Police team too tough for boy racers

Large illegal street racing incidents have all but stopped since police set up a team to stop them, the unit's leader says.

Sergeant Mark Fleming, of Counties-Manukau police, said that since the unit was formed in April last year, the number of cars turning up for races and burnouts had plummeted.

He said the leader of one of the main "car clubs" - with about 1000 members and representing about half of Auckland's street racing fraternity - admitted it was not worth the effort trying to race.

"He said 'if you had asked me 12 months ago I would have said that you are never going to stop it, but now you are doing it and nobody is coming out any more'," he said.

Speaking at the Local Authority Traffic Institute conference in Auckland yesterday, Mr Fleming said that although police were still receiving the same number of complaints about street racers, callers were reporting only one or two cars.

"A few years ago you would get 300 to 400 cars and as many as 1000 people attending an event and it was un-police-able," he said.

Historically, street racers would congregate at Quay St in the central city and map out the spots they would target in Counties-Manukau and other parts of Auckland that night.

Police would monitor the situation and follow them.

But last weekend not a single car was at the Quay St site, Mr Fleming said.

He said word had got out not to bother, so any vehicles that did turn up were usually driven by out-of-towners.

Manukau Mayor Len Brown applauded the policing move, and said he rarely heard about boy-racing problems these days.

Auckland Mayor John Banks also praised the police.

"Full marks to them for their covert and overt role in tidying the boy racers up."

He did not want to discourage car enthusiasts, but those driving in a dangerous manner needed to be stopped.

Police are working with the Manukau City Council and Fram Autolite Dragway in Meremere, exploring the possibility of a legal street-racing area.