As summer approaches, Texas Governor Greg Abott high-speed taskforce will be at the forefront of slowing down street takeovers. The state of Texas is one of few states that have a dedicated taskforce to deal with street takeovers.
People tend to have more free time and energy during the summer months to participate in these events. During the events people shut down intersections or parking lots to do burnouts and doughnuts. Some people will hang outside the car’s window, pop fireworks and even stand in the middle of the intersection or parking lot to capture videos of the cars sliding around.
Along with the taskforce creation, Gov. Abott has signed two bills to help slow down the behavior. House Bill 1442 allows for more prosecutions of these organized events, while House Bill 2899 permits law enforcement to impound vehicles that are a part of the organized events.
Lucy Beaty is one of the presidents of the 400 Cars, a San Marcos car group. She was pulled over by the taskforce and removed from her vehicle. She says they do take the threat of takeovers seriously.
“The cop very immediately yanked me out of the car. The cop was like ‘you know, this isn’t something to be messed around with’,” Beaty said.
Although people might think that this incident may have caused her to hold a grudge against law enforcement, Beaty was not bitter about it and realized the taskforce is there to keep people safe.
“I will say, it definitely opened my eyes to what I was doing,” Beaty said. “They are just doing their job at the end of the day and I understand where they were coming from.”
Caden Hartman, leader of a car group called TXST Cars, sees the threat of takeovers and does not condone this type of behavior. Not only do the events put other people in harm’s way, but also can negatively impact people’s views on the car community.
“It’s just overall a negative when you could be doing this on private property in safer conditions and I and a bunch of other organizations around believe it’s just an overall net negative,” Hartman said.
However, law enforcement in the Austin area has had an officer shortage adding to the struggles of slowing down takeovers. Nevertheless, Hartman believes that the local law enforcement is competent on their own and can deal with them.
“It is a big problem, but I feel like that the main police force can handle it on their own and they don’t need a whole another division,” Hartman said.
Law enforcement is one way of slowing down the spread of street takeovers but they aren’t the only one’s who should stop the spread. Aidan Mcspadden, the other president of the 400 Cars club, believes that this issue is not only on the taskforce but also on the car community as well.
“You know, people posting on Tik Toks there’s a lot of YouTube channels that have gained millions of followers just strictly covering takeovers,” Mcspadden said.
Mcspadden thinks the acceptance of takeovers on social media is something that should change in order to help combat the takeover rise.
“… Because you can sit there all day and say you hate takeovers and you want them to end. But then if you’re giving these people clicks and views then it’s just going to continue to push this idea that covering takeovers is popular and we’ll get your views and we’ll get your clicks,” Mcspadden said.
The 400 Cars and other car groups have tried to lend their hand in trying to slow the spread of street takeovers. Some car clubs started hosting car meet ups at racetracks or private property they have permission to be on. As well, some groups alert police that there will be a meet going on, giving the police time to be prepared to patrol the area.
Austin is not the only Texas city to have been hit with the rise of street takeovers. Other main big cities like San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth have seen a rise of the activity.
Takeovers are not only a situation in Texas, but in other states as well. States like Oregon, Florida, California, and Virginia have felt the effects of the events.
The Texas High Speed Taskforce has yet to respond to request for comment. Articles involving how they are doing are scarce to find at the time of writing. For more information on where takeovers are in Texas, use the IWatchTexas website or app.
