Please do not make donuts here. Photo: Dllu/Wikimedia Commons
About 100 cars blocked the eastbound lanes of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in California early Saturday morning. It wasn’t because of an accident or roadworks: Drivers blocked traffic to burn rubber and make donuts across the bridge’s eastbound lanes. As the state of California seeks to address these so-called sideshows, this Bay Bridge incident is the latest in a steady trend of high-profile incidents of reckless and irresponsible driving.
According to the California Highway Patrol (CHP), around 1 a.m. Saturday, December 3, the eastern half of the Bay Bridge near the main tower east of Treasure Island was blocked. The San Francisco Standard reports that less than 20 minutes later, before police could even get to the scene, the bridge was clear.
Sideshow videos that have been on Instagram are not uncommon at this point. Several cars drove recklessly across the road. However, the location was unique: the Bay Bridge is a vital intersection, crossed by approximately 22 million vehicles annually. The caption of an Instagram post implied that the Bay Bridge’s lower deck was also illegally closed.
Sideshows are becoming an increasing problem for California. In July of this year, Los Angeles authorities were forced to shut down a brand-new, half-billion-dollar bridge due to constant disruption from street racers and sideshows. There seems to be no end in sight to the chaos in California. In September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Assembly Act of 2000 into law. When the law goes into effect in 2025, courts can suspend a driver’s license for six months if they are found to have participated in sideshows or street racing in parking lots.