Hoon Laws

[gdogzgtr]

Since the introduction of the Hoon Laws (impounding) I have noticed a significant increase in high speed pursuits with numerous pursuits engaged for traffic matters. It's alomost becoming a daily situation with cars caught speeding etc that will drive at 150km/h++ run red lights etc to get away from police to avoid thier vehicle been impounded.

Obviously it shows the driver's mentality and general lack of public safety to be driving in way to get vehicle impounded in first place but it becoming increasingly clear that they will almost go to any extreme to avoid being apprehended in some cases.

I guess it's a huge increase in punishment with 3rd offence car gone for good could be $100,000 car etc and previously all they were looking at was fine and license suspension. I can't imagine anyone in that 3rd strike situation especially in expensive car not trying everything to get away.

We obviously have strick instructions with pursuits as to whether to continue or abandon them but all it would take is first few seconds car to run red light and crash killing car load of others for simple traffic offence.

I know that most on here are aginst the new laws and I guess I am saying that I personally believe they have not the deterent effect that was initially believed and in most cases making the raods more dangerous.

[rh1n0]

I didn't think we had many pursuits here in Australia, let alone Victoria. Almost everyone I know would certainly accept their fault(s) (if they were speeding or otherwise breaking road rules/the law) and stop when the lights are flashing behind them.

That was certainly an eye-opening post. Is anything being done about this, is it being looked into?

[MattD]

Forgive my ignorance, Gdog, but you are a police man?

If not, can you provide a citation for the statistics please and the numbers themselves of course

[rh1n0]

Forgive my ignorance, Gdog, but you are a police man?

Yup.

[gdogzgtr]

I would say on average in Victoria we are having around 20+ pursuits everyday. Not all related to traffic matters but major increase than couple of years ago.

We having HUGE problems in eastern suburbs with 15-18 y.o stealing VN Coommodores and deliberately getting into pursuits and they are rediculously dangerous they way they drive. I have abandoned chasing them twice when they drove at 160+ in 80 zone at night and turned lights off also. Both times they t-boned cars running red lights shortly afterwards. Luckily and miracle that nobody died. (Not really related to topic just wanted to share what's happening on our roads)

I have been involved in recent times with one simply because his car was unregistered and he was scared. A Drink driver who was same sort of situation and motor bike rider just out to "hoon" around (he got away)

It's something I haven't seen or heard of until last year or two.

I expect a pursuit if following stolen car etc but not for someone driving an unregisted car.

Edited March 30, 2009 by gdogzgtr

[Phatboy]

I can understand people in stolen vehicles would try their best to not get caught.

But why do people in their own cars try to escape? Their rego's recorded - the cops know where they live, and that they own the car. Doesn't make sense. They'll just end up with a bigger fine for reckless driving/speeding and lose their licence. Unless they had a body or drugs in the boot.

[RBPOWA-(TJ)]

yeah some people are just stupid.

if i cop flashed their lights at me to pull over. just do it.

its a waste of time and money and fuel to try and out run them. cause the next day when your sleeping their knocking on your door at 7am waking you up and taking you in. and then your worse off.

guess some people live the fast and the furious life

[R31Nismoid]

I'm not against the laws totally Graeme.

I think they can be applied pretty trivially if the officer believes it to be 'fit' to do so, i wont go into it but I'm sure you can see there is some area's where the guidelines and law could be more direct/to the point and not so general... HOWEVER - in the more extreme circumstances I agree with the laws no question. Thumping down a suburban street @ 120km/h isn't a very wise idea and people doing that should have cars taken if they are indeed caught.

Although I think its ignorant of the Vic Police to not see this type of behaviour coming at some point down the track.

Imposing tougher penalties will shorten the distance to extreme behaviour in certain respects. Honestly tougher penalties was not the answer, sot he Vic Police and law makers must live with the decision that now its probably going to INCREASE the very road toll it was 'trying' to reduce... I say 'trying' because hoon laws will never reduce road tolls.

[Rekin]

I think the reason people do runners is cause the cop may have not seen their rego.

If an idiot is doing 120kph+ and sees a cop going the other way, he isnt going to pull over and wait for the cop to do a u-turn and catch up. He will most likely keep going/go faster because it will take a while for the cop to do a ubolt and catch up...

[sly32]

im not in victoria, but i can say that alot of people would run with alot of these impound laws, i find it hard in some ways, say if i was driving my skyline, doing 120km/h in a 60zone, that would go under the hooning laws and i would get my car impounded,

but

if i was doing the same thing, in just some every day normal car, i would just loose my licence? wouldnt go under hooning laws?

also as i saw on the news the other night, you see some1 crash into a house and they are under the age of 25 or they are driving a nice car, they instantly say hoon, but then i saw on the news a pair of old people, the drove through a house and 2 fences, it wasnt made out like anything big, then just said at the very end they wernt sure what speed they were doing and that was the end of the story,

because of this i think it also makes people want to run more, because they are just going to get into more shit then what they would in another car,

i can completely understand young kids stealing cars and trying to run and i defently think they should get the worst of it,

since you have noticed a increase in high speed chases, what is been done to stop this? obviously impounding laws etc.... arnt working,

Cheers

[htial]

I feel the media has a lot to do with the general public's view of the hoon laws...

As you say Sly32... ...If they're under 25 or in an import... ...They're labeled as a hoon... ...Where older people aren't... ...I know more people over the age of 60 that shouldn't be on the road than those under 30...

A few years ago... ...2005 I think... ...a high speed chase ended in the death of a child when the vehicle being chased crashed... ...Now I'm a little cloudy on the finer details but I believe the officers involved were held responsible for the death of the child... ...and not the driver of the offending vehicle...

Now I'm a firm believer that as soon as you decide not to stop for the police... ...You absolve the police of any blame for the actions you cause the police to take to pursue you...

The name "Hoon Laws" is inappropriate... ...They shouldn't be labeled or separated from the "normal" road laws... ...I see way more white vans and company cars doing "hoon like" behavior... ...Or breaking what I like to call "Goon Laws"... ...Changing lanes a lot... ...not indicating... ...Tail gating... ...Diving into the left lane at lights and then forcing their way back in... ...Not doing the speed limit in the right most lane... ...Entering an intersection when they won't clear it and blocking other traffic that then has the green light...

Tonight on the way home from work I saw three accidents all caused by people being "Goons" in peak traffic... ...I think there is too much focus on young drivers misbehaving and not enough reeducation of older drivers... ...After all... ...If the young ones see this behavior on the roads they'll do the same thing...

[THR34T]

this is an interesting topic as tonight i was talking to some of my mates, i dont know why but i have noticed that ALOT of P platers attitudes to be like 'oh look driving were driving past a cop up ahead get ready to turn off' i was driving some mates home tonight and we drove past a divy van and i noticed there reaction when they the divy van start to do a u turn. 'quick go into a side street' i dont understand why everyone thinks that they are so 'bad'

i think somethings are getting a bit out of hand with these laws with p platers doing stupid crap like running from a cop because they have an unregistered vehicle or are scared they will get 'defected for something' etc.

i do think the new laws are very handy as they have caught alot more idiots on the road, but i always wondered what runs through some of their minds when they think they should just boot it and keep going away from a cop and making it worse.

[joeyjoejoejuniorshabadoo]

well here's another scenario.... one that has happened to me a few times and i'm sure 90% of the rest of you...

you are driving along obeying the road rules and a cop passes in the other direction, he/she shoots you a look and you see them drop a "spirited u-turn" in your rear view mirror... you have a head start of a couple of hundred metres, and are doing 60 while the copper is accelerating from 0

you know they are going to pull you over, and you know what an epa will cost you (not including you and your epa passable car here ash).

you also know that if you hit the back streets, you're probably gonna get away

do you:

a) take it in the ass like a slightly feminine looking inmate all because you chose to drive an import

b) GTFO

i know what i would do....

[femno]

It just goes to show that you coppers just dont think about the ramifications of inplementing such laws...'oh yeah we'll take their cars if they dont obey the laws blah blah' but you still fail to understand the driver-car relationship.

Most will risk everything for their cars, especially when they know they are going to get reamed for driving normally, by import-corrupt cops.

I laugh at the fact that you have suddenly realised that your laws are having the opposite effect as first intended, everybody saw that coming.

Except you!

Hopeless!!

The question is: Are you going to do anything about it?

Probably not, you would rather the 'found danger' continue rather than admit failure. Actually Id expect that you would probably implement even more outrageous laws without thinking them through, putting more people in danger and going even further backwards.

[dezz]

It just goes to show that you coppers just dont think about the ramifications of inplementing such laws...'oh yeah we'll take their cars if they dont obey the laws blah blah' but you still fail to understand the driver-car relationship.

Most will risk everything for their cars, especially when they know they are going to get reamed for driving normally, by import-corrupt cops.

I laugh at the fact that you have suddenly realised that your laws are having the opposite effect as first intended, everybody saw that coming.

Except you!

Hopeless!!

The question is: Are you going to do anything about it?

Probably not, you would rather the 'found danger' continue rather than admit failure. Actually Id expect that you would probably implement even more outrageous laws without thinking them through, putting more people in danger and going even further backwards.

You don't actually think VicPol write and implement laws do you...?

[_Ryan_]

im not in victoria, but i can say that alot of people would run with alot of these impound laws, i find it hard in some ways, say if i was driving my skyline, doing 120km/h in a 60zone, that would go under the hooning laws and i would get my car impounded,

but

if i was doing the same thing, in just some every day normal car, i would just loose my licence? wouldnt go under hooning laws?

also as i saw on the news the other night, you see some1 crash into a house and they are under the age of 25 or they are driving a nice car, they instantly say hoon, but then i saw on the news a pair of old people, the drove through a house and 2 fences, it wasnt made out like anything big, then just said at the very end they wernt sure what speed they were doing and that was the end of the story,

because of this i think it also makes people want to run more, because they are just going to get into more shit then what they would in another car,

i can completely understand young kids stealing cars and trying to run and i defently think they should get the worst of it,

since you have noticed a increase in high speed chases, what is been done to stop this? obviously impounding laws etc.... arnt working,

Cheers

and that is why they are bullshit laws !!!!!!!!

[dezz]

and that is why they are bullshit laws !!!!!!!!

As far as I know, 45km/h+ over the limit = impound. The type of car/driver is irrelevant.

[joeyjoejoejuniorshabadoo]

+1 dezz.... car make/driver age doesn't mean shit when your >45k's over.

also femno, while i do agree wholeheartedly with the fact that they didn't see it coming whilst EVERY import/modified car driver did... i dont really think greham can be held responsible.... well at least not 100%

[baron25]

also as i saw on the news the other night, you see some1 crash into a house and they are under the age of 25 or they are driving a nice car, they instantly say hoon, but then i saw on the news a pair of old people, the drove through a house and 2 fences, it wasnt made out like anything big, then just said at the very end they wernt sure what speed they were doing and that was the end of the story,

Not nessecarily the case, there was a piece in the Age a few months back that the 'hoon' laws were getting a lot of midlife crisis drivers (which they found a surprise) and that the impound lots were filled with as many 911's/Jags/Astons as they were WRX/Supra/Skylines.

I think they're a good idea, as back home there is a lot of problems with 'hoon' behaviour (resulting in a number of commodore/powerpole related deaths in the past few years). One guy even asked the police if he would be allowed to proceed the funeral motorcade doing burnouts and drifting his commo, because that's how his mate would want to be remembered.

A lot of the boys back home work as apprentices, getting payed bugger all, and they pour pretty much every cent they earn into their car - the prospect of losing all that money and effort is a real deterrent for them. Maybe not the first time they lose their car (24hrs isn't it?) but when faced with the reality of losing it permanently does get to them, and i know a few who, when facing strike three, decided it was a good idea to join the local drag club.

My 2c

[boostn0199]

impound laws are bullshit, ofcouse if your on your last straw your gona go dashboard to get away rather than getting caught and getting defected /epad or car confiscated. and even if you do impound the car for 48hrs wats dat achieve all just a way to get a money they dont care anything but revenue