CHP seizes cars after Bay Bridge sideshow with Flock Security data | Hacker News Reader

CHP seizes cars after Bay Bridge sideshow with Flock Security data

sfchronicle.com

12 pointsphilip120922 comments

In high-school we met in the biggest and barren parking lots or industrial parks we could find and do it there. But in the last 10-15 years being driven away from private lots (Rightfully so), the only place people can do it (whenever they want), is large intersections and highways. I don't like or agree with it. But I suspect that is part of the reason sideshows have now culminated in streets being taken over. We still do money nights once in a while but it's a smaller group and it's not advertised on social media and we go to empty roads outside of the city or in the industry parks with newly paved roads into the place. The race track is good too but it's only open friday-monday for stuff like that (mostly drag racing) but not a lot of spinning tires or drifting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow_(automobile_exhibitio...

There is a sense of entitlement to petty crime in the Bay Area and I’m really happy to see progress here.

Related Bay Area cops are getting a new Siri-type tool for fighting sideshows (24 points, 1 day ago, 52 comments) Strange timing

Honestly this is one of the most passive ways to try to combat it but living in a city with shot spotter (Baltimore) I don't think it will be very effective. Police will still have to travel to the scene.

Now get one of those spy planes in the air, and I think you'll shut that shit down quick.

TIL. Apparently "sideshow" means blocking the whole traffic (one way) to have illegal street racing or burning tires, etc.

Sideshows are the dumbest thing. I live in an area where people do sideshows. Midnight, a dozen or so cars and then a hundred or more random people will show up and make a racket squealing around. More than once they’ve crashed and caused injuries and property damage.

For what? Even if they succeed in not destroying their vehicles, other innocent people’s property, or maim someone it’s a loud pointless nothing. It’s not a competition, it’s just being loud and smells awful. I don’t even get how it’s a show, it’s literally just cars doing donuts… how many times do you have to see that before it’s boring, once? Who goes to these things

I wonder if sideshows even existed in the wild before release of The Fast and the Furious (2001) movie.

> I wonder if sideshows even existed in the wild before release of The Fast and the Furious (2001) movie

Yes, the Wikipedia article on them notes that they started in Oakland in the 1980s, and points to specific city responses to try to combat them from the mid-1990s.

The movies were probably a contributor to the spread of the phenomenon, though.

It really rubs me the wrong way when the cops prioritize this sort of enforcement because it really lays bare that they don't care about harm reduction or protecting good people, they care about using their jackboot to stomp anyone who gives the bird to their authority. The fact that they're using the surveillance state to do it is just the cherry on top.

I get that side shows are inconvenient an dangerous but the acute danger is mostly limited to people who consent to their exposure and it's not like there isn't a huge backlog of criminals who's crimes necessarily create victims in the bay area to be going after.

Edit: While I agree on paper it should be a serious crime to DOS infrastructure I have a hard time taking it seriously when the same government agencies have no problem doing partial or full closures when it suits them.

Additionally many people would happily condone the blocking of similar infrastructure by a few hundred person protest but a few hundred people watching a dozen cars do dumb things for entertainment is not treated the same even if the result is the same.

Closing critical infrastructure such as the Bay Bridge is not merely inconvenient or dangerous. Lengthy prison terms are warranted.

While I agree on paper it's a serious crime I have a hard time taking it seriously when the same government agencies have no problem doing partial or full closures when it suits them.

I understand what you're saying, but if the government shuts down a road partially or even fully, it's usually not because they just want to be dicks.

I agree, but it's just as much of a nasty surprise to everyone dependent upon that infrastructure and you don't really know or care what the source of the obstruction is, you just know that traffic isn't moving.

At the end of the day it's just so hard for me to give a crap about a law and order type crime when there's god knows how many career petty criminals doing their thing in the same jurisdiction that aren't having these methods applied to them.

Your indifference is your problem. Don't try to foist it on other people.

Traffic alerts used to be a real problem. They still do broadcast it on A.M. radio. But now in my state it's posted all online. You can see just about everything closures and all down to the lane and mile marker and even cameras of your route you can see streams of.

That is very vague and one sided. If they shut it down for political reasons that can be, and have, been sued for it. They often shut it down because of a serious accident or some other kind of disaster. In southern California it would be mud slides.

> it really lays bare that they don't care about harm reduction or protecting good people

Sorry, how is keeping critical infrastructure open from people doing vehicular stunts in close quarters not protecting people?

> side shows are inconvenient an dangerous but the danger is mostly limited to people who consent to their exposure

No? You're blocking traffic. You're blocking emergency vehicles. If an accident happens it could damage critical infrastucture.

> I have a hard time taking it seriously when the same government agencies have no problem doing partial or full closures when it suits them

They're not drag racing on the infrastructure! (Also, it's announced.)

> many people would happily condone the blocking of similar infrastructure by a few hundred person protest

These are immensely unpopular, in my experience tend to backfire and also result in arrests.

> they care about using their jackboot to stomp anyone who gives the bird to their authority.

this isn't a protest, it's just a bunch of uncivilized people. If they don't want to follow the same rules as everyone else, then they shouldn't be allowed to drive

so lets say you drive up to one of these in a minivan and try to cross through it to pick up your kids from preschool. what are the odds do you think it would end in property damage? assault? death?

pretty much 100% at least injury and destruction of your minivan, possibly much worse.

participation in this is thuggery. i hope they do a lot more than seize the vehicles. this is a felony and cannot be condoned, whether it be for a BLM protest or a bunch of juvenile rickie-racers.

go to the track and/or get a job.

those of you who defend a bunch of bullies violently blocking a public passage for whatever selfish idea, really need to think though who are victims and who are the aggressors and where you would stack up. it's refreshing to at least see a tiny step being taken.

How is that any different than if you tried to cross through a protest or snake your way around emergency services?

I get that there are differences but I want you and everyone who thinks like you to think about what those differences are and why they are.

people who "think like me" already full well know the difference between assholes blocking intersections for bawdy adrenaline-infused juvenile behavior and closures by the proper authorities for an emergency.

don't equate what is essentially a riot with legitimate emergencies.

Good

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