Car enthusiasts will continue to be unfairly targeted under boy racer legislation unless changes are made to the way police hand out infringements, a Whangarei car enthusiast says.
It comes after moves to allow courts to order the crushing of the cars of repeat offending boy racers came one step closer this week, with government legislation currently being written on a new law.
Whangarei car enthusiast Quinton Tangney supported the idea of crushing cars of drivers who did break the law, but said police enforcement of illegal activity and modifications needed improvement.
He said he and others he knew had legally modified their vehicles but fell victim to prosecution as laws were too subjective.
"You can do it all right and get a warrant of fitness for any modifications, but you drive down the road afterwards and a cop can get you for excessive noise. They just have to think your car is too noisy, or think it's too low, and you get done."
He said many drivers causing disturbances with noise and burnouts had cheap cars and therefore wouldn't be too put off by the thought of them being crushed. But those who would spend thousands of dollars on their cars knew they couldn't afford to lose them.
"I've had mates who've had their cars impounded and they come back with dents and scrapes on them ... they don't want to have that happen again," Mr Tangney said. His own car was worth $20,000.
Drifting champion Garry Whiter of Dargaville, who races his modified car off-road, said he thought the boy racer scene had reduced in the past few years.
"When I was younger it was quite a bit worse than it seems to be now. Up Bank St in Whangarei it was just bumper-to-bumper [with boy racers], but in town now there are no cars around."
He believed the toughening of fines and hassle of modifying vehicles had an impact on the reduction of boy racers on Northland streets.
"The fines are so expensive and it's just not worth it ... Even modifying a car is a hassle, you've got to do so much to ensure it's legal."
Northland's road policing boss Inspector Clifford Paxton said boy racers continued to soak up police time and resources, and were regular targets of police stings.
The last sting in Northland was in Dargaville on December 14, where three vehicles were ordered off the road for being unsafe or defective.
In Whangarei last June, an inspection of 15 vehicles saw five cars "pink-stickered" as unsafe and three vehicles "green-stickered" as defective.
However, Mr Paxton said while it was important to realise Northland police didn't have the same troubles with the amount of illegal racing and modified vehicles as other districts, "boy racing" still damaged people and property.
"You only have to look at the various roads around the district to see the damage it causes. And we do receive complaints in relation to this behaviour."
He said there were certain neighbourhoods of Whangarei that were problems areas, "but Whangarei's such a small place that almost every street is affected at some point".
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