The Problem of Cruising

This guide begins by describing the problem of cruising, and reviewing factors that contribute to it. It then identifies a series of questions to help you analyze your local cruising problem. Finally, it reviews responses to the problem, and what is known about them from evaluative research and police practice.

You should note that while both cruising and street racing involve vehicles, some primary differences exist between them. Cruising is a pastime largely confined to downtown areas; sanctioned cruising can also provide an economic boost to the community.†

†For example, northern Nevada's weeklong "Hot August Nights" event generated $132 million for the cities of Reno and Sparks, with more than 800,000 people attending (RRC Associates 2003).

Conversely, street racing is typically an underground affair, causing many related problems.

The simplest definition of cruising is “unnecessary repetitive driving.”1 Attempts to legally define cruising have been more difficult, however, as people have successfully challenged anti-cruising ordinances in court on constitutional grounds.

Since at least the 1950s, people have cruised for a variety of reasons: to show off their own car, to see other people’s cars, to find racing competitors, to impress members of the opposite sex, and to socialize.2 Reinvigorated and glamorized by popular films such as American Graffiti, cruising remains an enormously popular rite of passage for many young people.3 Today’s cruisers drive a variety of vehicles: classic cars, pickup trucks, mini-trucks, muscle cars, lowriders (whose chassis narrowly clear the ground), and even motorcycles. Cruisers are particularly prevalent on Friday and Saturday nights, and they can number in the thousands.

Among the most common cruisers are the owners of classic, restored and custom cars, who most often view the activity as an opportunity to showcase their automobiles. Credit: Nattalie Hoch

But cruising is not purely harmless fun. It creates problems for the police, nonparticipating motorists, some businesses, and the community at large. Among them are

• conflicts between cruisers (including gang-related violence),
• littering,
• noise (from vehicle engines, screeching tires, car stereos, and exuberant fans),
• traffic congestion (including obstruction of emergency vehicles),
• traffic crashes, and
• vandalism and unintentional property damage.

While cruising creates business for some merchants, it impedes business for others.

In some jurisdictions, cruisers have divided up along racial, ethnic, and subcultural lines: blacks, Hispanics, punkers and heavy metal groups, the cowboy/western set, and so forth. Sometimes these divisions lead to group conflicts and violence, causing injury to participants and innocent bystanders and heightening fear in the wider community.4 In some jurisdictions, cruising has taken on a “rock concert” environment in which disorder, violence, and police enforcement are integral to the experience, and even expected and desired by the participants.5

Related Problems

There are several cruising-related problems police must also address. These call for separate analyses and responses, and are not directly addressed in this guide:

• assaults,
• auto theft,
• curfew violations,
• display of pornographic videos on vehicle-mounted televisions,
• drug dealing,
• drunken driving,
• gang-related activity,
• littering,
• loitering,
• loud car stereos, †
  †See the Problem-Specific Guide titled Loud Car Stereos.[Full text]
• noise (including illegal use of amplifiers,6 which can activate burglar alarms7),
• street racing, †
  †See the Problem-Specific Guide titled Street Racing.[Full text]
• traffic gridlock,
• traffic violations and crashes,
• underage drinking, and
• vandalism.

Drinking, littering, loud music, large crowds of spectators, and overcrowded vehicles can transform cruising from harmless fun to a police problem. Credit: Nattalie Hoch

Factors Contributing to Cruising

Understanding the factors that contribute to your problem will help you frame your own local analysis questions, determine good effectiveness measures, recognize key intervention points, and select appropriate responses.

Since the 1940s, teenagers have had easier access to cars, and cruising has become a popular pastime. Everyone used to meet at drive-in restaurants. Two drive-in restaurants often anchored the ends of a cruise route where cars would “drag.” Although there has been widespread closing of drive-ins since the 1970s, young people still find places to cruise.

Cruising remains popular for many reasons:

• It appears to be unsupervised.
• It gives people who are too young to go to bars or engage in other adult-only activities something to do (especially in cities that lack alternatives to cruising).
• It provides a means to socialize.
• It allows people to show off their vehicles and driving ability.8
• It lets people express racial and cultural pride (in locales where racial and ethnic identity is linked to the cruising phenomenon).
• Cars are a big part of American culture, and people value the freedom of the open road and the notion that one should be able to drive wherever one wants, whenever one wants.9

Understanding Your Local Problem

The information provided above is only a generalized description of cruising. You must combine the basic facts with a more specific understanding of your local problem. Analyzing the local problem carefully will help you design a more effective response strategy.

Asking the Right Questions

The following are some critical questions you should ask in analyzing your particular cruising problem, even if the answers are not always readily available. Your answers to these and other questions will help you choose the most appropriate set of responses later on.

Harms Caused by Cruising

• Does cruising cause traffic congestion, impeding emergency vehicles as well as others?
• How many police service calls are attributable to cruising? What types of cruising-related calls and incidents have been officially recorded? (Determining a connection to cruising may not be easy if your records system does not allow dispatchers and officers to record such information.) Does controlling cruising take up a lot of police resources?
• How many cruising-related assaults have occurred? How serious have the injuries been? (You may want to compare emergency room admissions records against police reports: not all assaults are reported to police.)
• Does cruising contribute to high numbers of traffic crashes?
• How long has cruising been going on in your community?
• What percentage of cruising vehicles do officers deem unsafe and/or illegally equipped?

Victims

• What is the public’s opinion of cruising (as indicated by “letters to the editor,” surveys, meetings, informal conversations, and so forth)? Do most people want cruising stopped altogether, or merely controlled?
• How has cruising affected business and home owners? Do business owners report increased or decreased revenues as a result of cruising?
• Who are the most vocal complainants about cruising? What is the specific nature of their complaints?
• How many people have been injured in cruising-related incidents? Are they victims of violent or nonviolent offenses? Personal or property crimes? Traffic crashes?

Offenders

• Who are the cruisers (age, race, ethnicity, subcultural group)?
• Are there organized groups of cruisers? If so, are they gangs? Are there tensions and confrontations between the groups? Do they fear, distrust, or commit crimes against each other?
• Who causes most of the problems—cruisers, passengers, observers, or those not interested in cruising itself, but there to capitalize on other opportunities (e.g., drug dealing or other crimes)?
• Why do people cruise?
• To what degree are unsupervised youths contributing to the problem?
• Where do cruisers live (i.e., are they local or from out of town)? How far do cruisers travel to get to the cruising area?
• What percentage of people cited or arrested for cruising-related offenses have previously been cited or arrested for similar behavior?
• On average, how many passengers do cruisers have?

Locations/Times

• Where are your jurisdiction’s main cruising locations? Have they changed over time? If so, why?
• Does cruising occur on public streets, or on private property (e.g., parking lots)?
• Is cruising concentrated in business areas, residential areas, or both? What attracts cruisers to these areas? Do the areas have adequate lighting and traffic control?
• When does cruising typically occur (time of day/night, day of week, time of month/year, certain holidays)? When are cruising-related problems most acute?

Measuring Your Effectiveness

Measurement allows you to determine to what degree your efforts have succeeded, and suggests how you might modify your responses if they are not producing the intended results. You should take measures of your problem before you implement responses, to determine how serious the problem is, and after you implement them, to determine whether they have been effective. All measures should be taken in both the target area and the surrounding area. You should be aware that your responses to cruising might displace it and related problems to other locations or types of offenses. (For more detailed guidance on measuring effectiveness, see the companion guide to this series, Assessing Responses to Problems: An Introductory Guide for Police Problem-Solvers.)

The following are potentially useful measures of the effectiveness of responses to cruising:

• reduced number of cruising-related service calls;
• reduced number of cruising-related offenses;
• improved citizen perceptions of safety regarding cruising;
• improved merchant perceptions of business profitability;
• reduced number of repeat offenders;
• improved perceptions among racial, ethnic, or subcultural minority groups about how fairly police treat them; and
• reduced police expenditures to control cruising.

Responses to the Problem of Cruising

Your analysis of your local problem should give you a better understanding of the factors contributing to it. Once you have analyzed your local problem and established a baseline for measuring effectiveness, you should consider possible responses to address the problem.

The following response strategies provide a foundation of ideas for addressing your particular cruising problem. These strategies are drawn from a variety of research studies and police reports. Several of these strategies may apply to your community’s problem. It is critical that you tailor responses to local circumstances, and that you can justify each response based on reliable analysis. In most cases, an effective strategy will involve implementing several different responses. Law enforcement responses alone are seldom effective in reducing or solving the problem. Do not limit yourself to considering what police can do: give careful consideration to who else in your community shares responsibility for the problem and can help police better respond to it.

General Considerations for an Effective Strategy

1. Enlisting community support. The prospects for effectively addressing cruising improve when it is perceived as a community problem and not just a police problem.10 Combined efforts by the local government, community leaders, and media to inform citizens about the problem and involve them in initiatives to address it will enhance the likelihood of success. Without sufficient community support to control cruising, police risk criticism for cracking down on what some see as an innocent pastime.Therefore, we suggest that an educational campaign be launched to inform the public about cruising ordinances or crackdowns, and to solicit local compliance with, and support for, police actions. Other efforts might include distributing pamphlets to cruisers and area car clubs to solicit their help.

2. Establishing alternative activities for youth. Although cruising is a major means of socializing for young people, events such as car shows or dances might also appeal to them. While some cruisers cruise to rebel and might not want to participate in officially sanctioned events, others less committed to cruising might participate. You should ask cruisers what alternative activities would appeal to them.

3. Promoting other uses of the cruising area. Increasing foot traffic in the cruising area, encouraging businesses to stay open later, allowing restaurants to set up tables between sidewalks and curbs, and bringing special events to the area (perhaps closing part of the street for them) can discourage cruisers, as they have to compete for space and attention. However, legal challenges may arise if use of public space is seriously restricted or people are charged admission to enter a public area.11

Specific Responses to Cruising

4. Enacting and enforcing cruising ordinances.

   Typical cruising ordinances regulate how many times the same vehicle can pass a fixed point within a certain time. †

   †A 1988 Boise (Idaho) Police Department survey of 229 police agencies serving populations of more than 50,000 revealed that most jurisdictions had some form of local ordinance regulating cruising (Carvino 1990). See also Gofman (2002) [Full text ].

   Warning signs to this effect are recommended, and may be legally required.†

   †For example, a California statute authorizing cities and police to combat cruising and divert traffic provides that police cannot ticket a cruiser unless they have previously given the cruiser a written warning after he or she has passed a traffic control point, and that cities must post adequate notices at the beginning and end of the street section subject to cruising controls (Gofman 2002) [Full text ].

   Police can give offenders a verbal or written warning (on the spot or in a letter), cite and release them, or arrest them. Enforcing such ordinances, however, usually requires many officers and, accordingly, is costly.12

   Cruising ordinances have led to legal challenges. Most courts have held that, while the right to travel “has long been recognized by the courts as inherent in our…personal liberty,”13 government has a legitimate interest in regulating vehicle traffic. The courts have concluded that cruising ordinances are valid insofar as they prohibit only repetitive driving in specific locations, and do not impede regular travel.14 Where such ordinances have been successfully challenged, it has usually been on the grounds that they were impermissibly vague.15 In other challenges to cruising ordinances, such as when police ticketed a delivery truck driver for cruising, the court has held that the ordinance regulated all motorists uniformly and thus was not discriminatory.16

   At least one federal court has addressed anti-cruising laws. In Lutz v. City of York, †

   †Lutz v. City of York, 692 F. Supp. 457, at 457-58 (M.D. Pa. 1988), aff'd, 899 F.2d 255 (3d Cir. 1990).

   the Third Circuit Court of Appeals found that cruising does fall under the fundamental right of intrastate travel, although ordinances may place a reasonable time, place, and manner restriction on such movement. The court found the York, Penn., ordinance problematic because it applied on weekday nights, when cruising was generally not a problem, and other traffic laws already addressed most of the disruptions caused by cruising.This case is the majority rule on anti-cruising laws. Since Lutz, local governments enacting anti-cruising ordinances have generally added procedural safeguards, such as requiring that adequate notice be given.

   Local ordinances vary as to whom, specifically, police can charge with a violation. Most ordinances apply to the driver only, but others apply to passengers as well, or to the car’s owner if he or she is in the car.

   There is a risk that police might enforce cruising laws against drivers not actually cruising. To minimize this risk, some jurisdictions require not only proof of an intent to drive repetitively and unnecessarily, but also that the accused be exonerated if he or she has a legitimate reason for repetitive driving.17

   Keep in mind also that some local businesses that cater to cruisers might suffer financially from cruising crackdowns.

5. Enforcing trespassing and loitering laws. Police often enforce cruising ordinances in conjunction with trespassing and loitering laws to keep cruisers from hanging out on private property near the cruising location. Enforcing trespassing and loitering laws on private property will likely require that property owners grant police specific authority to do so in their behalf. Judicial cooperation may be necessary to ensure that such enforcement is perceived as productive.18
6. Restricting parking. Prohibiting parking—both on public streets and in nearby private parking lots—serves to limit the number of spectators in the cruising area. Without a sufficient crowd, cruisers are discouraged from cruising.
7. Enforcing laws that restrict juveniles’ driving privileges. At least 36 states have enacted tighter restrictions on teenage drivers, and these restrictions can help police control cruising, especially at night. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration refers to this trend as “graduated driver licensing.”19 Common restrictions include prohibiting 15- and 16-year-olds from driving without an adult passenger at night, requiring that seat belts be worn, and limiting the number of passengers a young driver can have. They further threaten license revocation if underage drivers are convicted of any offense involving drinking.20
8. Regulating and redirecting traffic. In conjunction with strict enforcement of other ordinances, nearly every city that has aggressively addressed cruising problems has used barricades and traffic cones to shut off selected streets, keep traffic flowing in one direction, prohibit U-turns at favorite U-turn points, or redirect traffic (to shut down main cruising streets, channel traffic to one lane to identify drivers, inhibit conversation and antagonism between vehicle occupants, etc.). Many police agencies have found that using signs is not a long-term solution, however; when they remove the barricades and cones, the cruisers return. Furthermore, residents must be able to get through barricades to leave or get to their homes.
   
   To deal with the worst of gang-related cruising, cities have erected barriers to block off one end of affected streets; the courts have upheld such practices.21 Some jurisdictions have created an ordinance allowing the on-duty command officer to erect barricades and close main cruising routes when cruising becomes a problem.22

9. Increasing street lighting. Increased lighting in large parking lots or other cruising gathering points can help to make those areas safer.23 (Note, however, that it can be very expensive for property owners to install and maintain additional lighting, and too much light can cause glare and disturb nearby residents.) †

   The Lighting Research Center, a subsidiary of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is an excellent resource for lighting information, addressing transportation, health and safety, productivity, and performance issues. See www.lrc.rpi.edu/resources/news/ennews/ apr04/generalnews.html

Responses With Limited Effectiveness

10. 

    Sanctioned or controlled cruising has been shown to have only limited effectiveness as a response to cruising problems. Credit: Nordic Pontiac Association

    Sanctioning cruising in alternative locations. Some police agencies, such as those in Arlington, Texas, and Huntington, W.Va., have tried to relocate and control cruising rather than stop it. In this response, police divert cruising to locations where it is less likely to disrupt other community activities. They might select well-lit locations with a “downtown” atmosphere, reduced and slower traffic, more side streets for turning, more on-street parking, and added lanes.24 Or they might reserve a large parking lot for cruisers, setting up traffic cones to create cruising routes. (A task force studying Boise cruising problems found this alternative highly controversial, however, and did not recommend its use, due to city liability issues and business-owner opposition .) 25
    To the Arlington Police Department (APD), cruising had become a chronic headache that defied solution, freezing traffic for hours, adversely affecting businesses, and disturbing residents. The APD’s first response was to assign its 15-officer motorcycle unit to the area; they issued up to 600 tickets a night for minor violations. After two years, it became evident that enforcement was producing no long-term results. Next, they set up barricades to divert and break up the traffic flow. But crowd control remained a core problem, with fights, alcohol and drug abuse, vandalism, littering, and thefts in abundance. Finally, the city leased a large parking lot and opened it to cruisers on weekend nights, staffing it with police, equipping it with portable restrooms, and cleaning up each morning. The presence of foot and mounted patrols was a key component of the plan, providing a secure yet unstructured environment. Everyone involved deemed the effort a success. Street traffic flowed smoothly, customers returned to once off-limit businesses, and neighborhoods were free from problems. Source: Bell (1989).
11. Enforcing juvenile curfews. Because cruising typically occurs at night, enforcing juvenile curfews can reduce the number of young people on the street, thereby reducing their risk of offending and being victimized, and reducing the number of cruising spectators.26 Enacting and enforcing such curfews can be politically controversial, however. Furthermore, if the majority of the cruising crowd is too old to be affected by curfews, their usefulness will be limited.
    In Anoka, Minn., up to 500 teenagers were milling about among cruisers on weekend nights, resulting in fights, traffic violations, underage drinking, vandalism, sexual assaults, and drug dealing. The city appointed a task force to study the problem and recommend solutions. First, the city enacted a no-cruising ordinance, which included the designation of a No Cruising Zone. To be considered a violator, a driver had to have passed a traffic control point at least three times between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., and before police could issue a citation, they had to have previously issued a warning ticket good for six months. The warning clause proved to make the ordinance ineffective, and meanwhile, gang activity, drug dealing, serious assaults, and vandalism were increasing. The city removed the warning clause and more clearly defined the loitering law. More officers were assigned downtown on bike and foot patrols, and off-duty state troopers and sheriff’s deputies were also hired. While they were enforcing the ordinances, the department also picked up all youths violating the curfew ordinance. Word circulated about the crackdown, and violators filled the courtrooms each week. After five weekends of intensive enforcement, the cruising and loitering problems were solved. Source: Revering (1993).
12. Increasing police patrols. All cities that use police to address cruising problems do so on a large scale, employing foot, bike, and motorcycle officers to enforce existing ordinances to the fullest. (Foot patrol and bike officers can more easily move through congested traffic areas and parking lots, identifying violators and communicating with drivers.) Some cities have numerous off-duty officers work solely on cruising problems, while others have special units do so. Other jurisdictions have created a multiagency task force, deploying state troopers as well as local deputies and officers to quell the problem on weekends.27 However, such saturation patrol is normally quite expensive, and therefore unsustainable for the long term.
13. Sentencing offenders to community service. People convicted of minor cruising-related offenses might be sentenced to do community service tasks pertaining to cruising, such as cleaning up litter left over after cruises, repairing property damaged during cruises, etc.28 This approach may reduce jail crowding and costs.29 While community service may be good policy and often receives widespread business and citizen support, it alone may not guarantee that offenders won’t cruise again .
14. Setting up sobriety and vehicle inspection checkpoints. Sobriety and vehicle inspection checks can help remove intoxicated drivers and unsafe vehicles from the cruising area. They are, however, costly. Moreover, they may cause traffic congestion and confusion.

Summary of Responses

The table below summarizes the responses to cruising, the mechanism by which they are intended to work, the conditions under which they ought to work best, and some factors you should consider before implementing a particular response. It is critical that you tailor responses to local circumstances, and that you can justify each response based on reliable analysis. In most cases, an effective strategy will involve implementing several different responses. Law enforcement responses alone are seldom effective in reducing or solving the problem.

Endnotes

[1] Gofman (2002).[Full text]

[2] Witzel and Bash (1997).

[3] Gofman (2002). [Full text]

[4] Patterson and Barbour (1989).

[5] Walters (n.d.).

[6] Brinkmann (2001).

[7] Lezon (1999).

[8] Carvino (1990).

[9] Carvino (1990).

[10] Carvino (1990).

[11] Trapp (2000). [Full text]

[12] Trapp (2000). [Full text]

[13] Brandmiller v. Arreola, 199 Wis.2d 528, 544 N.W.2d 894 (Wis. Supr. Ct. 1996).

[14] Podgers (1996).

[15] State v. Stallman, 519 N.W.2d 903 (Minn. Ct. App. 1994).

[16] Scheunemann v. City of West Bend, 507 N.W.2d 163 (Wis. Ct. App. 1993).

[17] Gofman (2002).[Full text]

[18] Carvino (1990).

[19] U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (2004).

[20] Wilkinson (2001).

[21] See, for example, Townes v. St. Louis, 949 F. Supp.731 (E. D. Mo. 1996), aff’d, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 8861 (8th Cir., Sept. 6, 1997).

[22] Carvino (1990), as reported by the Reno Police Department, pp. 1–16.

[23] Carvino (1990), as reported by the Reno Police Department, pp. 1–16.

[24] Carvino (1990); see also Avon and Somerset Constabulary (2002). [Full text]

[25] Carvino (1990).

[26] Meares and Kahan (1998).

[27] Walters (n.d.).

[28] Carvino (1990).

[29] Carvino (1990).

References

Avon and Somerset Constabulary (2002). “Car Cruisers: A Partnership Bridging the Gap Between Car Cruisers and the Authorities.” Submission for the Tilley Award, Home Office, United Kingdom. [Full text]

Bell, J. (1989). “Cruising Cooper Street.” The Police Chief (January):26–29.

Brinkmann, P. (2001). “Illegal Amplification: ‘Bass Craze’ Earns Tickets as Police, Residents Crack Down on Loud Cars Cruising Decatur Streets.” Herald & Review ( Decatur, Ill.), Aug. 30, p. 1.

Carvino, J. (1990). Downtown “Cruising” in Major U.S. Cities, and One City’s Response to the Problem. Boise, Idaho: Boise Police Department.

Earhart, C. (2000). “ Main Street Crime-Watch Project.” Submission for the Herman Goldstein Award for Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing.[Full text]

Gofman, S. (2002). “Car Cruising: One Generation’s Innocent Fun Becomes the Next Generation’s Crime.” Brandeis Law Journal 41:1-31. [Full text]

Lezon, D. (1999). “ Las Vegas Focuses on Cutting Cruiser-Related Crime.” Albuquerque Journal, June 7. http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe (accessed July 14, 2003)

Meares, T., and D. Kahan (1998). “Law and Norms of Order in the Inner City.” Law andSociety Review 32(4):821.

Patterson, J., and G. Barbour (1989). “Cruise Control in Lakewood.” The Police Chief 56(1):32–34.

Podgers, J. (1996). “Rights of Passage: Three Rulings Uphold Restrictions on Public Ways.” ABA Journal 82(11):42–43.

Revering, A. (1993). “Cruising and Loitering: Preludes to Serious Crime.” The Police Chief (April):39–40.

RRC Associates (2003). Hot August Nights: 2003 Special Event Research and Visitor Profile Study. Boulder, Colo.: RRC Associates.

Trapp, D. (2000). “Cruise Control.” City Beat: Panoramic Cincinnati. [Full text]

U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (2004). “Graduated Driver Licensing System.”

Walters, P. (n.d.).“Policing Santa Ana: How a Community Reduced Crime.” Santa Ana Police Department website,

Wilkinson, T. (2001). “Among States, A Bid to Curb Teen Joyriding.” Christian Science Monitor 93(104):2.

Witzel, M., and K. Bash (1997). Cruisin’: Car Culture in America. Osceola, Wis.: MBI Publishing Co.

Related POP Projects

Important!

The quality and focus of these submissions vary considerably. With the exception of those submissions selected as winners or finalists, these documents are unedited and are reproduced in the condition in which they were submitted. They may nevertheless contain useful information or may report innovative projects.

Car Cruisers [Tilley Award Winner], Avon and Somerset Constabulary (Bristol, UK), 2002

Cruising Abatement Project [Goldstein Award Finalist], Santa Ana Police Department, 1997

Main Street Crime Watch Project, Longmont Police Department, 2000

Marian Bear Park [Goldstein Award Finalist], San Diego Police Department, 1994

Operation Impact, California Highway Patrol, 2008

Project Cruise Control, Fresno Police Department, 1999

South Seneca Cruising Project, Wichita Police Department, 1998

Stopping Car Cruising in Nottinghamshire, Nottinghamshire Police (Nottinghamshire, UK), 2008