The troubling June 10 hospitalization of an injured couple in Burnaby has once again focused the public policy spotlight on the question of street racing. Police suspect the Burnaby couple was injured when their vehicle was struck by an out-of-control street racer. While police are trying to crack down on street racing, the pure enforcement approach has limitations that suggest the time is ripe for some innovative thinking about ways to deal with this lethal problem.

It would be nice to think that the street-racing problem could simply be prosecuted away, wished away, or educated away, but it can’t. Since the time of the Model-T, some people have always pushed the envelope of speed, in a quest to answer the eternal question of car fiends: “What’ll she do.” What’s needed is a mixture of carrot and stick: facilitation of the urge to race, and prosecution of those who put others at risk.

By way of facilitating the urge to race safely, one idea might be to give racers a place to indulge the need for speed in a safe and controlled environment. In a city that believes in safe injection centres for drug addicts, harm reduction for street racers should be a no-brainer.

Ideally, all that would be needed to make this happen would be for the city to change some zoning laws, and invite in private investors. In reality, however, land values and the need for expensive noise abatement near the current street-racing problem areas may deter private investors, and a public-private partnership might be needed to get the project off the ground.

Amongst the groups who would have a logical interest in financing this endeavour would be insurance companies, automobile and racing associations, food vendors, and aftermarket parts suppliers. Each of these groups is in some way affected by the behaviour of street racers. Parts suppliers could find additional profit through increased sales, and insurers could see reduced liability and vehicle damage claims. Food vendors would have a fixed point of sale and a market with a well-known penchant for fast food. Racing associations could find added members, and potentially share in the take from racing and attendance fees. In Calgary, where a track was established to get on-road racers off the road, the racers are charged $20.00 to use the track as many times as they wish during the sanctioned events, while spectators pay a $5.00 fee. Such events should be held at least once a week, if not more, to make the track available as often as possible for racers, who rarely take days off.

For this approach to work, however, the strip should be built as close as possible to where these street racers practice their trade. As racers aren’t exactly known for their patience, a strip far away is a strip less likely to be used. A similar constraint applies to the fees, which would have to be kept low, since currently, racing on streets only involves the cost of potential penalties if caught, and the risk of being caught isn’t very high. Keeping the cost as low as possible, while maintaining a price that allows the track to pay for upkeep and maintenance, ensures the maximum benefit from the track.

But harm reduction is not a complete solution. Building a track would only address one of the two forms of street racing. Organized street racing would be responsive to harm reduction, since the racing events are set at a planned location. But impromptu street racing would likely not be affected a great deal by a harm reduction strategy. For this reason, harm reduction must be accompanied by strict enforcement of the law with stiff penalties for those caught racing on public roads.

Strict enforcement and stiff penalties should lead to a reduction in the portion of street racing that will not respond to harm reduction. Strict enforcement will increase the likelihood of being caught, while stiff penalties will increase the cost after being caught.

There are no simple, total solutions to the street racing problem. The urge to race has been a constant, whether on foot, horseback, bicycle, or automobile. Racing will not be ended with harm reduction policies and more enforcement. These two in combination can, however, significantly reduce the collateral damage associated with street racing. If the goal is to make the streets safe, the method should not be prohibition, but rather allowance of an activity in a safe playground.