LOS ANGELES \u2014 The Auto Club of Southern California on Thursday was teaming with USC Racing, law enforcement agencies and community partners to discourage illegal street racing and street takeovers in a public safety campaign.<\/p>\n
Instead, campaign organizers urged enthusiasts interested in motorsports to participate at legal racing facilities, including Willow Springs Raceway in Rosamond<\/p>\n
The campaign, \u201cOff the Streets. On the Track.,\u2019\u2019 coincides with AAA\u2019s annual 100 Days of Safe Driving campaign, which runs from Memorial Day through Labor Day, a period that historically sees a spike in fatal crashes involving teen drivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo many families are impacted every summer by crashes that are entirely preventable,\u2019\u2019 Kandace Redd, spokeswoman for the Auto Club of Southern California, said in a statement. \u201cThe 100 Days of Safe Driving campaign reminds us that every decision behind the wheel matters.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The multi-partner campaign comes as local communities experience illegal street racing and street takeovers that, in some cases, have turned deadly.<\/p>\n
Officials cited recent incidents including a fatal shooting at a street takeover in Carson, a takeover in East Los Angeles where a child and others were injured in a shooting, a Gardena takeover that blocked residents from accessing their homes and a downtown Los Angeles takeover that resulted in vandalism.<\/p>\n
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, its Street Racing Task Force has responded to 257 street takeovers this year through July 18, resulting in 251 arrests, 867 traffic stops, 789 citations and the impoundment of 293 vehicles.<\/p>\n
\u201cIllegal street racing is reckless, dangerous and completely preventable,\u2019\u2019 LAPD Detective Ryan Moreno said. \u201cEnforcement plays a critical role, but prevention is just as important.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
USC Racing is the university\u2019s Formula SAE team, a student-run organization that designs and builds race cars for sanctioned collegiate competitions. Campaign organizers said the team hopes to demonstrate that competitive driving can be pursued safely in controlled environments.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing part of USC Racing has taught me that safety is the foundation of everything we do,\u2019\u2019 USC Racing student Joey Cha said. \u201cRacing in a controlled environment allows us to push our limits without putting ourselves or others at risk.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Other facilities recommended by campaign organizers for legal racing facilities, rather than public streets, were Apple Valley Speedway, Barona Speedway, Famoso Dragstrip and Chuckwalla Valley Raceway.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 The Auto Club of Southern California on Thursday was teaming with USC Racing, law enforcement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[125526,48,52,51,13419,47,50,49,62797,62798,13420,67495],"class_list":["post-427778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-automobile-club-of-southern-california","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-land-transport","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-motor-racing","tag-motorsport","tag-road-transport","tag-street-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}