Cooper said he also saw someone standing and filming the vehicle. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe had to run and grab onto the give-way sign and swing himself out of the way of the car.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I say it was alarming, it was alarming to the point where I couldn\u2019t go back to bloody sleep.\u201d <\/p>\n
Cooper said something needed to be done before someone was hurt or worse.<\/p>\n
The burnout marks along Charlotte St extend past the intersection with Meta St and are near Te Kura Kaupapa M\u0101ori o Takapau. Photo \/ Michaela Gower <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to save these kids from killing themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they hit one of those bloody holes the wrong way and the car flips over, they are all dead, and I don\u2019t want that for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to drive past that every day knowing that I tried or I didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cooper said while he didn\u2019t report the Sunday morning incident, he had been in contact with police to see if they could attend a community meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want the police to come and answer some of these questions that I won\u2019t be able to answer. I\u2019m happy to facilitate it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cooper said there was no easy fix for the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no solution as such, but I\u2019m an advocate for harsher penalties.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople say, \u2018oh, you know they are just kids, they are just growing up\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, that\u2019s just excuses, and these are the excuses that are going to lead to the end of the lives of these young kids if they keep doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Central Hawke\u2019s Bay senior constable Andy Walker said people needed to report any sightings of incidents as they were happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe say to people, give us as many details as possible, but I totally get that sometimes it\u2019s not safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are well aware of the issues with boy racers not just in Takapau, but throughout Central Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe receive a lot of complaints, and we do follow up when we have got sufficient evidence, like vehicle registration numbers, or video or photographs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walker said police were open to engaging with communities on the topic.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the month, the Government announced the Antisocial Road Use Legislation Amendment Bill had passed through Parliament.<\/p>\n
New offences and penalties include establishing a presumptive sentence of vehicle destruction or forfeiture for those who flee police, street racers, intimidating convoys, and owners who fail to identify offending drivers.<\/p>\n
The law also gave the police more powers to manage antisocial vehicle gatherings by closing roads or public areas and issuing infringements.<\/p>\n
The infringement fee for making excessive noise from or within a vehicle increased from $50 to $300. <\/p>\n
Michaela Gower joined Hawke\u2019s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke\u2019s Bay news and loves sharing stories about farming and rural communities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cooper said he also saw someone standing and filming the vehicle. \u201cHe had to run and grab onto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,15117,72159,5842,115,1853,1259,31787,2082,119152,79912,1976,53398,23420,5158,111,43,139,69,1118,3111,384,31122,7812,68301,6845,26226,5157],"class_list":["post-537747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-boy","tag-burnouts","tag-calling","tag-calls","tag-central","tag-community","tag-doing","tag-for","tag-hang","tag-hanging","tag-hawkes","tag-hui","tag-intersection","tag-man","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-out","tag-people","tag-racers","tag-seen","tag-takapau","tag-vehicle","tag-watched","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537747","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=537747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}