REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Monday April 18, 2005

FURIOUS Nerang residents turned vigilantes to capture hoon drivers terrorising their neighbourhood.

Like many Gold Coasters fed up with cars speeding past their properties and endangering lives, residents of Matilda Road took the law into their own hands.

Furious homeowners heard the roar of the hoon cars early on a Saturday morning and swung into action. They used their cars as a makeshift blockade, parking across the roadway and trapping the hoons in the deadend street.

Three car-loads of teens were caught redhanded with no escape. Residents called police and hoped their problems were over but their fight to clean up the streets was to no avail.

Police had to let the culprits go because of a lack of evidence.

Residents near ”Rollercoaster Hill” had feared for their safety for 15 years when hoons, travelling more than 100km/h down a narrow steep road, launched their vehicles into the air.

Col Johnson became “The Enforcer” and followed the three cars up the hill in his 4WD after they had completed several runs, parking his car across the road to block escape.

Neighbour Kane McCann said Mr Johnson then approached one car, confiscating the keys from the driver before calling the police.

”They come up here and do U-turns in front of my bedroom and hoon off down the hill,” said Mr McCann. ”They think it is the hills of San Francisco.’’

Mr McCann said the cars – usually early-model bombs – sped down the hills, hitting the crest “like a scene from the Dukes of Hazzard TV series”.