Road Fatalities Vs Anti-hoon Policing

[Primordial]

I've been getting slightly fed up with the stigma surrounding "Hoons" lately.

To me it sounds like people are being defected on a daily basis for things which, in all fariness, maybe should be defected. After all it is the law, and we should try to abide by it.

What I DONT agree with is Police pulling people over simply because of the fact that they are driving a "Hoon" branded car. If the police stuck to actual policing of infringements on the road and pulling cars over for actual misbehaviour, then us disrespectful, life threatening, insane, street racing import drivers might not get such a hard time on the road!

So what are the Police trying to gain by defecting cars? Ask any traffic cop, and I'm sure he/she would say something like "Defecting cars is making the roads safer". A large majority of import cars are owned by enthusiast type owners who would keep their cars maintained to a level far above most other vehicles of that age. Most are even modified to provide better handling and braking than a standard car. This isnt safer in the eyes of the police of course.

What about emissions? Greenhouse gasses, global warming and the rest? Oh please! The number of high performance imports on the road is barely a pin prick in the scheme of things. I'm guessing less than 0.5% (at best!) of cars are "high performance imports". If each one of these emits 30% more toxic gas than a standard car, thats 0.15% more emissions overall. You would need to defect every single HPI on the road to gain 0.15% better emissions from vehicles.

It hardly seems worth the effort considering Australian vehicle emissions is around 38 million tonnes of combined CO2 and other gasses per year - this is absolutely dwarfed by industrial emissions which is in the vicinity of 564 million tonnes per year!

"Hoons are a danger to society". This is the crap which we've been fed to us by the media for a couple of years now. The fact is that street racing always has and always will be a part of driving culture. I'm definitely not an advocate for it - it's ridiculously stupid and dangerous. But it's been around since the 1960's so its definitely not some new concept! Kids have been killing themselves in cars since long before people have been driving these "imports". It's only until now that the media have caused the frenzy over a couple of incidents which saw innocent people killed. It's an unfortunate fact but people are killed by reckless driving every day! You dont need to be driving an import to kill people. I'd love to find the statistics on the number of people killed in imports versus regular cars. Of course they'd never release those for fear of playing down the danger involved with these hoons and their imports.

Unfortunately because all import drivers have been categorised as Hoons by the police, we are all instantly branded street racing maniacs.

By the RTA's records, fatalities on NSW roads have been dropping STEADILY since the 1980's! So how is this knee-jerk reaction to imports in the last few years justified? Media and police driven bullshit stereotypes.

/rant

[GTL05T]

i think they are aiming for the fatalities to be zero lol

[DECIM8]

If its decreasing it means to them (in a round about way) procedures and money making tactics they are using must be working... If it working dont fix it.. So if its working how can we improve it? Answer drum up media, pull over as many people as you can and nail every bloke with a car that goes PSHHHHHHHHHH and has a 3" exhaust.

Unfortunately loud cars are labeled instantly with hoon behavior, this is almost a 80% reality in western suburbs (I live there too) as every bloke you see has loud doof doof, a bov and darts in and out of traffic like a nut job.

Southern suburbs such as cronulla just like pulling over any one who looks like trouble, yes im refering to race related breath testing.

2006-2008, slight drop which I cant account for i.e Dont remember a big drink driving campain etc... Can only remember a Western suburbs targeting program (seatbelts and speeding) and raise in anti hoon behavior. The other two drops would be accounted to drink driving .. 2006-2008 may be related to Talkndrive mobile campain?

Edited May 7, 2008 by DECIM8

[jrocket]

i think they are aiming for the fatalities to be zero lol

LOL that would be a joke if they were aiming for zero deaths. People are goin to die. Thats just wat happens. Only way to stop this as far as i can see is to remove all vehicles from our roads. Hmm dunno how this would go down with the people tho??

As long as we use vehicles, people will die.

I think the police are aiming to have everyone drive drive the same car, all stock as rock, lol.

I can see the future already. Everyone drivin round in KIA Rio's or some sh!t.

Hmm that would suck. Think i would go over seas if that happened.

[Sheng]

What I DONT agree with is Police pulling people over simply because of the fact that they are driving a "Hoon" branded car. If the police stuck to actual policing of infringements on the road and pulling cars over for actual misbehaviour, then us disrespectful, life threatening, insane, street racing import drivers might not get such a hard time on the road!

Ok, i think i've said this a numberous times, it's all up the police office on duty, 4 out of 5 they will let you go, They are not there to pull you over and defect you because you have a hotted up car, that's not what HWP and street cops are designed and paid for.

So what are the Police trying to gain by defecting cars? Ask any traffic cop, and I'm sure he/she would say something like "Defecting cars is making the roads safer". A large majority of import cars are owned by enthusiast type owners who would keep their cars maintained to a level far above most other vehicles of that age. Most are even modified to provide better handling and braking than a standard car. This isnt safer in the eyes of the police of course.

No. They wouldn't say that, for the times i've been seating with the cops for the last 2 weeks, None of them mentioned that "oh, there's

a hotted up wrx or skyline, let's go chase it, defect them, and makle extra money for the government." But there were occasions that speeding, unneccasry accleration were involved, which the police have to deal with.

"Hoons are a danger to society". This is the crap which we've been fed to us by the media for a couple of years now. The fact is that street racing always has and always will be a part of driving culture. I'm definitely not an advocate for it - it's ridiculously stupid and dangerous. But it's been around since the 1960's so its definitely not some new concept! Kids have been killing themselves in cars since long before people have been driving these "imports". It's only until now that the media have caused the frenzy over a couple of incidents which saw innocent people killed. It's an unfortunate fact but people are killed by reckless driving every day! You dont need to be driving an import to kill people. I'd love to find the statistics on the number of people killed in imports versus regular cars. Of course they'd never release those for fear of playing down the danger involved with these hoons and their imports.

Unfortunately because all import drivers have been categorised as Hoons by the police, we are all instantly branded street racing maniacs.

Ok, Police and media don't get along well, they are two different parties, and have two totally different achievable goals.

In this case, the Media are there to criticise the police and the government for not doing their job right, not doing things by the law,

not setting up new "Anti-Hoon" law etc, etc...

At the end of the day, Police are there to do their job, to enforce the law, to serve the community, they are not the one's to blame.

[-FIGJAM-]

Sheng you bring up some good points, but regardless, import drivers are targeted more then others ESPECIALLY IF THEY HAVE P PLATES. i used to own a 89 honda civic and i drove that like i stole it and i was never pulled over, even when cops were right next to me and i was clearly speeding i was fine, yet if a copper is behind me in my shinny R33 i get pulled over every time and i drive more carefully because i dont want to waste the money that i spent on it.

Of corse the coppers arent going to say hey look a skyline lets pull him over blah blah but doesnt mean it doesnt happen ya know?

I think the media has alot of responsibility in the way we are treated now days, if those figures are accurate then i dont understand why the laws have changed.

I honestly believe those who are creating the laws shouldnt be there because for some of them, they are the people who lost a child due to "hooning" and they are not in the right frame of mind when setting the laws up.

unneccasry accleration? come on, as long as the wheels dont spin and smoke up the lights what does it matter if i take off faster then everyone else? if i dont speed or break the law dont pull me over.

My two cents.

[jrocket]

unneccasry accleration? come on, as long as the wheels dont spin and smoke up the lights what does it matter if i take off faster then everyone else? if i dont speed or break the law dont pull me over.

My two cents.

I agree with this point. Say if you had a Ferrari and a skyline accelerating beside one another to ther full capacity without wheel spin, which is classed as "unnessessary acceration" ???

I think two views might come to mind by police in this instance.

(Ferrari - "Oh thats an nice exotic, gee they hook along ok")

(Skyline - "Look at this tosser, another hoon")

Prob bit over over the top but u get the drift.

How do we judge whats excessive acceleration? what is the law? Is it measured in how many mtrs/sec/sec we go?

All cars have different accerations. If there was a set rule, how can people even gauge their acceleration level.

My mum has a winge when she is in my car, saying that i accelerate too fast. I barely even punchin it.

I dont really want to drive like a grandma all the time.

Its fun to feel that acceleration UP TO the speed limit. shouldn't matter how fast i do it, as long as no loss of traction etc. Thats why i have fat wheels.

[NISMO]

Some really good points.

My view is that a few d!ckheads with imports have ruined it for everyone else. End of story.

Number one on my blame list are the ram raiders of a few years back with the rexy's. This started the bad image that turbo cars in general received.

On top of this, as much as it might be hard to swallow for some, there are more than a few Skyline, RX7, WRX etc etc drivers out there that act like absolute wankers on the road. With our cars the vast majority on the street are owned by younger more reckless drivers (yep i said it ). In my eyes younger drivers do more "hooning" than older drivers. So unfotunately you get a higher % of import owners that are wankers compared to other cars. Commodores for example are a much more popular car on our roads. The average age of a Commodore driver is much higher than a "Skyline" driver. So using again that younger drivers take more risks, as a percentage of drivers acting like d!ckwads our cars stand out. Hence the attention.

I bought my first R33 approx 8-9 years ago. Back then the cars were rare as and attracted abosulety NO attention from the police. The only time I was ever pulled over was when an officer wanted to chat and check out the car. That was with front mount, BOV, Pod etc etc. And i owned the car as a daily for over 4 years. Back then the cars of choice for "hoons" were RX7's RX4's RX3's VL's etc etc so all of these got the attention.

So back to my first point. Don't blame the police or the media, it all comes down to a few wankers who ruin it for the rest. And the fact that these are now the cars of choice for younger drivers.

Disclaimer - I completely understand that there are circumstances that fall out of the above generalisation

[Primordial]

No. They wouldn't say that, for the times i've been seating with the cops for the last 2 weeks, None of them mentioned that "oh, there's

a hotted up wrx or skyline, let's go chase it, defect them, and make extra money for the government." But there were occasions that speeding, unneccasry accleration were involved, which the police have to deal with.

If they wouldnt say that, then what is the answer to that question? What is their reason for defecting cars? Do they scour all vehicles for possible defects in the same way that imports are often subjected?

I was almost defected when i was targeted for a "random" breath test. The cop performed a high speed U turn across double lines and overtook 2 cars on the wrong side of the road to give me a totally "random" breath test. I wasnt speeding, nor suspicious and the officer admitted this to me. It was only because I was polite and forthright with with cop that he let me go after pointing out the numerous trivial ways he could defect me off the road if he so chose!

It seems like its being used as a roundabout method of punishment for driving an import lately. There's no denying that there are some tossers out there deserve to be punished though..

[JAS-25T]

I think you guys are missing the point.

The graph you show is kind of irrelevant. The only things we can conclude is where the major drops are showing when (what I assume to be) Seatbelt wearing became mandatory. The gentle slide after would just be general things like, safer cars, better roads, and laws to improve safety such as lower speeds.

P platers in general (this no longer includes HPI type drivers as they have a law against driving such cars) are over represented in that graph you have shown. They are the people who should be targetted in any campaigns to kerb fatalities.

Although, I do feel that recent data showing any P plate percentage of road fatalities may be skewed against the P plate drivers.

As a percentage of total drivers, P plate drivers have increased recently with the introduction of Green P plates. This has of course increased the percentage of P plate drivers over the total amount of drivers, and as such you would expect an increase in their representation on any statistical analysis.

Hoon's have been historically the younger generations. Back in the day, when it all began, the youth would modify their cars, and race on the streets. That is no longer acceptable as people expect safer driving conditions. P platers are that generation now. They want to have that same fun, but have now a lot of restrictions on them. Now that they are also a larger group than any time before.

This finally brings me back to point Jon is making.

The car of choice for that group of people right now and probably for the last 10ish years in increasing popularity are imports. It's clear when you drive around the streets and around the local traps.

Those people will be targeted for that reason, They are percieved to be part of that group of people no matter if they are or not.

I owned an import for 3yrs and in those 3yrs never once was pulled over by a cop and harrassed.

[jrocket]

LOL gotta love those "random" breath test. Isn't it funny that a police officer will bust his ass to catch up with you either by doing a U turn, passing cars, overtaking etc just to give you that "random" test. Many cars around you on the road too but for some reason you seem to be the "random" car they choose.

"Nothing Suss"

[JAS-25T]

Just to add,

Those people that want attention do up those cars.

They get the attention they want and the unwanted attention of cops in doing so.

They get the attention of one old coger that writes to ACA or TT and there we have it

[SL33KY]

Fair calls on all of the above...

I am of the opinion that the police do tend to target the import "hoons" over drivers of standard cars. In the first 6 months of owning my R33 I was pulled over on the Hume Hwy just inside Goulburn by HWP. At the time I had green P plates, it was the easter long weekend so I of course was doing the allowed 100km/h. I was defected for the usual, exhaust, BOV, ride height etc which I took gracefully. However, it was partially my fault as I did not check the engineering certifiacte against what was on the car when I bought it.

In saying that, the thing that really got me was at the exact moment I went past the unmarked HWP a red P plater was speeding past me doing well over the speed limit and I was the one that got pulled over. The cop's reason...? "I heard your exhaust it seemed too loud, nice car but!"

Even though at the time I had my exhaust engineered for the allowed DB limit!

The thing that really gets my goat is the fact that there are SO many drivers of standard vehicles out there who are the ones driving like idiots but of course the majority of police turn a blind eye to this and focus on the import "hoons" which unfortunately due to past incidences has landed us that stereotype.

[-FIGJAM-]

i agree with alot of what has been said above. Unfortunately the minority has ruined it for the majority. But if you look at the time where the whole P platers crashing n killing themselves or others was going on, there was only a couple imported cars involved, there were a few just plain simple commadores, falcons and god help us capri's.

what i think is wrong is that when im off my P's i can buy whatever car i like, loose my license whatever and continue to drive that car even tho i am one of those guilty parties that is "hooning" around.

Imports are popular now days because they are nice too look at, have a nice sound to them and movies and games. Price, well the price for a 95skyline is anyware between 10 and 15grand, a 93 94 commo which will flog the skyline is how much? 5grand?

i think its pretty indespuitable that we are targeted more then other drivers. However if you get defected because there is something wrong, boo hoo too bad so sad. Just fix it.

On another note, just because we are young doesnt mean we are any worse drivers then others, figures show otherwise, but id like to know how many "random" breath test we get done for and how many blind eyes are turned?

[jantolis]

HMMMMM... This graph shows that in 1991 when the GTR was in aus the road fatalities dropped. The 89 and 90 GTRs were still unknown at the time so aus drivers were still idiots. Then they heard about the GTR and realised they couldn't compete so they decided to slow down abit because they couldn't be bothered looking like a tool driving when the MIGHTY GTR started getting around on streets.

This is what i like to think.

[madbung]

Had my Skyline over 3 yrs, times pulled over = 0 ........... the car is far from stock looking/sounding or performance.

Although what you say is a well written/structured argument I can't agree with any of it.

Pollution is an issue and every little reduction counts, defects are a must, sure not all are life threatening issues (some are) and lean towards emissions, but having only one earth...give a f*k? yes indeed.

Exhaust to loud? Bald stockers on the rear? doof doof shaking my windows? strangely I wouldn't want any of that around my area either..

[J'z-R33]

Southern suburbs such as cronulla just like pulling over any one who looks like trouble, yes im refering to race related breath testing.

I live in Cronulla, of middle eastern appearance (dark, shaved head, fairly built, with goatee) in a Skyline and in the 2 years I've lived there I've been pulled over once at a RBT.. not sure where you got that impression from.

[-FIGJAM-]

I live in campbelltown, owned the car since december last yr and ive been pulled over about 6times for "random" breath tests, i guess some people are just lucky. whilst others suffer.

I agree, the defect laws are there for a reason and should be abided by, you get done for a defect to bad so sad pay the fine and get that shit fixed. However you need to remember that just about all if not all cars made back in 95 have the same levels of emission and whatever else, thus should be treated as such, not just me because i drive a skyline. Im lucky because ive never been defected, touch wood.

[Sheng]

I agree with this point. Say if you had a Ferrari and a skyline accelerating beside one another to ther full capacity without wheel spin, which is classed as "unnessessary acceration" ???

Yes, Good point, i will look into that one actually.

If they wouldnt say that, then what is the answer to that question? What is their reason for defecting cars? Do they scour all vehicles for possible defects in the same way that imports are often subjected?

They will most likely say that to the media, i.e news, a current affair.

But seriously, cops usually do use their common sense. By law, police officers acts on different powers for arrest, BUT they(police officers) also HAVE to consider would a reasonable person do the same. In this case, do you think that's going to

make the road safer? Obvious, you are going to say NO, i will do the same, there's no

argument on that.

I was almost defected when i was targeted for a "random" breath test. The cop performed a high speed U turn across double lines and overtook 2 cars on the wrong side of the road to give me a totally "random" breath test. I wasnt speeding, nor suspicious and the officer admitted this to me. It was only because I was polite and forthright with with cop that he let me go after pointing out the numerous trivial ways he could defect me off the road if he so chose!

Well, unfortunately mate, you got that hot headed coppa

[sh@un]

I think I'll replace the GT-R badges with Volvo ones when I get my R35 ...