SAN DIEGO — The California Highway Patrol is working to end reckless driving.
CHP has secured $2 million in federal money that aims to reduce the rise of illegal sideshows, takeovers, and street racing.
“It obviously can be dangerous to them, to bystanders," said Mission Valley resident, Mandalyn Gilles.
The new federal grant is building on the CHP's previous work to help crack down on street racers.
The federal money supports a yearlong campaign that'll run through September of next year.
“Several times I’ve just seen all the traffic blocked and everyone just doing the circles and donuts. It’s fairly disruptive I know for everyone that lives right near it’s really loud. But yeah, it happens all the time," said Gilles, who says sideshows are an often occurrence in Mission Valley.
In 2021, CHP responded to more than 7,300 illegal sideshows statewide.
“It took me time to recover to be able to make sense of everything, I just knew it was a crash. But when I read the report, that’s when I said ‘Well you know if he didn’t race, she would’ve been alive. If he didn’t go over 80mph she would be alive. Speed is what killed my daughter," said Lilli Trujillo Puckett, who lost her 16-year-old daughter Valentina in a street racing accident in 2013.
Trujillo Puckett now devotes her life to a non-profit called Street Racing Kills, using their deeply personal loss to provide outreach and education to young people throughout California on the dangers of illegal street racing and sideshows.
She hopes the new grant can help prevent others from losing their lives.
“It is necessary for the California highway patrol to have this," she added. "Education, law enforcement and legislation, I believe they go... all of those three, is what makes it work."
Funding for the program is provided by the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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