Street racing in Canadian cities is a serious problem; it’s a threat to public safety. Just take a look at the recent police ‘sweep’ of street racers in Edmonton, and how many young gearheads were caught up in the illegal activity.
Members of the Edmonton Police department were so concerned about the growing trend that they’ve developed community outreach programs to get police and young gearheads together, hoping to steer them clear of street racing. And they’re using police race-cars to draw the youngsters in.
They’re known as Blue Line Racing, a volunteer group of police officers operate a race team in local drag racing series. By bringing their police race cars to local schools, Blue Line Racing wants to show safe racing alternatives to impressionable young motorists, while also cultivating positive relationships between the youth and police officers.
Blue Line Racing believes in education over enforcement. Arresting young gearheads, or impounding their vehicles, just pushes street racing underground and fosters an “us versus them” mentality. A program called Embracing New Roads was developed for 14 to 18 year-olds, high school kids in grades 10-12, to address traffic safety issues. Rather than yelling at youngsters, Blue Line Racing educates in a way that revvs up their interests, bringing police livery race cars to schools.
- Blue Line Racing encourages young racers to be aware of the social pressures and real-life consequences of four main traffic issues
- – driving impaired
- – distracted driving
- – road rage
- – speeding and street racing
No preaching, lectures or judgments; the programs use a town-hall style of presentations at high schools in Edmonton. Blue Line Racing focuses on the ‘why’ of traffic safety, and tries to take away the perceived glamour of street racing, and present the the dark realities instead. In the opinion of Blue Line Racing, street racing has been misleadingly propped-up by Hollywood, the music world and video gams like Grand Theft Auto; all forms of media highly-consumed by teenagers.
For more information check out https://bluelineracing.ca/
Agree with your street racing post! It’s a problem here too!
Question …. what are your thoughts on AppleTV becoming a major player in F-1 racing & news. I welcome it, as there is so little coverage in the US. NASCAR is the “Big Dog” here …….. F-1 is looked at as too “elite!”
I think that the Apply TV deal will be looked back at in a few years as the moment that all this ‘growth of F1’ in the United States stopped. Moving it from free-to-air TV to a pay-TV channel is the death knell.
The sport grew because it was accessible to the casual fan. The type of person who saw ‘Drive to Survive’ or watched the Brad Pitt movie this summer, then decided to catch a race on TV and see what the fuss was about.
Now, only the diehard fans willing to ante-up for AppleTV will even have access to the sport. I think its a sad day, but somebody is going to get rich off it!
I don’t watch much NASCAR (just Daytona and some road course races) and I agree that Formula 1 is elitist. That’s why I like the one in the middle… IndyCar!
Nice rides! The world has gone off its rocker!
Yeah, it’s kind a cool that the local police department runs a race team. And I specially like that they bring the cars to schools with a ‘no preaching’ attitude.
The kids listen then.
Agreed.