictions do this, and I've read plenty of stories about this being abused by them -- it becomes a new revenue source, and no bureaucrat can ever say "no" to new revenue.

Besides, there's this little thing called the United States Constitution -- these seizure and forfeiture laws violate the 4th and 5th amendments.

Once you let the bureaucrats start seizing property, any property, without due process, especially if it is for "public safety", it's only a matter of time they decide to start seizing other things "for your own good". After all, you don't really need that sports car, and you'd be much safer if we just took that little death-machine away. If you don't think it could happen in this country, you haven't been paying attention, 'cuz it already has.

Now, if they changed that proposal so that spectators get charged with a crime and taken to court, I would support penalties if the specators were then found guilty. The big difference, though, is that it would require a determination of guilt by a Court of Law, not the heat-of-the-moment opinion of some police officer hopped up on adrenaline because he's in the middle of the biggest bust he's ever made ("I think you're a spectator, so I'm seizing your car. I don't care if you're just coming home from the grocery store. You're here, that's close enough.").

I would presume that is what they are talking about. I can't see it working any other way. The spectators would have to get due process. I think it did mention they were seizing cars in other parts of the country but were not specific. But sure, the would have to be convicted of the crime.

Sadly, no, we are not necessarily talking about filing charges and going to court. As it has been implemented in other jurisdictions (mostly in California), they will seize the cars immediately at the scene and consider them forfeited. Each person must then file suit against the jurisdiction if they want to prove their innocence and reclaim their property (guilty until proven innocent). It's based on the model used by the "War on Drugs": if the DEA thinks you are a drug dealer, they can seize ALL of your assets without any trial, and you must fight to get them back -- which is pretty hard to do when you have no money or collateral with which to retain a lawyer.

The devil will be in the details. We need to make sure to read the fine print in any proposals, and make sure we tell our representatives how we feel about them. As they say, if you don't participate, you'll get the type of government you deserve!

My proposal: Lower the age of eligibility to track your car at a local race track. Lets face it, the population of people who are street racing these days are the teens, and not adults. Why are the tracks limiting the age group to 18 and over? Don't the local race tracks like Summit Point offer programs to make you a better driver anyway. I'll admit that I've searched for roads in the past summer that are track like but have very low traffic. So I had to resort to public roads when ther are perfectly good tracks in the area, but couldn't go there because of an age restriction. Lets bring the street racing to a controlled enviroment and leave the innocent mototists out of it.

Well I guess I just found my topic for the bill I have to write for Youth and Government

-As a side note, I said past summer, not now or last week. Hence I'm not racing throuh public roads

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Probably because they are minor children and therefore legal issues.

The people in this case were running, at least it was implied, pro stock cars. I doubt they were teenagers. The spectators were as old as 61?

I would definitely prefer to see government encouragement for people to go to real race tracks, instead of street racing. Not only would it get the racing off the street, but it would put it in a much safer and well-controlled area.

Unfortunately, the housing market and associated rampaging development (even with the current "down turn") have killed off any chance of opening a new track anywhere close to the D.C. area. In fact, several have closed in recent years -- 75/80 Dragaway closed in Oct '06 because a developer bought the land. Sadly, even though the land failed the perk test and can't be developed for at least another 7 years, the developer refuses to re-open the track.