Quick question: Is filming yourself hooning on public roads okay?

Posted on Sep 8, 2021 in Featured | 2 comments

brobuggy_700

So the last week or so, the autoblogosphere – not to mention the citizens of San Diego – have worked themselves into an uproar over the video from which the still above was taken. It features some bro tearing around San Diego sans permits in his jacked-up off-road buggy in an attempt to get his sponsors some attention.


Coincidentally, we had just run the famous/infamous chase scene from The French Connection in our Hemmings Sunday Cinema the weekend before the above-mentioned video started to gain traction. Both featured permit-less driving on public streets, property damage, and a high chance of putting unsuspecting people just walking down the road in danger. Yet one’s been hailed as a gutsy move by an up-and-coming director (and played a part in an Oscar win), while the other’s been almost universally condemned.


Add in the legendary “C’etait un Rendez Vous” while we’re at it. Or the Japanese tradition of touge driving. Or just about any other such stunt committed to film.

2 comments

  1. Daniel Strohl

    Nowadays it’s probably not a good idea to video ANYTHING in public, alas. Unless you can really conceal the personae and location.
    Consider that when OSHA first got started up, inspectors would actually look over newspaper photos and look for violations in the background, such as improper scaffolding or dangerous ladder practices in the background of a traffic accident pic – THEN track down the location and show up at the site – I’m not makin’ this up!
    Of course that newspaper itself may not even be in existence any more, but you know what they say about stupid stuff living forever in cyberspace…
    Until the Big Crash, at least.

    • Jason Herring

      In some American cities, their Code Enforcement departments are using Google Maps’ satellite images to bust residents living within the city limits if their backyards look like landfills or junkyards! Before, CE inspectors had to wait for some neighbor of such residents to ‘snitch’ on them or rat them out; now, they just look at the satellite maps!
      I once worked for the city of Killeen, and back then (2005-8), OUR paid-for aerial map of the city was THREE years old. We paid some company to do an overflight for new imagery, and we eventually got updated images. I would guess that the company that did our photo work, also probably sold the same images to Google, unless Google does all of its own aerial photography.