Slideshows are dumb and illegal but they keep happening. They also seem to be getting worse, with unexpected people and vehicles taking part in them. A recent sideshow in Sacramento, California would be the last place you’d expect to see an Amazon semi truck, for instance.
The Sacramento Bee reports that a Sacramento sideshow had both a massive gathering and a massive participant in the foolishness: a huge Amazon big rig with its trailer attached. 916today, a social media account that documents illegal activities in and around the Sacramento area, captured the foolishness on video that later went viral.
In the video, you can see the Amazon truck and its huge trailer driving in a circle, presumably mimicking a car doing a donut, while bystanders cheer it on. It then drives away with a few dumbasses hanging off the back of the trailer. Aside from the boldness of having the truck in the sideshow itself, it appears to have happened right near an Amazon warehouse, as The Bee determined.
The Sacramento Bee determined, based on roadway and building layouts, that it occurred at the intersection of Allbaugh Drive and Metro Air Parkway, near Amazon’s SCA5 warehouse. The California Highway Patrol’s Valley Division in a mid-August social media post said a sideshow took place at that location. And the Google Maps street view function shows dozens of tire marks in the middle of that intersection, including in archived versions of the map dating back to at least 2022, suggesting it has been a hot spot for spinning vehicles for years.
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to The Bee that the driver was fired after the video made its way back to the company, saying, “The actions depicted in this video are unsafe and entirely unacceptable. The driver has been terminated by their employer and they’re not eligible to deliver on our behalf in the future.”
Two other sideshows occurred in the early morning hours of September 22. The Bee says both involved shootings and the deaths of two individuals. And in early 2023, a big rig did the same thing at an Oakland sideshow near the Port of Oakland. These sideshows are just the latest in a problem that has been plaguing cities across California for the last couple of years, and they’re getting wilder.
From a security guard participating in one at a mall to hundreds of cars blocking traffic on the San Francisco Bay Bridge, state and local officials have been trying to get tougher on dealing with the problem. California Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed legislation that seems to expand the penalties for participating in and being at sideshows that includes vehicle removal, impoundment and ticketing.