Kerre Woodham: You won't get your car seized if you don't break the law

The government sent a strong signal to boy racers that their days of running amok on the roads are over.

Car crushing is not new, it's been announced before - Judith Collins was police minister in 2009 when car crashing legislation was introduced for recidivist boy racer offenders, hence her sobriquet, Crusher. In fact, only three cars were crushed and Judith Collins wasn't the police minister by the time it happened, because he needed three strikes before a car was crushed.

Kerre Woodham: Another weekend, another boy racer gathering

Almost four months to the day, on the 30th of June, headlines were trumpeting a police crackdown on boy racers. In Wellington, police issued 138 infringement notices, 19 vehicles were taken off the streets, five vehicles were seized by bailiffs because of unpaid fines, three were impounded, 11 were either pink or green stickered due to compliance issues, 420 people were breathalysed, one person was arrested, and a stolen Subaru was seized. From one boy racer gathering in Wellington.

John MacDonald: There is no finish line for boy and girl racers

When I heard on Friday morning that the cops had been out in force the night before cracking down on boy racers, I thought two things.

My first thought was ‘that’s great, I hope they do it again right through the weekend’. And the reason I thought that - and it was purely selfish - was because, with the kids home from uni, I knew a couple of them were planning to drive out to a party with mates on Saturday night.

Kerre Woodham: Taking their cars is a good start

Six thousand years ago these words were inscribed on an Egyptian tomb: “Young people no longer respect their parents. They're rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self-control.” And then along came Plato in the 4th century BC, and this is probably the one you're more familiar with if you've heard the quote, “What has happened to our young people, they disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?” Plato bemoaned four centuries before Christ. He could have been writing about the oiks in Horowhenua in 2024.

John MacDonald: Raising the driving age isn't the answer

An absolute tragedy over the weekend, with an 18-year-old dying yesterday morning after the car she was in crashed into the side of a house in Rangiora.

They’d been at an illegal street racing event and when the police turned-up just before a-quarter-to-five, the driver took off and ended up crashing.

John MacDonald: Boy racers are here to stay

The people at Orana Park have had a gutsful of boy racers because animals there have been getting really spooked by the noise the boy racers are making when they’ve been meeting up outside the park to do skids and burn-outs.

You’ll know the type of noise they’re talking about. All the revving and screeching of tyres. And what’s been happening, is some animals have been so freaked out by it, that they’ve panicked and they’ve been running around their enclosures and getting injured.