The Saturday night car meet is a tradition. Across the country and around the world, gearheads gather with like minded individuals at local coffee shops, gas stations and empty parking lots to show off their rides. In the past, these meets have also been where one would arrange an illegal, late-night street race.
But with todays modern surveillance and even local cops with helicopters, you’d have to be crazy to street race. It’s not just dangerous, you’re gonna get caught!
After fueling up on Petro-Canada 94 octane, it was a quick jump over to the west side. The car meet was set for a strip mall parking lot that hosted meets many times before, without incident.
During the meet, police approached a young man on a motorcycle, who was doing burnouts. While attempting to evade the police, the biker took off, smashed into two parked cars, then lost his balance and dumped the bike on its side. Dude took off on foot leaving his motorcycle behind in the middle of the Tim Horton’s parking lot.
That kind of killed the vibe of the car meet-up. What was supposed to be a ‘park & chill’ meet-up turned into crashes, charges and insurance claims. And the cops were pissed! Some police cars took off to look for the hooligan, while others officers stuck around to unceremoniously announced to the assembled crowd that they needed to disperse. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.
As soon as it got started, the meet was over. Drivers piled into their cars and left. The meet was re-located to a former Lowe’s Home Improvement store parking lot 10 km away, but most attendees didn’t bother going to the second spot.
A meet up at the local Tim Horton’s is great because everyone can grab a drink or a bite to eat (plus, there’s facilities to use) but it’s just no fun hanging out in an abandoned parking lot in the middle of nowhere.
A social media post had been circulated in advance of the meet-up, indicating that Peel Regional Police had stepped up enforcement, even handing out $500 tickets for taking part in nuisance gatherings. Despite these car meets being loud and sometimes unruly, for the most part, police only ‘touch’ someone for making a fool of themselves, revving, 2-stepping, doing burnouts, or otherwise making themselves a spectacle of themselves and potentially endangering others.
The majority of the crowd left, and only a few hardcore car guys remained. The police cruised by and kindly asked everyone remaining to leave, but straight-faced excuses about waiting for a girlfriend to get off work were accepted at face value. Clearly those of us that remained wll after midnight were not part of that motoring madness earlier.
As a group of high-dollar BMWs posed in the corner, looking like a million bucks. A couple of Subarus, a World Rally Blue WRX and Dark Teal Metallic SVX, looked like trouble-makers planning where to meet up for the late-night drag race. Heavy handed police enforcement doesn’t stop behavior; it just pushes it further underground. Police outreach would go so much further.