Bumps in the night, please

Torbay residents want speed tables to deter boy racers. Rebecca Lewis reports
When Mihaela Soar hears the wheels of the boy racer cars screeching along her street, she can't help but get angry.
The Rewi St, Torbay, resident has had a gutsful of the souped-up cars crashing into lampposts, damaging fences and putting locals' lives in danger.
Instead of moaning about the problem she took it upon herself to push North Shore City Council to do something.
``I went from door to door along our street to get people's signatures for a petition that I presented to the East Coast Bays Community Board in May,' says Mrs Soars.
``I got about 85 per cent of the street's signatures, but I don't know how much of an effect it's going to have. I don't know what the council are going to do about it.'
Mrs Soar says that after three months she is still struggling to get a straight answer out of the council. The community board has told her it will cost $75,000 to put four speed bumps on the road _ something she finds ``utterly ridiculous'.
``They have millions to do things like buy a property at Mairangi Bay, but they can't put four speed bumps in for us?' she says. ``We're taxpayers and we deserve at least something, at least one speed bump. I don't think it's too much to ask.'
James Langton, another Rewi St resident, is not surprised that his street is popular with boy racers but he wants the council to do something before summer arrives and the problem worsens.
``If I were 20 years younger I would probably look at our street and go: `That's a race track.' But they all go so incredibly fast and all we're asking for is some speed bumps.
``I've only been living here for seven months and I've already had a bellyful of it.
``You can hear them coming from Beach Rd. Sometimes, it sounds like they blow out their tyres and get airborne. It's horrific.'
East Coast Bays Community Board member Julia Parfitt says that to put four or five speed tables on the road would cost $70,000 at the most, but ``probably less than that'.
She says there is a problem across the East Coast Bays in general with people speeding but Rewi St is a well-known problem area.
``We have traffic engineers looking at the area to do their research, and then there's the issue of getting it funded to put the speed tables in, but this street is a reasonable priority,' she says.
``It's a known area for speed and over the years there have been a few incidents and we have recorded very high speeds. There are also a lot of elderly and children walking through that area. We hope to get something done about it, but it is a matter of funding it.' In any case, Mrs Soar hopes that someone takes notice before summer.
``One time a youth decided his own car wasn't enough to drive down our street so he hopped out and turned on a digger that a neighbour had on his property for some works,' she says.
``All you could see was the digger rolling down the road with no one in it and then it crashed into someone's car and then rolled into a ditch.
``It's just getting ridiculous. If something isn't done soon then someone's parent, friend or child is going to get very seriously hurt.'