The minister of transport says new legislation could be on the way to curb gatherings of "increasingly hostile" car enthusiasts. Photo: 123RF
A Hamilton City councillor says growing reckless and violent behaviour at illegal street racing events is putting people in danger and disrupting neighbourhoods.
And the minister of transport says new legislation could be on the way to curb gatherings of "increasingly hostile" car enthusiasts.
Police say four police cars were rammed in the early hours of Sunday morning, as a gathering of racers at the intersection of Horotiu Road and Great South Road was dispersed. They later reconvened near the Base in Northgate.
In one instance, a white ute allegedly reversed at speed towards a police car, which officers were standing in front of. Police initially said no one was injured, but on Monday said one officer was knocked to the ground, sustaining minor injuries.
"The impact of the ramming was such that any officers caught between the two vehicles would have suffered critical injuries," Detective Sergeant Matt Lee said in a statement.
An image of two people with the white ute distributed by police turned out to be an old photo. The ute was stolen in July and they were not involved in the weekend's events.
Hamilton City Councillor Maxine van Oosten called those present "a large group of hoons".
"It is really deeply troubling. It's not just a group of cheeky teenagers mucking around the neighbourhood, you know? This behaviour has really taken it to the next level," she told Morning Report on Monday.
She said it felt the events were becoming more common in the area, having heard similar concerns from neighbouring councils.
"[In] March 2023, we took some actions of placing some additional skid treatment on the roads where we knew that there was some problems, and had some funding assistance from Waka Kotahi / NZTA in order to be able to do that.
"It's an anti-skid treatment that's put across the road surface, and you just can't lose your traction and so it loses all its attractiveness, I guess, to this type of motorist who's looking for thrills and adventure."
But funding more of that would only work if every single road in the entire region had it, van Oosten suggested.
"Certainly that's something that we can consider. But there is hundreds of kilometres of roads that go around our Hamilton area, and so as soon as you put it on one area they are off into another. So it's more than just that.
"I've just heard the minister talking about some extra police resource, which we would absolutely welcome in order to be able to get on top of this type of activity."
Transport Minister Simeon Brown said one of the high-risk groups targeted in the government's latest road safety campaign, launched Sunday, was boy racers.
"The minister of police and I are also currently working on potential further legislative changes needed to give police more tools to help them be able to tackle this problem," he told Morning Report.
"We're getting advice on it at the moment around what further penalties may be needed or what further tools the police might need to be able to crack down that sort of thing.
"There's a range of advice that we're getting, I'm not going to go into that at this stage, but we are taking further advice on that."
Police said anyone with information about the weekend's events should call them on 105 and quote file number 240818/1998, or call anonymously via Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.
