Hey All, I don't often do this, but after operating this site as long as we have, I've gotten a number of these and feel the time has come to make a public stand about sites like StreetFire being the cause of unsafe streets.
-----------------------
Via the StreetFire Feedback Form
-----------------------
xxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xx
11/14/2007 8:02:16 PM
Does it matter to anyone one there that might have a wife and kids that use the highway, that your site has inspired guys to reach dangerous, out of control speeds on the same high way? Or is it a matter that your desire for money far out ways the chance of it being Your family that gets wiped out? What's the chances that your sense of morality and subsequent integrity may over ride the calculation of lost interest in your site if you ban "Public road high speed masturbations". Truth is you might get a lot of credit for being a leader. A Professional Responsible Corporate citizen. You may even put up a links page of race tracks and get some advertising dollars from them. Hoping common sense prevails. X Xxxx. President: Xxxxx Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx
Mr Xxxxx,
As the founder of StreetFire I do my best to reply to all the feedback left on our site. Your feedback implies StreetFire inspires people to recklessly endanger your family. As a family man myself your concern bears response.
While I can see the cause and effect logic that brings you to that conclusion, I could not agree with you less. Indeed, I encourage you to watch "
American Graffiti" a 1973 movie about kids street racing in the 60's, and you'll see StreetFire is not the source of car culture, rather a reflection of it. This isn't new to this generation, cars and street life are a constant. In the 1950's Kids loved cars. The 60's Yea, they loved the love bug. The 70's? Smokey and the Bandit, the 80's? Deloreans and Knight Rider. The 90's? Fast and Furious. The 2000s? Tokyo Drift.
StreetFire reflects the hobby, and the hobby has both safe and dangerous sides, reflected on and off the track. As a reflection of the hobby, and a place for enthusiast to share the hobby, we would have to be morally corrupt to censor the videos and photos our members upload on the basis of them being "proper" or "improper".
Bob Peterson, the patron saint of automotive enthusiast media, took a similar magnanimous view, and his museum today continues that legacy. Right now the
Peterson Museum is
featuring cars from the Lowrider scene, which also bears the reputation of being an "illegal" "criminal" culture. But when you walk through the halls of the Peterson Museum, and see the amazing works of art these Lowrider cars represent, only someone that can't appreciate art would walk away unmoved. The illegal street scene that made the Lowrider culture blossom is part of that reflection, and Bob Peterson's museum would be morally corrupt to represent the cars out of context, or to even talk down or pass negative judgment on the LA Latino culture that created it. As a matter of fact I highly recommend you buy a copy of
Lowrider Magazine and see the amazing vehicles these craftsman create.
In an ideal world we would all be able to enjoy our hobby in the safe confines of a race track behind a 30 foot tall fence with a fleet of ambulances, and non alcoholic beer for our enjoyment as experienced professionals whisk hybrid fuel efficient cars along a track made of recycled tire material with a bouquet of wild flowers growing in their wake.
But this is decidedly not an ideal world, and people that hate the car hobby try to take it away from us every day. Our tracks are
too noisy, they must be closed down. Our cars are too fast, we must make it
illegal to
personalize them. Our cars are
too dirty, we must buy electric toys.
You say I should be a good corporate citizen and provide a
list of tracks? I would say SHAME ON YOU SIR, because that list gets shorter every day, and I cry the loss of each one. It's people like you that close them and
force people like us onto the streets.
There are other video sharing sites with a hundred times our traffic that have street race videos, that
would happily comply with you. I'm sure the hippies running those web sites would do anything it takes to keep from offending you and ruining your calm.
But you know what? I created StreetFire 3 years ago as a way for enthusiasts around the world to share their passion, and I will stand up for and defend anyone of our 2 MILLION STRONG users that honor us with their allegiance. I will not judge their behavior as right or wrong because I would be a hypocrite to throw the first stone. This charter I have created with my community is why loyal users still upload videos to StreetFire in spite of there being other better known services out there.
So I will leave you with this Mr Xxxx, I don't want you to screw off, I want you to apologize to anyone you see sitting on the side of the road, pulled over for speeding. Because of people like you, car enthusiast and speeders are the Scape-Goat as we suffer
society's witch hunt for safer streets through slower speeds. But we know
that's BS, because the real menace to our roads is a distracted driver, yapping on a cell phone drifting over into the fast lane while going 5 mph under the speedlimit.
Car Enthusiuasts are not the problem, we're the answer, because we're the only people on the road paying attention anymore. Heck forget paying attention, we're the only people left that still enjoy driving.
Sincerely,
Adam Bruce
Founder, StreetFire.net
[
CLICK HERE] to Share your Opinion on this Article in the StreetFire Forum
Labels: Los Angeles, Lowrider, Street Race, Website update