As a Seattle resident, I'd be the first to admit we're not exactly a hub of car culture. Old Subarus and the occasional old Volvo wagon are usually the most interesting vehicles you'll find. As a result, Seattle hasn't really had many issues with takeovers or Mustangs crashing while leaving a Cars and Coffee event... until earlier this year.
A month ago, users of the r/Seattle Reddit board discussed a very loud backfiring car they heard almost every night in the Belltown neighborhood of the city. Belltown is one of the densest areas of urban housing in Seattle, with over 13,000 residents in just half a square mile, which meant that discussion of the loud car gained traction rapidly as thousands of people were being woken up nearly every single night.
Redditors surmised that the likeliest culprit, based on dozens of eyewitnesses, was a modified Dodge. Specifically, this specific modified Dodge, driven by a 20-year-old man known as "srt.miles" on Instagram. The car—a distinctive tan-and-black tiger-striped Dodge Charger Hellcat Jailbreak with multi-colored LED headlights—was hard for many living in such a dense area to miss. If that wasn't enough to go on, srt.miles has dozens of video posts on his Instagram page where he drives at high rates of speed with his apparently straight-piped, crackle-tuned Hellcat through the middle of Seattle's Belltown neighborhood.
Those Instagram videos ended up as admissible evidence. In a court filing this week, police allege that the man behind the srt.miles account has been repeatedly pulled over and cited for various reasons since January, and numerous Seattle cops have heard and seen the tan Charger in and around Belltown.
The officer writing the report was a bit of gearhead, and claims that he could tell the car he heard racing through the city was definitely a Charger, as he is "intimately familiar with this exhaust note, as I used to compete in the NHRA Top Fuel racing circuit... my race team ran ... a “Hemi” engine. One of the diagnostic aids for [tuning] was paying attention to the sound of the exhaust." The video above demonstrates just how loud this car is, so he definitely heard the exhaust note.
Conversations with local citizens about the car led Seattle Police to the Reddit threads about the vehicle, where the Instagram page was linked. An officer was able to match the car on Instagram to one he'd seen driving around the city, and noted the presence of a video where the SRT was recorded doing 107 mph. To further dispel doubt, the officer noted the driver "stated that he had 'almost 700,000 followers' on his social media" and allegedly even handed over his phone showing the srt.miles Instagram account logged in as an administrator. Prosecutors have now charged the alleged driver with two counts of reckless driving.
Redditors in Seattle have predictably rejoiced since the case was brought. The level of noise and high speeds here are incredibly annoying and wildly unsafe, and they also give auto enthusiasts a terrible name, so hopefully, the court can order the driver to get an electric Smart car for a year as penance. In the meantime, Belltown residents can get some sleep.
