Police crack down on car enthusiasts
May 7, 2008 by George Skentzos
The latest victim of the tough new anti-hoon laws is a classic Ford Falcon GT valued at $200,000 which has been permanently confiscated from its owner – the crime? No it wasn’t speeding and no one was hurt – it was the driver’s second burnout offense.
Overkill is really the only word which comes to mind when a burnout results in what is effectively a $200,000 fine, especially when it took a full blown police operation to issue it.
Police descended on car enthusiast gatherings in New South Wales on Sunday night as part of Operation Torque which resulted in 72 vehicles being searched, 39 tickets and 18 vehicle impoundments.
The operation involved undercover officers stalking car enthusiast gatherings with hidden cameras for months to document alleged offenses and organise the impending raid – a scenario perhaps better implemented in preventing more serious crimes.
Don’t think that “car enthusiast” is a protective euphemism for the offenders either – the police themselves use this term in their public statements.
“Operation Torque was established after ongoing concerns from the community about the behavior of car enthusiasts in the Port Botany, La Parouse and Brighton Le Sands areas,”
Understandably, those involved descended on the Roads and Traffic Authority impound lot to protest the police action where authorities responded by calling out the riot squad despite no reports of violence.
Car confiscation is becoming a big business here in Australia, with the Victorian government generating over $1 million in net revenue in less than a year from 3,437 auctioned vehicles.
This figure is set to rise with the confiscated Ford Falcon GT to be sold at police auction. Another GT, three Holden Commodores, a Holden Utility, Holden Torana and a Nissan 200SX will be held for a minimum of three months for violating anti-hoon statutes.
Are these anti-hoon laws or anti-enthusiast laws? Voice your opinion by leaving a comment below and let local Government know what they can do to better facilitate motoring enthusiasts.
George Skentzos
Print it: 
Picture this someone intentionally tries to beat a red light and in the process crashes into a family of 4. Killing 1 and injuring the others. He (or she) gets a 1 year cancelation of licence and maybe a suspended jail sentence at best.
Someone does a burnout and they lose their car?!
We already had enough laws before to deal with the wrong doers. We just needed more enforcement
What’s stopping the police specifically targeting someone (for whatever reason) and eventually confiscating their vehicle?
Sorry folks, but too bad too sad!!!
Do burnouts kill people? Well, the simple answer is yes.
The young DH who lived at the end of my street did just that. Doing a burnout and donuts on the street, lost control and crashed into a parked car. Parked car shunted forward, crushing the child standing in front of the car and breaking the legs of the mother as they were waiting to cross the road. It happened along time ago, long before the anti-hoon legislation and before street drags, etc became all the rage. I think he had a Monaro or GTS. But, it doesn’t matter what the car is. If someone isn’t responsible enough to drive by the rules, why let them drive!!! Taking away someone’s licence does nothing. If they are prepared to break road laws, why not just drive without a licence?
BTW, for those who don’t know, the police are broken up into specific branches. The traffic police only do traffic duties, which includes attending fatal crashes, not just handing out speeding tickets (I have a friend in the traffic police in Melbourne).
Maybe the “hoons” should be made to attend a few fatal accidents. It may make them change their mind about their driving behaviour.
Did the owner of the 200k GT plead not guilty and seek to have the case reviewed? If he didn’t he should have, if he did it was the court that made the decision.
Lesson 1, do your burnouts in the old Datsun not the GT!
It’s not as if he has actually lost $200k. What many of you do not realise is that when the Government sells the cars they confiscate, they pay off any banks, outstanding fines, etc first, then keep anything which remains (not usually anything left). Who gives a sh*t how much the cars worth? He knew the consequences if he got caught, and continued to do the wrong thing.
Quote: “Are these anti-hoon laws or anti-enthusiast laws?”
George Skentzos, you are a joke. Fact is, it is illegal, these idiots knew the consequences, and got caught. Nothing else to it. Car enthusiasts have nothing to do with it. Sh*thouse journalism at its best. Might be worth sending a resume to Today Tonight, as I’m sure they would be interested in your work!
Iam with Jbot and rules are rules and if you do go against the rules you will get caught!
We all know the rules…..so lets abide by them. If you wanna do burnouts, go in the remote parts way out of town where people and drivers are not present. The road is for driving safe on….and not like a modern day terrorising bar arsed possessed driver. If your gunna flaunt it and do daredevil stuff…………………you will get caught. Simple! So dont do it!
It amazes me NM to see how many people are complaining about the punishment when these consequences would have been spelled out to him after his first offence!
Agree wholeheartedly JBot……rules are rules and if you break them no matter who you are, that person pays the consequence and price! All I will say is after first offence; the penny should of dropped loud….hard….and sunk in. The only person to blame here is driver who carried on like he is at speedway on a public road. Hell Iam all for a good time…..but that goes hand in hand with the reality that all must follow; that is taking responsibility for ones actions. I do think the wording of this story is taken out of context on how it should be as I feel it is poorly worded!
Like anything in life………..remove emotion out of equation and it comes back to one central issue; the driver and his reckless actions! So now he pays the price and will learn the very hard way! And this is the only path that should be gone down……kinda of like dope; that should never be legalised and the law with cracking down on car enthusiasts also must not wane!
Till a year or so ago Australia did have a version of the Nurburgring it was called the NOrthern Territory. they had unlimited speed limits now its 130km/hr. People would come from allround to drive their supercars 200, 300km/hr +
BIG JIM, thank you, i thought no one would mention the Northern Territory, and speaking of the Norhern Territory, since this 130 km, speed limit was introduced (begining of 2007) You would think that death rates, and crashes have at least halved. but guess what by the end of 2007, car crashes and car crash fatalities in the Northern Territory have increased by 20 %. oh quick lets make a even more strict speed limit at 80 km, lol you’d think that would change something, but it probably wont. cause half the causes of crashes is probably speed limits, as in a car you spend more time watching the DAMNED SPEEDO instead of the ROAD AHEAD.
and as for the people saying, that he should of paid $40 and went to the track. Track days are only on specific dates, and track days arn’t on 24 hours. And another thing what if this person lived far in the country side, or on the other side of the state say, 500km or 1000 km from where the nearest track is located. Why should he spend so much money and time getting to the track just to do 1 burnout and piss off home.
OK NOW to answer the question, first, A car enthusiast is a person who, loves cars, has cars as a hobby, a person with a passion, an amazement for cars, a person who as a kid saw brocky, or johnson driving round, bathurst and thought i wana do that one day.
You wana know what i think off all this its just ridiculous, i mean a man spends his whole life saving up $$$200 000, to buy a car that is rare, a car he loves, a car that is a piece of Australian History, and all of this is gone, because he broke one boring ass written law, that some politician thought of while driving home in his toyota prius.
You see the word(s) FREEDOM, or free-country mean nothing these days, their is no such thing as FREEDOM, their is never gona be such thing as WORLD PEACE. Y because a bunch of no-bodies in government(s) (WORLD WIDE) think they have a right to tell us how to live, and what is right and wrong.
LOL i mean i won’t be too surprised if in 30,40, or 50 yrs time we (all humans) rn’t allowed to watch tv after 7pm, because its illegal, or that we rn’t alowed to be outdors afta dusk, or that we rn’t allowed to sneeze, couch, or breath in public, because its illegal.
LOL FEEL FRE TO COMMENT ON ANYTHING I JUST SAID. (if u can be bothered to read the whole thing)
CAR-ENTHUSIAST, I agree with everything you said.
Another problem in Australia with the too low speed limits and long distances with relatively unchanging terrain is fatigue. European scientists have proven that when speed limits go down fatigue related crashes go up, thats why they have speed unlimited autobahns.
This would be the factor behind the NT s crash increase statistics.
BIG JIM, yeah i guess ur right, i mean most ppl just set the cruise control on highways, sit their following the road, then just slowly start getting drowsy, loose consentration, then SHIT HAppens and their in a hospital bed.
and wen it comes to low speed limits, some are. and wat is really annoying is when their is like 4 different within 5 to 10 km of travel on the same road, i mean 1 minute 80, then down to 60, then 70, then 90, i mean for crying out loud how hard can it be to set 1 speed limit on a 5 or 10km stretch of the same road
Thats retarded just like the losers who are against burnouts
This is so stupid, can’t believe they can do that….although they are bloody just crusing them in NZ, no auction just a cube at the end….boooooooooohooooooooooo,
its prooving more and more that todays police farce are nothing more then revenue raisers for the governments. at this point atleast we can still say that if you dont do burnouts on the streets the pigs should leave you alone
n they think that taking away a $200,000 car is going to stop the hoons??
first thing they have no right to sell such a car if it aint theirs. If anything it should just
be inpounded for like 2 months or something
You see other idiots doin burnouts n skids n their $h!t box of a car
but noo the cops dont go for them
they always go for the ones that look better
because they then can get some satifaction that they have put away a hot car, n not the real hoon
absolutly stup!d i reakon!!
now lets see the proof of the burn out i lost my car for 3 months for a 1km long burn out in a standard 95 falcon with a blown head gasket with my wife in the car 12 days over due to give birth to my second born son
now to any one that can do a burn out at all for more the 1 meter in the same car in the same condition lets see it
its not the hoons its the corrupt police just picking out cars that look like they could be a hoon and fining then for it i did manage to get my car back after paying $200 to receive the video footage and case was dropped when the could not produce it but still i did have no car to take my wife in to hospital to give birth so now i know they make all this hoon shit up and bye the way it was my first ever driving offense
The really sad part is, Most of you who say “sucked in” he shouldn’t have done it..
I guarantee most of you have done the very same thing at one time or another, The only difference is you didn’t get caught.
So before you pass judgment, go down to your local police station and tell them to take your car, because you too have broken this very unjust law at some point and deserve the very same punishment, then you will have the right to pass your petty judgment on others.
Call me a hoon if you like but I too would love to get out in my car car and shred a set of tires, hey I payed for them, And I also pay for the very tarmac I want to shred them on.
but do you know what would be better?
If there was a controlled environment to do it in…
What happened to prevention before cure?
A government funded site would get a very large majority of these people off the public roads and onto the track.
In my town of Wollongong we almost had that option until whingers like you lot protested against it, because of the noise and “the unsavory types” So don’t you dare criticize, because people like you are the reason it’s done on the streets..
So call me a hoon if you want
‘Cause I’m F*cking Proud Of IT”
now pull you nose out and get back to you knitting..
wat happens when you see a unmarked police car spin the wheels with smoke coming of the tyres to chase some one for speeding in the other direction can i give chase and pull them over when they stop the car for speeding and say why u spin your wheels there was no need for it so i as a tax payer am confiscating your car NO I AM NOT ALOUD TO AM I ,he gets away with it doesnt he yes he does,as far as i am concerned if i ever get caught spinning wheels for some reason i want video footage of my actual car doing it,and if you dont have it or u carnt prove it u can get stuffed or u take it becuase the police get a big head doing it,makes them look big, we are going to court and i want evidence this hoon law is just stupid and unfair
Andrew,
the police arent even ALOUD to pull you over for smoking the wheels.
They are how ever ALLOWED to pull you over smoking the wheels.
its all a funny area to me
or do you mean its the sirens that go A-LOUD???
because they are ALOUD to
lol yeah i no i couldn’t correct it when i posted it
I want to know what happens when police take off quick, or turn around hard and squeal the tyres, do they confiscate their wife……heck, watching TV would have you belive every police car turns around in a cloud of smoke…
This is just a complete abuse of legislative power…..but being devils advocate says second time….do the time.
I for one do not believe that authorities should have the rights to confiscate cars without concrete proof that it was committed ie: video evidence, including driver in case.
What happens if I let my son drive my GT and he does a skid….
Everyone is quick to say “take it to the track for $20″. What doesn’t make it to the media is that if you dare to actually drive your street registered modified car to the track, you will get bent over by the same people who tell you to take it to the track. My license is currently suspended because last time I went to the drags I “allegedly” broke the speed limit by 40kph infront of a marked police car. It didn’t happen.
Expensive lesson, and probably not fitting to the “crime”. Revenue is hiding under the guise of safety and hazard reduction. For the kill joys in blue, go do some real police work. As for the “serves him right” people, go yell at the tv when a current affair is on.
Thats a joke give the guy back his GT sure take his car off him for 28days but selling it is just downright rude!!!We are tax payers we pay for the roads so we should be able too do skids on them!
Next thing will be noise control confiscating your house if you have too many parties or too much loud noise.
Hi Everyone,
Im a frightenned driver in South Australia, with a car that looks fast and is fast. B U T:
I have NEVER had a driving offense in the ten years ive had my license. So i DEFINATELY dont participate in hoon activities.
2 Questions:
- What happens if im wrongly accused by a jealous or corrupt police officer of doing something wrong just because my car looks fast?
- What happens if I keep on getting defected for no reason by an UNTRAINED officer, even though there is nothing wrong with my car (completely stock car). Isnt that harrassment?
It seems that we might as well give up on this, because no one has an answer on how to fight these corrupt laws. I agree that even saving ONE life makes tough laws worth while, but not all drivers should be picked on and defected if they have never done a thing wrong. That is the unfair bit.
What answer is there to protect the truly honest drivers with legal cars? If someone owns a firearm for example, does that mean they should be automatically accused of killing someone, just because a gun looks like it can kill someone?