Residents want problem fixed
Insuring end to street racer mayhem?
A Waikato man is calling on the Government to consider compulsory insurance as a way to handle ‘‘never-ending’’ street racer mayhem.
The call comes after a couple urged police to get the power they need to combat street racers after a ‘‘frightening’’ experience last Saturday and another where a Cambridge resident was stuck in a convoy of 300 cars that same evening.
It also follows numerous other incidents this year involving street racers. In one case a group attacked a milk tanker, pouring litres of product onto the road and in another incident a 71-year-old was punched in face.
For Cambridge resident Karel Kuper, the answer is simple, ‘‘make third-party insurance compulsory’’, meaning those who are refused insurance can’t own a car.
‘‘I find it frustrating that we keep having the same problems but haven’t found a solution,’’ Kuper said. ‘‘At the moment, police have very few tools to control boy racers but, if there is third-party compulsory insurance, they can pull cars off the road before anything happens.’’
Kuper is originally from the Netherlands – a place where it is compulsory to have at least thirdparty insurance.
He said when his family first moved to New Zealand 17 years ago, they were shocked the same rules didn’t apply here.
Wanting to immerse themselves into the Kiwi culture, however, Kuper said they didn’t give it another thought until street racing incidents became a common narrative.
‘‘As it got bigger and bigger, it just got me thinking: ‘why are there no boy racers in European countries?’.’’
‘‘It’s a simple matter that there’s not an insurance company stupid enough to pay insurance for an 18-year-old who want to drive a souped-up V6.’’
He also worries that if he were in an altercation with a street racer who wasn’t insured, his insurance provider would have to front up the costs, not the person who caused the damages. He would then have to pay excess and his premium would go up.
‘‘It all seems very backwards to me. In Europe, police have access to the register, so they can monitor cars that don’t have insurance, so I really don’t understand why it’s not happening here.’’
But Insurance Council of NZ insurance manager John Lucas argues setting it up won’t be easy.
He said Insurance the Council looked into the system on behalf of the Government several years ago and found it would require a lot of government intervention.
‘‘To make it work in New Zealand, there would need to be a very comprehensive enforcement regime and this would be very expensive,’’ Lucas said.
This is because every main highway across the country would need licence plate reorganisation systems installed to ping people who don’t have insurance or registration as well as new systems for processing the information and penalties.
He said places such as the UK and America have implemented this law, but the main reason for that has been to cover injury costs and not car damages.
‘‘Their third-party includes bodily injury liability, which we don’t need here because we have ACC. Someone who is injured or hurt long term and needing rehabilitation is much more expensive than vehicle damage.’’
Insurance prices would also need to be subsidised.
‘‘The compulsory element means that everybody – it doesn’t matter how bad they are as a driver or how many convictions they’ve got – will have to be provided with insurance, and that means the premiums would have to be lowered, but law doesn’t work like that.
‘‘It’s risked-based pricing, but at a certain point those people will never buy insurance because they can’t afford it, so it has to be provided at an affordable price that’s subsidised.’’
Road safety campaigner Clive Matthew-Wilson argues there is little evidence that compulsory insurance changes driver behaviour.
‘‘The UK has compulsory insurance, and it also has a serious boy racer problem,’’ Matthew-Wilson said. ‘‘Basically, boy racers don’t think before they act; that’s the problem. The idea that they will sit around and have rational discussions about insurance is laughable.’’
Rather than increasing penalties Matthew-Wilson believes the police need to take a new approach by confiscating cars.
‘‘I don’t have problems with young drivers assembling in groups . . . However, when these assemblies become criminally dangerous or violent, obviously the police have to act.
‘‘Rather than simply issue tickets and fines that will probably never be paid, it makes far better sense for the police to simply confiscate the worst offenders’ vehicles.’’
‘‘I find it frustrating that we keep having the same problems but haven’t found a solution. ’’
Karel Kuper