Whats the issue with street takeovers?
By: Adrian Ericson
5/24/24
The youth nowadays attend dangerous car takeovers performed by car enthusiasts. These meetups are unpredictable, they happen late at night and mainly during the weekends. No matter the location your nearest intersection could be the target for an upcoming meetup and you wouldn’t even know it. No matter the risk or danger people love the thrill and attention that comes with driving recklessly.
What exactly is a takeover and why could it be so dangerous? Well to answer that, we need to understand what a take over is. Originally known as innocent and safe car meetups where drivers would showcase their vehicles in an orderly fashion has evolved into something much more reckless. Sport cars and Muscle car aficionados would deliberately shut down major intersections and recklessly drive in circles performing burnouts and other daring maneuvers. But why? Many would agree that takeover drivers perform in such erratic ways solely for the purposes of brag rights and a sense of superiority over other drivers that may not be able to keep up in these stunts.
Statistically, it's been shown that takeovers have increasingly become more and more common with dozens of late night takeovers happening every other day. Gathering hundreds of people with the majority being teenagers ranging from the ages of 14-19 years old.
“There were all these people coming in from all over i know some of my friends from jersey came too”
With the amount of youth attending these functions at such late hours we can't help but ask ourselves, what about these takeovers make it so appealing and why would people take the risk of even attending one?
“The amount of adrenaline you get from just being in the crowd is just fun to be honest”
Loud and fast cars, ear shattering music, hundreds of attendees, and big clouds of smoke making it almost impossible to even see the car driving. All recipes to feed an adrenaline rush the youth nowadays crave and actively seek for.
“There's always loud music and people yelling from the crowds, everything is just super fast paced probably why it's so fun”
How skillful are these drivers really? Barely missing spectators by meer feet while actively trying to keep pace with other drivers.
“Sometimes people crash and people in the crowd gets hurt but really it's all about being aware of your surroundings”
Meets either end when police arrive through civilian complaints or when people in the crowd start getting hurt. When things get heated because a driver crashed into another driver or the crowd there's a high possibility of shots being fired.
“It's all about knowing where you're at and being able to stay on ten toes, everything is fast paced and loud so being the last one to know when there's imminent danger is probably a death sentence”
Regardless of the dangers and risk involving street takeovers its still widely popular and happening whenever and wherever.
“At the end of the day people come out to have fun and admire cars and driving skills”