JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The News4JAX I-TEAM is receiving more complaints about speeding drivers in a specific section of town.
Residents believe they’re the same drivers, who the I-TEAM has chronicled for months, tearing up private parking lots with doughnuts and peel-outs.
Now, residents of Empire Point, Englewood and St. Nicholas say drivers are turning the area into an ongoing weekend racetrack.
The three roads in question are Atlantic Boulevard, Beach Boulevard and a chunk of the Hart Expressway, all of which connect.
Residents surrounding those roads say the racing happens Friday and Saturday nights, sometimes as late as 2:30 a.m.
“Each time you hear it, it makes you jump if you’re an old man like me. It makes my cat jump,” said resident Michael Chase. “It’s us that are bordering on Beach, and it’s driving me nuts. Honestly, my house is up for sale, not just because of that, but it’s one thing of a bunch.”
Other residents have taken to the Nextdoor app for St. Nicholas and Englewood — which has been flooded with comments.
“After about an hour of this nonsense, disturbing the area, the racing stops. Once we think it’s over, hear they come again,” one person writes.
Another person writes: “I suppose it takes a death to get JSO interested. This has been going on for months. How is speeding in a residential area legal?”
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Some question if these are the same drivers who are part of car clubs that do meetups in parking lots around the city to do doughnuts and peel-outs.
A lot along Beach Boulevard in the area has been heavily used.
Managers of a Jacksonville strip mall also told the I-TEAM that clubs doing doughnuts in the parking lot have caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has tried to break up many car meetups. But now, JSO finds itself in the middle of this issue after the I-TEAM obtained video from over the weekend that appears to show a JSO cruiser peeling out in a Northwest Jacksonville parking lot. JSO told News4JAX that the footage has been turned over to its Internal Affairs Unit.