“Street racing kills.
Do it on a track, shoot in a studio!
".
These are the demands chanted last Friday by dozens of angry residents in the historic district of Angelino Heights, Los Angeles.
Placards deployed, they came to denounce the bad publicity generated by the filming of the next "Fast and furious" in their streets.
Close to the city center, the district is indeed the fictional place of residence of Dominic Toretto, a character played by actor Vin Diesel in the famous saga.
Since filming began, these residents of the neighborhood have suffered almost every evening from the nuisance of illegal urban races.
Car enthusiasts and fans of the saga indeed come to rev their engines at high speed through their streets, usually at night.
For Damian Kevitt, a local resident and founder of the SAFE association, which speaks out against the practice, “Fast and Furious” has helped “glorify illegal activity” transforming his neighborhood into a “tourist destination for illegal street racing ".
“I live nearby, and I've spoken with a number of residents, seen videos.
We even had a resident who just cataloged the number of incidents.
And this happens regularly throughout the week.
More commonly on weekends, Friday, Saturday, Sunday evening, there are 3, 4, 5, 6 cars passing through here, doing burnouts and donuts.
»
According to several residents, the phenomenon would have started with these filmings.
Another resident, Bella, says her children are traumatized by the noise of cars outside their home waking them up in the middle of the night.
"Now they're too scared to go outside to play," she says, "because they've seen when cars get out of control and narrowly avoid running over pedestrians around the corner."
Now many are calling for Universal Studios to move the filming location elsewhere, while SAFE is urging the city to install speed bumps and implement zero tolerance for street racing.
This 11th part of the saga should be released in May 2023.