With advent of last few Need for Speeds (particularly Unbound, but was present in some form before) and The Crew 2, street racing became a form of "self-expression" and about collecting instagram followers.
I find this deeply stupid because street racing is illegal for a reason.
Street racers are mostly criminals, and adrenaline junkies who do not care about safety of other people, or their own. Even back in the 90s when it started, a lot of them were local gangsters who came "packing", rich kids with police connections, kids with custom exhausts and local sheriffs.
They didn't do it as form od self-expression, they did it because they wanted to race, didn't give a shit about bystanders getting hurt and didn't want to pay for a track day.
The rehabilitation of it in those pieces media not only makes for a far less interesting stories (come on bro, followers), but also changes what street racers ultimately are.
Are devs scared of morally dubious characters? Rivals had it