Source: New Zealand Police (District News)
Attribute to Sergeant Luke Vaughan, Canterbury Antisocial Roaduser team:
Canterbury Police, including the Antisocial Road User Team and the Strategic Traffic Unit, were out in force on Saturday night monitoring and disrupting antisocial road user activity, including several ‘skid meets’ scattered around Christchurch and the surrounding area.
The Police operation started at the “Cars and Cameras” event – a well-organised and positive get-together of car enthusiasts at Bottle Lake Forest between 5pm and 7pm.
The operation moved on to monitoring subsequent cruising of the avenues around central Christchurch and vehicle movements to rural and industrial areas for planned ‘skid meets’.
Over the course of the night, 50 infringements were issued, eight cars were green stickered, and five were impounded for sustained loss of traction from past incidents.
There was one fleeing driver incident involving a car believed to be stolen. Enquiries are ongoing to locate the driver and vehicle.
The work isn’t over though. Along with the action taken over the course of the weekend, Police gathered information that will help our ongoing enquiries. This included identifying people and vehicles of interest.
Police understand the effect antisocial road user activity has on the community, especially in areas frequented by these groups. They leave damaged roads and mess for communities and councils to clean up.
We will continue our work to disrupt this activity and identify those involved. If you choose to damage roads, distress residents, and put you, your passengers, and bystanders lives at risk by engaging in this activity, Police will work hard to identify and stop you in your tracks.
Police would like to thank members of the community who called us and provided information. This not only assisted with our response on the night – it will also be valuable in subsequent enquiries.
While Police work hard to address and reduce the prevalence of antisocial road user activity, we cannot do this alone.
If you have concerns or details about illegal street-racing or anti-social driver behaviour, please contact Police as soon as possible and with as much detail as you can safely provide.
Information provided by members of our community is invaluable, not only in holding those responsible to account, but also in ensuring we are able to pass information regarding damaged roads on to our partner agencies.
If you have any footage, or information that may be able to assist Police in identifying those involved in this activity, please contact Police via 111 if it’s happening now or 105 if it’s after the fact.
Alternatively, you can report any information anonymously via Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.
ENDS
Note for Media: B-roll footage available on request.
Issued by Police Media Centre
