Residents barricade in boyracers, call police

Police said residents were 'perfectly justified' in barricading in the alleged boy racers. Photo / Bay of Plenty Times

A group of Oropi residents, fed up at boyracers hooning it up on their street, have taken to spying on the drivers - then barricading them in and calling police.

The Oropi Downs Residents' Group Incorporated says Phillips Drive has been the hub of boyracer mayhem in the Bay of Plenty town every Friday and Saturday night for the past few months.

Frustrated, about 10 residents banded together on Friday night to block two racers from leaving the street, a cul-de-sac.

Four cars with trailers prevented the vehicles leaving and when police arrived two young drivers had their cars impounded.

The treasurer of the Oropi group, who did not wish to be named for fear of retaliation, said residents were sick of "disturbed nights".

Not only did the young drivers allegedly rip up vacant land at the end of the street but lights had been "shot out" and letter boxes damaged.

"It's been getting worse over the last month. Many of us have reported it to police and given registration plates but they haven't been able to do anything. So we decided to stop them, then get police to stop them," she said.

When asked whether the battle was over now, she said "absolutely not".

"We'll be monitoring it next weekend as well and we'll be ready to go again. We will continue to do this until the problem goes away."

Oropi Downs developer Brian Askin, who does not live at the development, was invited to take part in the sting. He kept lookout on Friday from 8pm and when the racers turned up at 11.30pm he said he watched them doing burnouts for about 10 minutes before ringing residents who were on standby.

Four drivers, their cars pulling trailers, blocked in the boyracers on a straight on Phillips Drive and more cars further up the road lit the way with their headlights.

A construction light was also turned on.

Mr Askin said 1.2ha of land with 10 sections on it was being ripped up.

Phillips Drive resident Jan Booysen said that "skids" on top of the sections Mr Askin was trying to sell were deterring new neighbours.

"People are like 'holy ****, I'm out of here. I don't want to have to deal with this'.

"For ourselves, we are trying to create a neighbourhood where kids can play outside and dogs run around the place, and they [boyracers] are going hell for leather. We want them to go somewhere else. It's not over yet."

Saturday night had seen another "ratbag" driver in Phillips Drive but the driver had not done anything that would have led to his car being impounded, Mr Booysen said.

The president of the Oropi Downs residents' group, who also did not wish to be named, said New Zealand had got to the stage where "we are sick of boyracers".

"We are sick of the destruction and menace ... We want to create a real deterrent and the residents are going to do their utmost to discourage it and call police."

He said the history of offenders should be available to lending institutions.

Senior Sergeant Ian Campion, of road policing, said the residents were "perfectly justified" in barricading in the racers.

"To be perfectly honest, I don't blame residents for taking that kind of action," he said.

Western Bay residents were, "just sick to death of the actions of these idiots," who engaged in high-risk, anti-social behaviour.

He said the residents made no threats to the drivers and the situation remained fairly calm.

"They were merely keeping them there for police to deal with. However, they were subjected to quite a bit of abuse from one of the offenders but that was probably fuelled by alcohol," he said.

About 11.30pm, a police patrol was called to the street, where two male drivers, a 17-year-old and a 22-year-old were charged with sustained loss of traction (doing burnouts) and the 22-year-old with drink-driving. Both vehicles were impounded for 28 days.

Mr Campion said while the residents were technically obstructing a roadway by blocking off the cul-de-sac, in the circumstances police would not take any action against them.

He believed that anyone who took a drunk driver off the road was doing a good thing.

"They prevented a drunk driver from continuing driving and putting everybody else at risk. In that case their actions are to be applauded," Mr Campion said.

He had heard of the odd burnout going on in the Phillips Drive area and police visited from time to time.

Mr Campion said burnouts were quite spasmodic on the roads around the Western Bay but there were hot spots for boyracer behaviour. He said drivers doing burnouts should be reported to police. Where possible, callers should provide the vehicle's registration number and descriptions of the vehicle and driver.

- BAY OF PLENTY TIMES