Police told of road danger before ‘rogue’ racers injured 17 people

A High-speed collision at a car meeting that left 17 onlookers injured was an accident waiting to happen, locals said last night, as they accused the police of ignoring warnings about the event.

Two cars ploughed into crowds watching high performance vehicles race along a road next to a retail park in Stevenage, Herts.

Organisers claimed the accident had been caused by a small number of motorists who had “gone rogue”. But footage of previous events posted online showed cars speeding up and down Monkswood Way.

Residents living close to the scene of the crash also said they had warned local police it was only a matter of time before somebody would be hurt.

Hertfordshire Police, present at previous meetings in order to monitor the behaviour of motorists, claimed they had been caught unawares by the scale of Thursday’s event, which had been advertised on Facebook in order to raise money for charity. Sophie Bogusz, 30, who lives around a mile from the crash scene, said she could hear the revving engines in her house and tipped off police.

She said: “I live about a mile away and as I was coming out of work last week, there was a car speeding out of the turning, really fast. It didn’t stop to see if anyone was coming.

“So I reported it to the police because I thought it was really dangerous. There were hundreds of people lining the verges and the car park was full of people as well. It was obviously a meet of some kind, which is fine, but I reported to the police because I was afraid of dangerous driving. They said they would see if the local cars were aware. I didn’t hear back.”

Another local resident, who asked not to be named, said: “This isn’t the first time there’s been races on the dual carriageway, it’s been happening at these Thursday night gatherings for months. It was only a matter of time before someone got hurt.”

Organiser Rix Sidhu said it was the first time the Cruise-herts group had suffered any serious incident in its 17year history, with static meets often held in closed-off spaces where enthusiasts show off their modified vehicles.

Mr Sidhu said: “We are devastated. I’ve been running this for 10 years and we have never had one incident. We

‘We are devastated. We have never had one incident. But unfortunately some people went a bit rogue’

held the meeting in a car park with a speed bump at the entrance.

“But unfortunately some people went a bit rogue.

“We try and stop that, we urge people, urge them on social media beforehand, not to go out on the roads, not to risk injury or anything.”

Chief Insp Alicia Shaw, of Herts Police, said two of the 17 injured are in a “serious but not critical” condition.

She added: “This was a large-scale gathering that we weren’t aware of. Previous incidents have been smaller.”