Someone at the California Highway Patrol’s San Diego office had to pick a song.
The post was about a gunmetal Nissan GT-R that, according to CHP, was “observed participating in an illegal street race on a local freeway.” The photos show the car strapped to a flatbed tow truck. The caption calls that kind of driving “not only dangerous, but malicious.” And the audio on the Facebook version, published Oct. 2 at 5:40 p.m., is Matthew Wilder’s 1983 single “Break My Stride.”
The GT-R’s stride is now broken for 30 days.
Everything CHP has said
The post, which also went up on CHP San Diego’s Instagram account, is three sentences long. It says the GT-R was seen in an illegal street race on a local freeway, that San Diego Area officers “took the appropriate enforcement action,” and that the action resulted in a 30-day seizure. The last sentence says street racing is illegal and endangers everyone involved as well as the motoring public.
That’s all of it. The post doesn’t say which freeway, what day, how fast, how officers saw the race, whether anyone was arrested or cited, or who was driving. No driver is named, and nothing in the post says a charge has been filed.
What the photos show
CHP posted three photos, and none show a freeway. In each one, the GT-R sits on a rollback flatbed next to a multistory stucco residential building. In one, a white SUV with red and blue lights flashing in its grille is parked behind the tow truck. A single green strap runs over the car’s front tire.
The post doesn’t say where the car was when officers seized it, or how much time passed between the race and the tow.
The one-car problem
Commenters on both platforms asked the obvious question: a race takes two cars, so where is the other one?
California law doesn’t require one. Vehicle Code Section 23109 bans motor vehicle speed contests on highways, and it defines a speed contest as a race against another vehicle, “a clock, or other timing device.” Legally, you can race a stopwatch by yourself.
CHP’s post doesn’t say whether this GT-R had a human opponent or what happened to that car if there was one.
Why the car is gone before any court date
The 30 days come from Vehicle Code Section 23109.2. When an officer determines that someone was in a speed contest, drove recklessly, or put on an exhibition of speed, the officer may arrest that person on the spot and seize the vehicle. The car can then be impounded for up to 30 days.
That happens before a judge hears anything. The registered owner is entitled to a storage hearing. The car has to be released early if it was stolen, if the owner didn’t know how it was being used, or if the citation is dismissed or prosecutors decline to file charges. Otherwise, the owner generally pays the towing and storage bill. If the case ends in an acquittal or dismissal, the owner doesn’t owe those costs.
A conviction carries more. For a first offense, Section 23109 calls for 24 hours to 90 days in county jail, a fine of $355 to $1,000, or both, along with 40 hours of community service. A court may also suspend the driver’s license for 90 days to six months and order the car impounded again for up to 30 days. Days already spent in storage under the initial seizure count toward that.
For a recent impound story from the other side of the Colorado River, we covered a Corvette driver who raced at 120 mph on I-10 and then asked to keep the car he needs for work.
The comment section had its own agenda
As of Oct. 19, the Instagram post had more than 8,300 likes and 774 comments. The Facebook post had about 900 reactions, 316 comments and 68 shares.
Much of that attention wasn’t about the GT-R. The most-liked comment on Instagram, with about 2,000 likes, accused CHP officers of driving 90-plus mph without their emergency lights on. Another, with about 1,000 likes, told the agency to build more race tracks. On Facebook, several commenters critiqued how the car was strapped down, and others asked to see video of the race.
CHP’s caption warns that street racing endangers everyone on the road. Its soundtrack is a song called “Break My Stride.” For the next 30 days, whatever stride this GT-R had belongs to the tow yard.