Greer said the community was worried about groups of boy racers convening in rural locations on P\u014drangahau Rd, as well as around Takapau.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had groups from five or six up to a group of about 40 out on rural roads, doing burnouts, skids and racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The council had enough work to do without cleaning up after boy racers, he said.<\/p>\n
Greer, along with Mayor Will Foley, Wairarapa MP Mike Butterick (via Zoom) and members of the community met police recently to discuss their concerns.<\/p>\n
Sergeant Neil Baker said antisocial road user behaviour was an issue that had increased as social media became more widespread.<\/p>\n
Baker, officer in charge of Central Hawke\u2019s Bay Police, said police had seen online content showing people filming, posting videos of, and encouraging the behaviour.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s extremely concerning, and we fear that someone is going to be seriously hurt or killed.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the incidents were not all being reported and urged the public to call 111.<\/p>\n
Baker said that in the past six months, police had received only 11 reports of antisocial road-user behaviour, yet 28 vehicles had been impounded as a result of police enforcement activity.<\/p>\n
Greer said he understood why some people didn\u2019t report it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere might be a fear of retribution or some people just don\u2019t like to pot others.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he said members of the community were getting angry about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to avoid anyone taking the law into their own hands. We have an understanding and proactive police team in Central Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a good discussion with them and I\u2019m urging our community to do all they can to help them curb this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it wasn\u2019t only roads that were getting damaged.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey go through fences on private property and leave rubbish everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said while he believed some of the drivers were locals, others came from as far away as Manawat\u016b in the south and Napier in the north and it was happening at least once a week.<\/p>\n
Baker said Central Hawke\u2019s Bay had police on staff 24\/7 and would follow up all calls.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny descriptions we get are extremely valuable \u2013 colour and make of cars, driver descriptions \u2013 we can add that to other evidence we are collating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once drivers are caught, police can impose infringements, suspend licences, make arrests, order cars off the road and impound cars.<\/p>\n
Baker also said he was concerned about the district\u2019s road toll.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have had eight deaths on our roads in the last 15 months. Six of these involved local families, and four were on SH2 between Takapau and Waipukurau.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice have a big focus around keeping people safe on our roads. Drivers need to keep to the speed limits, wear their seatbelts and not use their phones while driving.\u201d<\/p>\n
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greer said the community was worried about groups of boy racers convening in rural locations on P\u014drangahau Rd,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1561,5195,15117,1853,54239,22220,1976,42,14046,185,3375,43,691,1523,21522,31122,20383,23419,10536,61,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-480195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-bay","tag-be","tag-boy","tag-central","tag-diesel","tag-going","tag-hawkes","tag-headlines","tag-hurt","tag-is","tag-killed","tag-news","tag-or","tag-over","tag-pour","tag-racers","tag-roads","tag-seriously","tag-someone","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}