Kapri

Firstly I'd like to say what a great word 'hoon' is
I think I like it more than bogan which is one of my favourite words

Any how - here's the serious question. I have read a lot of threads that mention hoons as being a big problem in Australia.
If hooning is such a problem in australia why has something not been done about it?
It's a fact of life that young lads like to drive as fast as they possibly can. Driving very fast yet having little driving experience is a recipe for disaster - we all know that.
In the UK we try to keep on top of this problem by only letting our young lads drive fiesta's or Nova's with go faster stripes
Have the Aussie authorities considered this?

Karl & Ann

And then, if they can prove they have (a) no brains and (b) a very tiny willy, they are allowed to progress to Subarus.

Karl

Womat

Kapri in Victoria (can't speak on the other states) restrictions are being introduced, as it's early days time only time will tell just how effective they are. I'd say much the same as a lot of crime the police would like a boost in numbers on the ground to help them enforce the law.

http://www.arrivealive.vic.gov.au/gl...red/index.html

http://www.youthcentral.vic.gov.au/T...ve/On+your+Ps/

http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/Home/...erVehicles.htm

Kapri

Kapri

Thanks Womat.
We're going to Victoria so

Wol

It *is* a huge problem in most parts of Oz.

It's probably like the worst estates in the UK: it's just that there I had no experience of it, living in a backwater. However the skidmarks on the roads here confirm what your ears tell you at night: idiots are around.

Weekend nights you hear the ambulances and police sirens on and off 'till it gets light.

It's not just inexperience though: there's a pathological and widespread deliberate irresponsibility among many of the teenage drivers which I find deeply disturbing.

auspal

In Queensland new laws were recently introduced where anyone caught hooning can have their car confiscated from them, and have to pay storage costs till they get it back. Not sure how long it is confiscated for, but if it happens three times, they have lost the car permanently.

I dont think it is a problem everywhere, hoons congregate in certain areas, ie industrial estates on weekends. They have police scanners I believe so by the time complaints are made and the police head out there, they are off to the next spot.

The Gold Coast has one of the highest rates for confiscating hoon's cars in Queensland.

There are huge fines for screeching the tyres, loss of points etc but they have to be caught first:curse:

Hutch

I'm just wondering how long I have to live here before I see some hoonish behaviour. I mean, especially considering that I live in the youth unemployment capital of Australia and all. No shortage of hoon-mobiles round here -are they all driving to eveyone else's towns and doing donuts in the road?

NickyC

We don't get any here - too many narrow, hilly, windy roads with little roundabouts every few hundred yards.

Brighton-le-Sands in Sydney was the traditional place for hoons to gather. Loads of youths of -er- mainly middle eastern appearance would congregate with their WRXs and drive around showing off their sound systems to their mates. The local councils play Barry Manilow music in the car parks and rigged up pink lighting (very unflattering to the teenage spotty skins!) to drive them away. They also block off car park entrances at night and confiscate their beloved cars, if they're caught.

Brighton's not half as bad as it used to be - the council and police crackdown has worked there - but I think they've all just moved to Cronulla instead!

rossifumi

Evident in some of the 30 something males around here too.

Vim Fuego

Hey, what the hell, I'll return serve (since I'm a 30 something male) ... and some dopey bints applying make-up on the M1 and gabbering on their phones to their witless half-head silicon-injected wannabe Paris mates ... yup, witnessed this morning ...

Vash the Stampede

A few points:

• I lived in Australia for the first 31 years of my life, and in that time I witnessed almost nothing that could be described as hooning; yes, it does occur, but it is not a national epidemic of Biblical proportions (as the usual suspects would have you believe)
  
  
• The problem is frequently hyped up (Daily Mail style) by tabloid media programmes like Today Tonight and A Current Affair; it is then further inflated by finger-wagging middle class wankers in McSuburbia whose lives are so excruciatingly dull that a single wheelie at the end of a cul-de-sac three blocks away is considered a major criminal event
  
  
• There's a lot of pointless gum-flapping on this forum about hoons in big V8s, as if it is absolutely impossible to drive dangerously or illegally fast in anything with less than 8 cylinders; obviously this is not true - you can kill someone at a perfectly legal speed, and you don't need 8 cylinders to do it
  
  
• Since the UK itself does not specify a maximum power level/cylinder number for young drivers, there is nothing to stop them driving ridiculously powerful cars as soon as they are able to drive - and let's face it, many of them do (4 cylinder 1.4 litre turbo diesel Golf, anyone?); ergo, Australia can hardly be accused of irresponsibility for allowing something that the UK also permits
  
  
• It's illegal to drive in a dangerous fashion (as many hoons do) so this aspect of the issue has already been addressed; the problem is that the police have to catch them at it - and of course, the police can't be everywhere at once
  
  
• It could be argued that the long, wide, straight Australia roads facilitate hooning in a way that the narrow, crooked, roundabout-strewn UK roads do not... perhaps if we reduced the quality of our roads, we might reduce hooning
  
  
• When I lived in Western Australia, the most common cause of hooning was car theft - and the most common perpetrators were teenage Aboriginals; the WA government responded by requiring people to fit electronic immobilisers to their vehicles, which greatly reduced the level of car theft

The bottom line is that there is no way to stop people from driving like idiots unless you prohibit the use of all private vehicles. A more sensible alternative would be to put down more speed humps and roundabouts.

If people are genuinely concerned about hooning, they should contact their local MP and lobby their local council.

I am willing to bet that most of the people complaining about hoons, have never actually done this.

Vim Fuego

Come to Logan Vash, hoons a-plenty ... I used to live a fair way from a busy intersection and noise of the burnouts used to carry on all through the night, not just at the weekends either.

As usual it depends on where you are but even in our cul-de-sac in a cul-de-sac in a 'rural' area we still get some bored dickless morons.

Having said that it is no worse than where I lived in Kent (and there I had increased population density and noise bouncing off the abundant concrete of our estate), I prefer the sound of a V8 to a thrashed Nova anyday ...

The Crow

I lot of Australians I know just seem to accept it as a rite of passage for some - some never graduate

We had relative peace in our quiet neighbourhood (5 short street and no through road), but recent P-platers and mates have changed that slightly. Only very occasional 'hooning' but very noisy cars and corners taken at speed. We're on their case.

Nomore

Hi Kapri.
The "hoons" as they call them here in Perth do drive fast and seem to race each other.
It is mostly the Ute's and Commodores that go steaming past me. It doesn't really bother me, you get used to them. I haven't a clue about how the police deal with these drivers, but it doesn't seem to put them off driving like they do.