Street Racers

* The article “For Racers, Ride’s Worth Risks” (Dec. 9) is yet another in a series of irresponsible activities that The Times has glorified and promoted in print.

I enjoy watching legitimate racing on TV or in person, but I can’t believe The Times would actually send out a photographer and sign off on this trash, however colorfully written.

If you’re looking to increase readership among the younger generation, this is pretty yellow journalism. It is in the same category as the story on cock fighting in the Times magazine (“The Sport of Exiles, Dec. 5), and the story on kids using barbed wire baseball bats for “sporting” fights (“Full of Fight,” Southern California Living, Nov. 29).

The hard-working, law-abiding tax-paying public ends up with the medical and law enforcement bills, and we hear all the sad stories of children left without parents who are dead, in jail or incapacitated, costing more public money that could have been spent on something more useful. All because these street racers want cheap thrills and don’t care if it’s at the public’s expense and loss of the safe, legal use of the streets. They want to drive fast but are too lazy to drive to a site out of town designated for that purpose.

The San Fernando Valley is no longer some sparsely populated area with wide-open spaces.

The fastest, best way to shut the street racing down is to confiscate every car caught in the act of taking over the street. The cars can be sold to help pay for the expenses.

Perhaps then the rest won’t be so dismissive of a facility designed for racing, as the author states.

WINIFRED MEISER

Quartz Hill