Opinion: Put cameras everywhere if it means an end to street racing

Screeches in the night. With this morning’s commentary, here’s guest commentator KIRO Radio’s Nick Creasia.

I’ve been finding myself hearing about illegal street racing in the news more and more often, whether it’s working here listening to the headlines or coming home watching footage on social media and local TV newscasts.

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And I know I’m not the only one when I say that this isn’t something I’d like to get used to. Excessive rubber marks on the roads, insanely aggressive drivers in sports cars too flashy for any reasonable commuter, and then there’s the noise!

Instead of dozing off on a summer evening to the soothing sound of distant trains, the breeze is thick with the desperate screeching of cars being tortured!

Well, no one has the right to steal my sleep!

I should be able to sleep with the windows open without being terrorized by outlaws abusing the roads I pay for.

I want my peaceful summer soundtrack back!

Of course, that’s easier said than done with the shortage of police officers in the city of Seattle. Which means, as much as I hate to say it, the time has come to turn it over to Big Brother. Unleash the speeding cameras. Install them in all the hot spots and keep them on all night.

And I know what you’ll say, ‘I don’t need any more cameras to punish me for going a mile over 25 past my nephew’s elementary school!’

And I’m with you, that logic makes sense.

But I’m not after the minor offenders, I’m after the scofflaws stealing my pavement and sabotaging my sleep!

Make it simple: 1-4 mph above the limit. We can give the driver a little scare, maybe a flash of lights as a reminder that the car is now on the DOL’s radar.

But for anything that looks like racing? The state invalidates the license and confiscates the car! Using due process, of course.

It may not be a perfect solution, but I didn’t sign up to live in the Thunderdome.

And if it sounds like I’m trying to limit anybody’s freedom, I can have Chris provide simple directions on how to get to Montana.

Listen to Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.