20 February, 2002

New Anti-Rowdy Driving Group Now Active In Palmerston North

There's a public backlash coming in response to continual rowdy exhaust noise and ear-boxing stereo racket from cars.

A Palmerston North-based group, Citizens Against Rowdy Motoring (CARM).now has 30 members. It has generated more than 700 column-centimetres of publicity in newspapers, including support letters from the Chairman of the local Chamber of Commerce. The group has a "Briefing Sheet" web site, as well as an internet forum that has posted more than 200 messages since CARM began on 10 January 2002.

CAMPAIGN ACTION

CARM has begun a campaign that includes tighter control at the warrant of fitness level, as well as ongoing reporting of offenders.

A public meeting is planned for mid-March, to include viewpoints from all sides of the issue, such as police, neighbourhood representatives and motor sports enthusiasts.

Several drivers have been apprehended and fined or put off the road because of public reporting of offenses under Traffic Regulation 29. One was indignant when a police officer stopped him on January 21 at 1 a.m. for making 105 db noise (equivalent to a jackhammer.)

PALMERSTON NORTH "HOON TOWN" NEW ZEALAND

Extra loud "big-bore" exhausts are epidemic in Palmerston North, perhaps because of the regular stock car events that snarl for hours in the local downtown Arena. CARM's street monitoring suggests that, in the city Square, a very rowdy muffler blares past every few minutes. CARM says that this also makes them very easy to report.

Many citizens are fed up with deliberately rowdy, show-off driving that disturbs their conversations and general enjoyment of shopping or home life. Some neighbourhoods suffer late-night harassment from "burnouts" where drivers wheelspin so violently that tyres smoke and sometimes burst. The offenders are typically insolent and defiant when asked to consider others. Similar crazed driving continually cause accidents on the roads.

Bruce Thomson, the founder of CARM, says, "Some of these guys have shouted abuse at me by phone and in person. Neither they--nor even the public--consider the thousands of people that the noise harrasses as the rowdy driver blares along kilometers of street. The drivers don't realize how vastly louder the racket is outside the vehicle than inside it."

Bruce Thomson
Co-ordinator
Citizens Against Rowdy Driving (CARM)
357-7773 bthomson@e3.net.nz

Cameron Smith
Deputy Co-ordinator
021-177-3149
cameron.smith@vodaphone.net.nz

CARM web sites Briefing sheet: http://homepages.visp.co.nz/~bthomson/CARM/BriefingSheet.html
Internet discussion group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PalmyCARM

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