A line of cars on a four-lane roadway, gawkers at the barriers and a drifting car. Over the weekend, a group of fans of illegal racing blocked the S17 route. “They upload a film as if nothing had happened, showing someone drifting a BMW at night, and the entire street is stuck in a traffic jam because of him. And what? And nothing!! They are completely unpunished” – Warsaw councilor Jan Mencwel does not hide his indignation.
Activists from Miasto Jest Nasze drew attention to the dangerous behavior. “It's just illegal spinning of donuts that blocked the entire street at night, and the noise could be heard a kilometer away,” they wrote in a post on the X platform. Although the post is ironic, it is a very serious matter.
It concerns the behavior of members of the Warsaw Night Racing group, which organizes illegal races. This time they appeared on the S17 route, near the footbridge. Drifters blocked the road to spin “donuts” on it.
“They are completely unpunished”
Jan Mencwel, a Warsaw councilor from the Left club and an activist of the Miasto Jest Nasze association, expressed his outrage on social media.
“This is really happening. This weekend in Warsaw, illegal night races were organized, for the purpose of which… traffic was blocked on an entire multi-lane street!” – he wrote. “This was done by the Warsaw Night Racing group, which has been openly describing its antics for a long time. Heck – they brag about them on social media. They post a video of someone drifting a BMW at night and the entire street is stuck in a traffic jam because of it. And what? And nothing!! They are completely unpunished. And yet the roar of such races can be heard for kilometers. Not to mention blocking the road, clearly breaking the law and creating a huge threat” – enumerated Mencwel.
The councilor, together with the Miasto jest Nasze association, will analyze how the Warsaw Night Racing group is. “If in such an obvious situation it is not possible to simply break up this group, it really means that we have a cardboard state and an urgent change of the law is needed,” he stated.
Where were the services when the law was broken on the S17 route – asks the councilor and reminds: “when @ostatniepokolenie blocks the streets, the police are there in a second and forcefully pull them off the road”. He also asks about the actions of the mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski: “Where is the mayor @trzaskowskirafal? An even better question. For a month now, we have been appealing to him to do something to put an end to the night races. No response. And last Thursday, his party did not agree to add this item to the agenda of the Warsaw Council. No comments” – he sums up.
Miasto Jest Nasze also pointed out the helplessness of the services. “You can keep scrolling, because it is known that the police, local government and the state are not seriously interested in putting an end to the practice of night car racing,” wrote activists on the X platform.
GDDKiA: the patrol did not find any difficulties
We asked the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways about the case. We wanted to know if there was monitoring in the place where the illegal races took place. If so, whether the cameras recorded such an event over the weekend and whether GDDKiA intends to notify the services about the incident.
It turns out that GDDKiA does not have cameras on S17 in the indicated place. “According to the information I obtained, the blockade took place after 8 p.m. The patrol between the Lubelska and Warszawa Wschód junctions was there after 11 p.m. and did not find any difficulties. The Road Information Point did not receive any reports from drivers or residents on this topic,” Małgorzata Tarnowska from the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways answered our questions.
We also asked the police about illegal racing and are waiting for a response.
Main image source: The City Is Ours/X