Witnesses say the driver of this car was traveling 90mph when he ran headed on into another car on Alki Avenue in West Seattle on July 16th
Deep in the throes of a Street Racing epidemic the Seattle City Council late Tuesday afternoon approved the use of automated traffic cameras.
The near misses, complaints and violence high speed crashes led the city council to red flag 10-streets as “Restricted Racing Zones” in recent weeks.
“These racers are not simply speeding” Councilmember Lisa Herbold was blunt “They are going upwards of 70mph, past 100mph; this is not a situation of people driving just a bit over the speed limit.”
Desperate residents have been complaining for years. Seattle Police have struggled to push back and their pleas for emergency intervention failed to gain traction “Please don’t wait until another person gets hit, hurt, shot or killed before taking action” David Haynes told the council.
The state legislature expanded the use of traffic cameras last year and Mayor Bruce Harrell tells Northwest Newsradio he will go back to lawmakers if the city needs a tougher law “We look at doing everything possible we can to have a strong law and an effective law, a tough enforcement strategy.”
SDOT is now taking over the project. But government red tape is expected to slow the process and there’s currently no timetable for putting those automated traffic cameras on roads.