Kansas City is looking for more permanent ways to address the issue of illegal street racing and stunt driving as the summer weather picks up.
Late last year, the city began installing plastic pucks at intersections in neighborhoods like the Crossroads and Power & Light. The discs are meant to stop cars from drifting or cutting donuts in wide open spaces.
While the pucks were somewhat successfully in lessening illegal activity in those spaces, Kansas City Police Captain Corey Carlisle says that racers simply move to another location.
“We’re obviously hoping and looking for other avenues to be able to combat the issues that deal with the public nuisance overall on a larger scale,” Carlisle says.
Since March 29, Kansas City Police have received 296 calls related to drag racing and sideshow activity.
The other problem with the pucks has been durability.
“Our big concern is that they would be basically removed by snowplows [in the winter],” says City Manager Brian Platt. “They didn't hold up as well as we had expected. So our next iteration of safety [devices] in some of those intersections will be larger, more durable, and more resilient.”
According to Platt, the city is now looking into ways to narrow the width of some streets in an effort to make them less attractive for stunt drivers. Some of the options being explored include installing additional speed bumps, lane barriers and roundabouts.
“We’re thinking about what would make it harder to drive anywhere but places you're supposed to drive,” Platt says. “However, enforcement is also a key component to reducing this type of activity. We've gotta have sufficient and rapid enforcement, and monitoring of vehicle behaviors as well.”
The city is asking that residents continue to report unsafe driving or problematic street conditions so they can determine where to focus their immediate attention.
“It's gonna take us a long time to get through every single street,” Platt says. “The best thing that we can all do is communicate exactly the locations that we need to fix, so we can get on top of them and address these problems and move forward.”
