12 ms·

The modern Cannonball Run is a tale of the privilege certain classes of people have in encounters with law enforcement. Most of these people share their storie

The modern Cannonball Run is a tale of the privilege certain classes of people have in encounters with law enforcement. Most of these people share their stories on the youtube channel for Vinwiki. One of the record holders, Doug Tabbutt, has gone on record on that channel as saying he carries a PBA 'get out of jail free' card: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42780382 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42780382 Reading the article, you might think they're lucky not to get pulled over. But they do get pulled over. They're lucky because they get away with it. There are multiple stories from this group of people on that youtube channel where they explain how. Sometimes they cover the cars with pro-police political nods. Sometimes they race in cars that are deliberately made to look like foreign police cars: technically legal but the intention is clear. Sometimes, they participate in slower, legal rallies to raise money for police charities, which give away clothing that is convenient to wear for their illegal races. The Cannonball Run is an exercise in using bias and privilege to avoid retribution for deadly crimes. These people are proud, unapologetic criminals who get away with it because they're in the right clique. Another one of these people is Alex Roy. He works as a director for Argo AI, where they make autonomous vehicle technology.

ubermonkey 5y ago
^^^ All of this is true. Cannonball Run participants are behaving like sociopaths. It's a gross activity.
mitchdoogle 5y ago
Interesting this aspect wasn't included in the article
JKCalhoun 5y ago
> Reading the article, you might think they're lucky not to get pulled over. But they do get pulled over. But if you get pulled over, can you still beat the current record? The recent record-breaking account that I read seemed to imply they did not get pulled over.
- quartesixte 5y ago
  Yeah a pull-over, as I understand it, is a run ending event. They try their hardest not to get pulled over.
  - agentdrtran 5y ago
    run-ending but not life or bank-account -ending
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
volkl48 5y ago
While I don't think they should exist at all and are blatant corruption, that's wildly overstating the level of "discretion" you're likely to receive for a PBA card. They might get you out of a minor ticket, in the state/area it's from, and that's less likely if you can't articulate why you have it/how you know the officer it was given to to distribute. (to my knowledge, they're only a particularly widespread thing in the NYC metro area, as well). They're not likely to get you out of a ticket for the kinds of offenses Cannonball Run participants are committing, IMO.
- 6sp 5y ago
  Agreed. PBA card holders are usually given a professional courtesy but it’s at the officers discretion to honor it or not. For the offenses committed in the Cannonball Run it won’t work very well. It’s also geographically limited to mostly the NY, and NJ area.
mindslight 5y ago
I thought this was Hacker News? The essence of hacking is seeing the world how it is to accomplish exceptional things. Yes American police are corrupt, as has been thoroughly covered in its own right pretty much everywhere. You can still appreciate the focused result while not condoning the adjacent culture of corruption. "Proud, unapologetic criminals who get away with it because they're in the right clique" is more appropriate to describe the corrupt police themselves. The public fallout from a Cannonball is the possibility of a car crash that seemingly hasn't happened, whereas the fallout from the police corruption is (among other things) the routine murder of innocent people. The latter is infuriating, but dumping that anger onto adjacent topics is not a way to build consensus.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  > The public fallout from a Cannonball is the possibility of a car crash that hasn't happened Do you have anything to support this? This isn't an officially monitored sport and participants aren't going to own up to getting non a participants injured or killed. I've been spending a lot of time on highways this year and I've seen lots of near accidents caused by people driving way to fast. While some speeding doesn't automatically make you an dangerous criminal, this kind of of reckless speeding absolutely is quite dangerous, reprehensible, and should lead to criminal charges for anyone who has admitted to participating.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    I later added the word "seemingly" because I agree, there is a strong disincentive to admit details that would tie a crash to a speed run. I personally see more near accidents caused by inattentive drivers than by speeding. Someone changing lanes without checking their mirror is dangerous even with a 10mph speed differential. It is also my understanding that while Cannonball drivers are doing 120mph+ in open stretches, they slow down when they hit traffic. You're not going to make it 3000 miles weaving between lanes with a high speed differential. I'd imagine their behavior is similar to what what I routinely see from state police, who will come up on a bunch of traffic going 110+, and then slow down / tailgate until people in the left lane pull over and let them through (there's that culture of corruption again). I also generally see much more of this than of non-police speeding, so once again it feels a bit myopic to focus on a small contingent of people flouting social norms rather than routine harmful norms.
thereddaikon 5y ago
If you buy in to intersectionalism then everything becomes an intersectional issue and everyone is a group you aren't in. Its actually just social engineering.
Rebelgecko 5y ago
>Sometimes they race in cars that are deliberately made to look like foreign police cars: technically legal but the intention is clear In California, there was a spate of people who decorated their cars to look like PLA military police. At least one of them got arrested for "impersonating an officer" and "misusing a public seal". It was somewhat novel because those laws hadn't been used to "protect" the symbols of foreign institutions before.
RickJWagner 5y ago
I wonder how much 'privilege' the average Joe can exercise. Bruce Springsteen (he of the mighty virtue signaling) showed how it was done last year, making a DUI vanish into thin air.

ubermonkey 5y ago

^^^ All of this is true. Cannonball Run participants are behaving like sociopaths. It's a gross activity.

mitchdoogle 5y ago

Interesting this aspect wasn't included in the article

JKCalhoun 5y ago

> Reading the article, you might think they're lucky not to get pulled over. But they do get pulled over. But if you get pulled over, can you still beat the current record? The recent record-breaking account that I read seemed to imply they did not get pulled over.

quartesixte 5y ago
Yeah a pull-over, as I understand it, is a run ending event. They try their hardest not to get pulled over.
- agentdrtran 5y ago
  run-ending but not life or bank-account -ending

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

volkl48 5y ago

While I don't think they should exist at all and are blatant corruption, that's wildly overstating the level of "discretion" you're likely to receive for a PBA card. They might get you out of a minor ticket, in the state/area it's from, and that's less likely if you can't articulate why you have it/how you know the officer it was given to to distribute. (to my knowledge, they're only a particularly widespread thing in the NYC metro area, as well). They're not likely to get you out of a ticket for the kinds of offenses Cannonball Run participants are committing, IMO.

6sp 5y ago
Agreed. PBA card holders are usually given a professional courtesy but it’s at the officers discretion to honor it or not. For the offenses committed in the Cannonball Run it won’t work very well. It’s also geographically limited to mostly the NY, and NJ area.

mindslight 5y ago

I thought this was Hacker News? The essence of hacking is seeing the world how it is to accomplish exceptional things. Yes American police are corrupt, as has been thoroughly covered in its own right pretty much everywhere. You can still appreciate the focused result while not condoning the adjacent culture of corruption. "Proud, unapologetic criminals who get away with it because they're in the right clique" is more appropriate to describe the corrupt police themselves. The public fallout from a Cannonball is the possibility of a car crash that seemingly hasn't happened, whereas the fallout from the police corruption is (among other things) the routine murder of innocent people. The latter is infuriating, but dumping that anger onto adjacent topics is not a way to build consensus.

shkkmo 5y ago
> The public fallout from a Cannonball is the possibility of a car crash that hasn't happened Do you have anything to support this? This isn't an officially monitored sport and participants aren't going to own up to getting non a participants injured or killed. I've been spending a lot of time on highways this year and I've seen lots of near accidents caused by people driving way to fast. While some speeding doesn't automatically make you an dangerous criminal, this kind of of reckless speeding absolutely is quite dangerous, reprehensible, and should lead to criminal charges for anyone who has admitted to participating.
- mindslight 5y ago
  I later added the word "seemingly" because I agree, there is a strong disincentive to admit details that would tie a crash to a speed run. I personally see more near accidents caused by inattentive drivers than by speeding. Someone changing lanes without checking their mirror is dangerous even with a 10mph speed differential. It is also my understanding that while Cannonball drivers are doing 120mph+ in open stretches, they slow down when they hit traffic. You're not going to make it 3000 miles weaving between lanes with a high speed differential. I'd imagine their behavior is similar to what what I routinely see from state police, who will come up on a bunch of traffic going 110+, and then slow down / tailgate until people in the left lane pull over and let them through (there's that culture of corruption again). I also generally see much more of this than of non-police speeding, so once again it feels a bit myopic to focus on a small contingent of people flouting social norms rather than routine harmful norms.

thereddaikon 5y ago

If you buy in to intersectionalism then everything becomes an intersectional issue and everyone is a group you aren't in. Its actually just social engineering.

Rebelgecko 5y ago

>Sometimes they race in cars that are deliberately made to look like foreign police cars: technically legal but the intention is clear In California, there was a spate of people who decorated their cars to look like PLA military police. At least one of them got arrested for "impersonating an officer" and "misusing a public seal". It was somewhat novel because those laws hadn't been used to "protect" the symbols of foreign institutions before.

RickJWagner 5y ago

I wonder how much 'privilege' the average Joe can exercise. Bruce Springsteen (he of the mighty virtue signaling) showed how it was done last year, making a DUI vanish into thin air.