MP Nicky Wagner (left) says “his exhaust was this wide”, while successfully promoting a crackdown on “boy racers” who have been annoying some people in Christchurch by “cruising”.
Maybe you have to be there, but from this distance, I just don’t get it. There seems to be a group of young people in ChCh who take pride in their cars and like to drive around the city in groups, admiring each other. OK, it probably seems weird to many of us, but what exactly is the social harm? I’ve had a reasonable hunt around for a problem definition, without success.
However the bylaw passed by the local Council prohibits “cruising” which is defined as
driving repeatedly in the same direction over the same section of a road in a motor vehicle in a manner that draws attention to the power or sound of the engine of the motor vehicle being driven or creates a convoy that is formed otherwise than in trade and impedes traffic flow.
I don’t see much legal distinction between the “boy racers” who are the target of the bylaw and ordinarly commuters, who also drive “repeatedly in the same direction over the same section of a road in a motor vehicle in a manner that… creates a convoy … and impedes traffic flow”. The caveat that the convoy be “formed otherwise than in trade” is hardly a distinguishing feature because there are surely commercial (trade) flow-ons from the cruising the bylaw is meant to target.
Anyway, this conduct (basically driving around city streets) doesn’t sound terribly naughty to me. Maybe some of the people doing it also break actual laws, but in that case the solution is surely to just enforce those laws.
I wonder how ChCh mayor (sideshow) Bob Parker interprets the fact that someone has now died during enforcement of the bylaw.