Both California Highway Patrol officers and Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies have spent untold time and resources to stop street racing, which might seem harmless, but can have serious fatal effects.
Luckily, the Oct. 9 investigation of two 19-year-old Stevenson Ranch street-racing suspects didn’t involve any of that.
Two deputies in a marked black-and-white patrol car both heard and saw two vehicles driving at a high rate of speed in front of them: a green four-door 2007 Mazda 3 and a gray, four-door 2020 Honda Civic.
The vehicles were heading southbound on The Old Road, where they ended up directly in front of the deputies they (presumably) didn’t see, who were stopped at the northern portion of the intersection at Sagecrest Circle and The Old Road.
“As the light turned green, both vehicles squelched their tires and accelerated at a high rate of speed through the intersection, with multiple restaurants filled with patrons on both sides of the street, which had multiple vehicles on the road,” according to the preliminary arrest report from Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies.
The report continued with details from the brief, if ill-advised racing duo’s excursion: “As the vehicles passed through the southern entrance of Sagecrest Circle, the two southbound lanes merge into a single lane, the Mazda 3 sped in front of the Honda Civic and rapidly accelerated again,” which also prompted the Civic to accelerate. Deputies paced the vehicles at approximately 85 mph in the area where the posted speed limit is 40 mph, per the deputies’ report.
At this point, the deputies conducted a traffic stop on the individuals on suspicion they were “engaging in a speed contest.”
Both vehicles yielded onto the shoulder without incident. The driver of the Honda Civic quickly apologized and acknowledged that he was “driving recklessly,” according to the report, and estimated that he was going “about 60 mph.” He added that both he and the car he was driving alongside “were going to their friend’s house … and were just having fun.”
The other driver estimated his speed at close to 80 mph, and corroborated his friend’s account.
Both drivers had their cars towed, and then were arrested and cited out, per the Sheriff’s Station report.
