Murray River Councillor Tom Weyrich has joined calls for a place for drivers to do burnouts safely in the twin towns, following what he called an “epidemic of people leaving skid marks” on local roads.
“It’s recognition of a problem; whether we like it or not we need to deal with it,” he said.
“It’s illegal and it’s happening more and more, eventually young guys will wind up losing their cars because they’ll be confiscated by the police, and there’s a dangerous aspect to it.
“It’s happening in lots of intersections in Echuca-Moama and it’s starting in other places like Tongala and Mathoura.
“Maybe in a managed, controlled atmosphere, we might be able to contain it.”
Murray River Police District Inspector Paul Huggett said skid pans had worked in other places, but it was up to the community whether they wanted their rates spent on it.
Despite the amount of talk about hooning on social media, Insp Huggett said the police rarely got calls reporting cars doing burnouts.
“Unfortunately, this is a community problem. Plenty of the community get on Facebook and have a whinge, but the same community members do not contact police,” he said.
“Whoever is selling these young people tyres do not contact police or Crime Stoppers; they can make those calls and report anonymously.
“If we get a call-out but the car is already parked up, you can tell if it’s been doing burnouts — the tyres are ripped up, bits of tyre on the back guards — and we’ll go through the car and issue defect notices.”
Insp Huggett said they were trying to alleviate the issue with regular highway patrols and working with police over the border.
Campaspe Highway Patrol Sergeant Paul Nicholl said he believed Victoria Police would not object to a skid pan being built, as long as it was properly constructed and managed with suitable safety compliance measures in place.
“Whilst it is acknowledged there is a hoon/anti-social driving problem in Echuca-Moama, it is no different to many other parts of the state which suffer even worse aspects of it,” he said.
“A properly run skid pan may alleviate some of the problem and reduce the anti-social and dangerous driving of some of our drivers.”
In late April, car enthusiast Chris White and former NSW police officer Susan Coleman met with Member for Murray Plains Peter Walsh to discuss the possibility of a skid pan in Echuca following complaints on Facebook about late-night hooning.
Mr Walsh had previously presented a petition to parliament to raise awareness of the extent of the problem in Echuca.
Cr Weyrich suggested a block of council-controlled land, 6 km north of Moama could be a potential location.
“As far as I’m aware it hasn’t been used for a long time, but if it's not available I'm sure we could locate some dirt somewhere,” he said.
“The purpose of the public meeting is to gauge interest because quite clearly we’ve got a problem, whether we like it or not.”
The public meeting will be at 10 am on Sunday, June 20 at Border Inn, Moama.
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