Police promise to brake boy racers

People talked of the stress from lack of sleep, and many reported waking up three or four times a night.

Police have vowed to crack down on boy racers infuriating Banks Peninsula residents.

Their ideas include speed cameras, road restrictions and issuing night-time driving fines.

More than 60 residents, police and a group of boy racers attended a meeting on Monday night to address what residents say has become a ‘‘worsening’’ problem in the past 18 months.

The meeting heard from a boy who could not concentrate at school through a lack of sleep, a farmer who had spent thousands repairing fences damaged by boy racers, and inner harbour residents who feared driving on local roads at night.

Inspector Al Stewart and Senior Sergeant Scott Richardson, of the Canterbury road policing team, attended the meeting and have formulated an ‘‘action plan’’ including:

Having the seven-strong police team dedicated to monitoring boy-racer activity focus on the area at offence times.

Assessing offence and crash statistics on Governors Bay Rd to see which sections would benefit from council or police-imposed measures.

Those measures could include police enforcement, mobile speed-camera sites, and road prohibitions in which drivers need a legitimate reason to be on a particular road between 10pm and 5am or face a $750 fine.

‘‘If there is displacement of the offending as a result, we could look at adding areas [of focus] as long as that is justified,’’ Stewart said.

Meeting organiser and Governors Bay resident Rosie Belton said residents were happy to feel they were being listened to.

Residents from Governors Bay, Diamond Harbour, Cass Bay and Gebbies Pass shared negative experiences with boy racers and expressed their anger at the ‘‘anti-social, disrespectful behaviour’’.

‘‘People talked of stress from lack of sleep. Many reported waking up three or four times a night, [and of] fear while driving the roads at night,’’ Belton said.

‘‘There were descriptions of distress from events happening outside their properties, such as bottle-throwing, noises and crashes, some people having reported vehicles crashing into their gardens.’’

She said a Summit Rd farmer spent $8000 on repairs to fences damaged by boy racers and on fines for having wandering stock as a result of the damage.

There were at least 15 boy racers at the meeting. They described themselves as car enthusiasts and defended their right to drive in the area.

Belton said she was happy that the boy racers said they would relay concerns they had heard at the meeting back to their own group.

She hoped police would also address community concerns about police communications systems, with calls often fielded in other police districts.

Daniel Cossar, who was not at the meeting but organises boy-racer events, said they drove in the Governors Bay area to get away from police and the public. If police or the council continued to impose restrictions in rural areas, it could force the boy racers back into town, he said.

Lyttelton-Mt Herbert Community Board member Denis Aldridge said the fact so many people turned up spoke volumes about the community frustration.

He was confident the measures would address the problem, with the community board to soon begin working with police on establishing prohibition zones and speed limit reductions.

In 2010 the Christchurch City Council created a bylaw that bans cars from cruising on some Christchurch streets at set times, with offenders facing a fine of up to $1000.

The bylaw includes the once-popular avenues – Deans, Bealey, Harper, Fitzgerald and Moorhouse – surrounding the central city.