History
There is no clear-cut date when casual driving turned into cruising along a specific route, although it generally began in the years after World War II with youths of Mexican heritage driving lowriders in Southern California towns, and it rapidly became a popular teenage activity. [1]
Cruising culture was an evolution of old traditions of strolling down Main Street or around the town square. Although cruising was predominantly boys showing off their cars (ostensibly to meet girls), groups of girls joined in cruising as well. One appeal of cruising was that youths could evade the supervision of parents and family. [1]
Driving slowly down long, straight streets, preferably with many traffic lights to increase opportunities to talk to other cruisers or pedestrians, was only one part of cruising. Cruisers would also gather in parking lots, particularly those of drive-ins. As a Tucson journalist noted, "Cruisers, like moths and June bugs, eventually congregate around brightly lighted areas." Cruisers were also apt to arrange impromptu races with other cruisers. [1]
As early as the 1960s, some towns established ordinances to prohibit driving through parking lots without stopping and the police issued tickets for loitering and curfew violations. Increasingly, cruisers would travel from wider areas to gather on popular strips, with police viewing these visitors as troublemakers. Reports of clashes between groups of cruisers began to appear in local newspapers. [2]
However, cruising continued to remain popular, with wildly painted vans and pickup trucks joining hot rods and muscle cars in the 1970s. In many locales, there was a generally positive relationship with law enforcement. Racing in populated areas was discouraged by police surveillance and traffic, but cruisers engaged in other games such as mooning onlookers, laying rubber when a signal turned green, and "chinese fire drills" in which all occupants of a car stopped at a light would get out, run around the car, and jump back in. [1]
There was some decline in cruising in the 1970s, possibly connected to the rise of gas prices but also due to a growing change in community attitudes toward cruising. The San Francisco Bay Area had a "cruising summit" in 1977 for area police to discuss "our mutual problems with cruising". The gathering numbers of vehicles and increases in tensions and violence led many communities to begin looking for ways to discourage cruising, despite many adults retaining a permissive acceptance of cruising with nostalgia for their own cruising days. Although business merchants and shoppers had been inconvenienced for years by cruisers, tolerance had dissipated and law enforcement was encouraged to step in. [2]
During the summer of 1974, Los Angeles police began cracking down on cruising, first by banning parking along Van Nuys Boulevard and then in August making it a one-way street. The following summer, as many as 15,000 youths from as far away as San Diego converged on Van Nuys, encouraged by local disc jockeys. A similar crackdown on Whittier Boulevard led to the formation of a cruiser's rights group. Police barricaded portions of Whittier in an attempt to disrupt cruising, but even local adults objected to this practice. Other measures were tried, such as shutting portions of Whittier down completely at night. Cruisers moved to Highland Avenue, resulting in the arrest of 170 during the second weekend of September 1979. The following summer, a section of Van Nuys was closed after 9 p.m. The rationale for the blockade was that it only required fifteen police to close the road, but they would need at least 150 officers to police the 15,000 cruisers who had gathered there. [2]
As quickly as one strip became unusable, cruisers would find new sites. It became a persistent battle between authorities and cruisers. In 1982, the California state legislature passed a law that gave cities express sanction to shut down streets being used for cruising, when driving "for purposes of socializing and assembling interferes with the conduct of businesses, wastes precious energy resources, impedes the progress of general traffic and emergency vehicles, and promotes the generation of local concentrations of air pollution and undesirable noise levels". [2]
Efforts to stop cruising continued, with increasing blockades and mass arrests. In 1985, random checkpoints began to appear, with police stopping cars passing the spot more than once in a given timeframe. Computers were added in 1988 to help track the cars. New curfews for minors were established. Cruising in southern California was generally suppressed by 1990. Other regions used tactics similar to southern California's, with similar mixed results. Police in Galveston, Texas began arresting cruisers, but had to back down in the face of parental complaints. Joplin, Missouri attempted a ban on cruising, but had to repeal it. Merchants in Portland, Oregon complained that they were losing business because of the crackdowns. Multiple towns across the U.S. adopted the checkpoint system. [2]
Other towns tried creative alternatives, such as Laurel, Mississippi and Princeton, West Virginia, which both channeled cruisers onto routes that would not interfere with local businesses. Setting aside parking lots specifically for cruisers was tried in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Columbus, Indiana. The town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia chose to embrace cruising, awarding prizes for the best customized vehicles. [2]
Cities continue to struggle with the problems of cruising into the 2000s. In 2006, Milwaukee, Wisconsin even explored letting police confiscate cruisers' cars. [3]
While communities try to prevent impromptu cruising, multiple towns have embraced organized cruising revivals. The Woodward Dream Cruise occurs on the third Saturday in August along the original cruising strip in Detroit's northern suburbs. The event is a tribute to the classic Woodward cruisers and attracts approximately 1 million people [4] and 40,000 muscle cars, street rods, and custom, collector, and special interest vehicles. Waukegan, Illinois, has an annual summer cruising festival called "Scoopin' Genesee". [5] and Modesto, California celebrates "Graffiti Summer" with an annual cruise parade. [6] Renton, Washington hosts "Cruz the Loop" each summer, [7] and in 2020 erected a sculpture to honor cruising the loop. [8]
In June 2022, the San Jose, California city council repealed the prohibition on cruising. [9] In 2023, a new law in California repealed regulations in the state vehicle code that authorized local governments to restrict lowrider vehicles, thus legalizing lowrider cruising throughout the state. [10]
Some ethnic groups identify with lifestyles related to cruising, such as the Hispanos of New Mexico, [11] Chicanos, [12] and Mexican-Americans of the Southwestern United States along U.S. Route 66. [13] Meets, like those at lowrider and auto shows, are popular across the United States and worldwide in large part due to these ethnic communities. [14] [15]
