• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

California Police Raid Gathering of Enthusiasts

Share this page

I don't like the sounds of that at all. I thought we had the right to gather and associate. Maybe I am watching to much Law and Order, but does "cause" apply to these impromptu vehicle inspections, on private property yet. I know that the concept of cause has long since been discarded in the case of police roadblocks or so called sobriety checkpoints. Yes and I have heard the argument that driving is a privilege not a right thereby allowing police state tactics. The evidence points to the fact driving <span style="text-decoration: underline">is</span> a right, witness who you are sharing the streets with, Buicks. None of this makes any difference, greedy governmental entities are after money, this is a good example of a very easy way to get it. Just a short rant, and consider the source; my idea of an interstate speed limit in Montana is none.
 
The LAPD doesn't do this at random. What the news probably isn't reporting is that these same guys gather at the same spot every week and terrorize the local residents, and endanger the lives of everyone around them. It's just a guess of course. For the most part the police in LA look the other way about a LOT of car-related things. Cars are a huge part of our culture out here and classics are appreciated by the majority of the population. Sometimes people get pulled over just so the cop can get a look at the car and talk to the owner about it. I'd be seriously angry if they did that to me, but it goes to show how much a part of our local culture automobiles are. I know this friend... who has been driving without any legal plates on two of his British cars for several years. Only once did a cop even mention it and he just wanted to make sure the plates were somewhere in the car.
 
"Owners of imported sport compact cars"

I wonder if they were all Japanese cars?
 
tony barnhill said:
"Owners of imported sport compact cars"

I wonder if they were all Japanese cars?
Click to expand...

That's ***almost*** an assumed guarantee. They've also ***probably*** got a track record (pun intended) with the local police, hence the round-up.

But...it's still wrong in my opinion.."guilty until proven innocent" happening here?
 
rick_ingram said:
But...it's still wrong in my opinion.."guilty until proven innocent" happening here?
Click to expand...

I agree. Guilt by association? If my car has $100,000 worth of mods to it and has enough HP to pull a train, that's MY business. WHEN you catch me street racing, throw me in jail, take away my car, etc..... Sorry, Big Brother has stepped on the wrong toes here. :madder:
 
Don't believe everything you read in the newspaper. One quote (why would you need that if you weren't racing) taken out of context and everyone jumps all over the police for busting a bunch of innocent kids who were doing no wrong. I'm not saying guilty or innocent, and I'm not saying whether the police were right or wrong. I'm just saying don't jump to conclusions based on what the media decides is a good story. It's never the complete, or even real story. The very idea of the web site that the story came from is to show how unfair law enforcers are to motorists.
 
Steve_S said:
Don't believe everything you read in the newspaper. One quote (why would you need that if you weren't racing) taken out of context and everyone jumps all over the police for busting a bunch of innocent kids who were doing no wrong. I'm not saying guilty or innocent, and I'm not saying whether the police were right or wrong. I'm just saying don't jump to conclusions based on what the media decides is a good story. It's never the complete, or even real story. The very idea of the web site that the story came from is to show how unfair law enforcers are to motorists.
Click to expand...

Hence my original statement..."there's always two sides to every story..."
 
Some time ago there was a problem of kids "cruising" in west Phoenix, and one of the legislators wanted to make the "cruise ins" illegal. I don't remember the particulars, but it meant that more than three or four cars would constitute a "meeting" or event and hence would be illegal. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and the problem was turned over to local authorities and not made a state-wide law.
The articles talk about the dangers to others in the parking lot- at the cruise last night, there were several drivers that left the shopping center rather loudly- screeching tires and plenty of acceleration. I believe that that activity can lead to the non-car enthusiasts to decide that car people are speed crazed lunatics. I sort of like the sound... T.T.
 
One of the premiere cruise-ins in the country (Crystal Cove in Orange County, CA) was shut down for that very reason. Fortunately it found a new home, and as Cars & Coffee has actually become even bigger.
 
stewart, i tend to lean to the side of the law, im not saying these kids should be racing those cars dangerously on our streets i just thought it was obvious why they would want all that power going to the engine when the cop probably drove an "interceptor" type car to this crack down, and shure they could find stolen parts on some of those cars, the thing is over a half million dollars was given to the cops for this type of law enforcement, and ill bet i could have bought a piece of property and build a race track for the kids (having them all do work on the project) so they could race safely and learn something about business, the law, safety, fund raising, sportsmanship, and the like, but noooo! give law enforcement a bigger hammer so things go even more to the negative. :wall:
 
My first thought in reading this thread was what is the threat to gatherings like the Cars & Coffee meets, which I thoroughly enjoy viewing each week here via the reports of those who attend. While I can understand the problems with "street racer" gatherings, a blanket crackdown on all gatherings by "motorheads" would be devastating!!! A large part of owning unique vehicles, is the ability to gather on occasion to swap notes and admire what others are doing with their cars, and to just socialize with people of like-minded interests. I hope that the authorities can differentiate between the two types of gatherings!
 
Strange Mike-

I thought it was what it was.

I had no thoughts the police would spend such
tremendous overkill against a few old car duffers
at average age off 55. We had the same problem on-island
but it was with the 4-tracks racing. Now they are banned from asphalt streets.

d
 
Anthony, $500K will buy you a small piece of land in So Cal. There is no chance whatsoever of building and operating a racing facility for such a small amount of cash. It would take $20M at least! For $500K in the outskirts of LA county, you can get about 1/4 acre of desert land.

Mike, there will never be a problem with legitimate car gatherings, with the exception of places like crystal cove where the participants constantly ignored laws and [censored] off the area residents.

Dale, the crackdown wasn't on old cars, it was a bunch of "ricer" cars.
 
Back
Top