Spin & Myth

On the 22nd November 2006 the following quote was printed in a Press article on the health effects of noise on residents living around Ruapuna:

Canterbury Car Club member Paul Williams said the race-track was a useful and lucrative resource ............ Williams felt the availability of the track also helped in getting boy racers off the street.

This is a myth and it seems the only people who believe it ( or want to believe it ) are Ruapuna Management and Christchurch City Council.
The "boyracer' problem in Christchurch has never been as bad as it is now, residents in the City are being driven to distraction by their noise and antics as are residents in this area. , who often have up to 400 - 500 boy racers causing havoc late on weekend nights.

Another exerpt from The Christchurch Press ( October 2006 ) :
"Dr Simon Kingham's research into the driving habits of 200 young car enthusiasts shows that those who attend motorsport events are more likely to emulate their heroes on the streets of Christchurch than those who stay away from the events " ...... "Canterbury road policing manager, Inspector Derek Erasmus, said he was not surprised by the findings. "

"The residents in the Ruapuna area would agree with the research, with the consequential behaviour they witness after the events – local complaints always go up." .....

Here are photographs taken after the last two events held at Ruapuna which attracted large amounts of 'boyracers" :

The first photograph is of one of many accidents which occur during and after these events , a local woman narrowly missed being hit by this car as it passed another car on a corner after speeding out of Ruapuna . On the weekend of this accident Police had up to seven cars patrolling our roads to try to contain the loutish and dangerous behaviour of these "car enthusiasts ". Bottles were thrown from cars onto the roads and one resident had a bottle thrown AT him while he was clearing broken glass from his driveway.



The second photograph shows what happened after last weekend's Drift Racing when a car load of hoons stopped on their way back from Ruapuna and took the trouble to run over this letterbox.
We're not sure why Ruapuna Management think that they are curbing Christchurch's boyracer problem when all the evidence shows quite the opposite. Residents and Police can all testify to the fact that events aimed at boyracers bring nothing but trouble for this area.
Postscript(a) after nearly 4 years of sleepless nights every weekend, accompanied by property damage, arson, tagging, letterboxes being wrecked on a weekly basis and some residents too scared to leave their homes, the City Council has agreed with Police that this can't go on and has made our neighbourhood a night-time "no-go area" for boyracers on weekends and public holidays. A BIG thankyou to local Police for all their hard work and to Council Staff and Councillors for making this happen. Its amazing what a decent sleep can do !
Now Government needs to come to the party and curb this blight of "modified exhausts" so that all ratepayers can have some respite from cars that sound like spitfire airplanes.

Postscript (b) As if we need more evidence that providing events for Boy Racers DOESN'T improve their driving behaviour : Yesterday (29th July 2007 ) Ruapuna hosted an event aimed at Boy Racers, three local residents had cause to call Police asking for help and a Police presence when cars arriving at and leaving the event were observed doing wheelies on local roads, speeds in excess of 140 kmh & chewing up grass verges in front of homes while "fishtailing" along them.
The driver of one of these cars (a gold Mitsubishi Evo with a black bonnet & the number plate THRSHT ) seems to have not realised that local roads are NOT Ruapuna's practise area.