Center for Problem-Oriented Policing

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

† 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 ].

‡ 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 ].

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,† 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, Pennsylvania, 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.

† 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). 

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

 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

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

10. Sanctioning cruising in alternative locations. Some police agencies, such as those in Arlington, Texas, and Huntington, West Virgina, 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

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.

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.