French Cops Punish Street Drifters By Crushing Their BMWs

Crime doesn’t pay. Well, most crime doesn’t pay. And though the urge to clutch kick any rear-wheel-drive car into a sick, smokey slide on the street is always strong within those without a well-developed prefrontal cortex, some dudes in France with crushed BMWs will urge you just as strongly to not give in. Unfortunately for them, they never got the chance to even explain themselves.

French national police shared a video that quite proudly shows a liveried yellow E36 BMW 3 Series coupe being crushed by a junkyard crusher, complete with jaunty stock music. Earlier in the video, photos are shown of a Sherbert-colored E46 3 Series sedan crushed along with the E36. The two cars were filmed street drifting in the northern part of France, in a commune called Tourville-la-Rivière. According to Instagram user @alann_abt, who claims to be the driver in the car in the alleged street drifting video, the car was seized from in front of his home while he was at work. Before he could react, the car was crushed with all of his belongings in it. Now, he’s crowdfunding a legal defense.

The crushings are an escalation from French police on an apparent crackdown on “stunt driving.” According to Carscoops, French police have reported a 1,400% increase in instances of stunt driving, with the rules only looking to get stricter. Much like how police in the U.S. are handling street takeovers, authorities in France are cracking down strongly and cruelly. Though in some ways the owner of the E36 got off lucky with his car being crushed, with the fine for stunt driving being equivalent to $81,000.

There’s two lessons here, folks. One, probably don’t street drift. Much as it seems like a good idea, even on an empty street, there could always been Johnny Law looking out for enterprising young hooligans. The second lesson? If you must, make sure it isn’t on film.

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