ACT Police have hired a criminal psychologist to help them tackle the problem of hoon driving in Canberra.
Key points:
- Police chief Neil Gaughan says “better solutions” are needed to deter drivers
- Residents of Uriarra say the behavior particularly affects their town, and that not enough is being done to stop it
- Deputy Commissioner Gaughan says the police cannot attend every call for help
ACT Chief Constable Neil Gaughan said the problem of indictment had grown as a problem in the ACT over the past few years and police were considering a range of tactics to deal with- there
Meanwhile, the ACT Legislative Assembly has launched an inquiry into the issue of dangerous driving and is currently accepting submissions from the public.
Hoon drives “happens daily”
Deputy Commissioner Gaughan said police were receiving constant reports of dangerous driving.
“It’s a daily occurrence,” he said.
“Yesterday I had the radio on in my office and we were chasing vehicles that were driving on the wrong side of the road.
“It’s happening daily and it’s not happening at three in the morning like it used to. It’s happening at three in the afternoon in Braddon.”
He said steps needed to be taken to find “better solutions” and prevent hoon drivers from getting involved in criminal activity in the first place.
Space for play or pause, M for mute, left and right arrows for search, up and down arrows for volume. Listening duration: 4min 53sec 4m 53sec ACT Chief Constable Neil Gaughan says driving is a major problem in Canberra.
“It seems like it’s post-lockdown, post-Covid, that we’ve seen an increase in this kind of dangerous behavior,” he said.
“We actually hired a criminal psychologist to look at some of the reasons why people do it and thinking about how we can divert kids. You know, I’m looking forward to trying to keep people out of the criminal justice system.”
Police are also considering placing cameras in problem areas to try to catch drivers, Deputy Commissioner Gaughan said, as well as the potential of drones to help track vehicles.
He also said drivers had learned to evade police, crossing to the other side of the road during a chase, where police could not follow.
“At the moment, if a car goes on the wrong side of the road, we don’t chase it,” he said.
“Other jurisdictions do things slightly differently.”
He said he was aware that residents shared the police’s concerns.
“From a policing perspective, this is the one issue that I know Canberrans are very dirty about,” he said.
He encouraged Canberrans to make their own contributions to the ACT Legislative Assembly consultation.
“Hopefully we can see a number of submissions to the committee and they can come together and work through it and come up with some solutions.”
“They just blocked the way”
Residents of Uriarra say that reception in the area is a big problem. (ABC News: Talib Haider)
In Uriarra, hoon driving is a persistent problem.
For resident Jess Agnew, it’s a weekly occurrence.
“Sometimes three nights a week,” he said.
“It can be dangerous – there are times when there are hundreds of people … and you just can’t get through, they’ve just blocked the way.”
He said he had struggled to get a reaction from the police.
“There really hasn’t been one,” he said.
“We were calling regularly, all the residents, and then we stopped because there was no reaction that we could see.
“And then the police report came out that hoon’s behavior had gone down in Uriarra, because we stopped recording because we had given up.
“And then the minister said to us, ‘no, you have to keep reporting’, so we’re all reporting now.”
He said he had concerns about learner drivers.
“We don’t want our kids to have to navigate this kind of thing,” she said.
“When they come home at night, they already have to deal with kangaroos and wombats.”
“Up to 100 cars leave”
Uriarra resident Hugh Hagan, 17, says hoon drivers cause problems in the community every week. (ABC News: Greg Nelson)
Hugh Hagan, a 17-year-old who also lives in Uriarra, agrees.
“We consistently see on Friday and Saturday nights usually only about 20 but up to 100 cars that come out and run out and run out on the roads at night and block traffic,” Hugh said.
“This has been going on for several years.”
He said he knew of people who had been blocked while trying to get into Canberra Hospital and of fires started by burnouts.
“[Police] just tell us to call him and try to get photos and videos and they will do what they can with the numbers they have.
“They can send a car, it’s not very often that they do, and if they do, they just clear the crowd and then they end up gathering again later in the evening.”
Hugh said he did not believe a criminal psychologist would help and called for tougher punishments for criminals.
Deputy Commissioner Gaughan defended the police response.
“There are literally thousands of kilometers of roads in Canberra, and especially if we find that these things are happening in the evening when we’re busy responding to other things, like family violence issues, we just don’t have the resources to get to every place. on time,” he said.
“So finding other ways to approach the matter is important and that’s why I welcome the consultation.”