Canada: 30 mph over speed limit is “street racing”

Anyone driving 50 km/h (roughly 30 mph) over the speed limit should be deemed a street racer and have his or her car seized, Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino said Monday. Last week, we told told you how Ontario’s Attorney General said police in the Canadian province have the right to seize and crush any car modified for street racing. The fine for road racing rose ten times in May to a whopping $10,000. The move came days after a taxi driver was killed in Toronto when a Mercedes struck his cab while racing another luxury car. “I’m advocating that if you speed 50 kilometres over the speed limit, you’re racing,” Fantino said, according to the Canadian Press. “And then we should apply the racing laws to that and seize the vehicles and do whatever else is necessary. We have to stop all this.” Fantino said he visited Ohio last week to study how police there use planes to catch dangerous drivers. He said he watched police take down eight “high end” speeders in 30 minutes. He wants to bring the idea to Ontario. “I don’t know that we’re going to have a whole lot of difficulty here, but I wanted to do all the homework, look at all the ups and downs, pluses and minuses, and then put my case forward to the decision-makers,” he said. Planes used in Ohio to catch speeders cost $380,000 each. Last week, Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant started a heated debate over street racing when he said police had the right to seize and destroy any car that has been modified for street racing — without a warrant. “We will seize it and you will never see it again. We will crush your car, we will crush the parts.