HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT?
WITH more than 11,700 Facebook “likes’’, the group touting itself as the Mexican Hoon Cartel has enjoyed a rapid but potentially very brief notoriety.
Police raids on suspects yesterday should have an impact, if only as a display of firm resolve to stop hooning on Gold Coast streets and out on the motorways.
The risk of fatal crashes involving idiot drivers and – worse – innocent families is too great to allow stupidity to continue.
A disregard for others is evident in juvenile threats and demands made online by hoons. If you complain about us, they say, we’ll trash your neighbourhood. They warn authorities: if you don’t give us a “free place’’ – presumably to drive like morons – then expect “more naughty behaviour’’.
More than 25 years ago, a group of community-spirited Gold Coast police went the extra mile in trying to reduce the road toll by organising monthly events, at the old Surfers Paradise Raceway at Carrara, which became known as Operation Drag. For just $2 plus insurance, car enthusiasts could race their machines against hotted-up police cars on the old raceway and drag strip, hitting speeds up to 200km/h.
The meetings were so popular that 10,000 spectators showed up one weekend in 1993. The Blue Light Association was still running it in 1998, but Operation Drag was finished on the Coast by the next year when developers took over the site.
Police and genuine enthusiasts were confident back then that the operation had worked, but conceded there was a hoon element that would shun organised events and continue to race and do burnouts in suburban streets or on the highway.
It is not unreasonable to assume drivers who video themselves in dangerous situations on public roads would fall into that category. They’re not that interested in proper racing.
It’s all about the noise and notoriety. Driving is a privilege, not a right. Hoons who put lives at risk do not deserve to share the roads. The law allows for cars to be seized, sold or crushed for scrap. Great idea! And for the hoons, desmadre. Put nicely, that’s Mexican for “chaos’’.