Numerous extremely loud explosions emanate from a ‘car meet’ in Winchester during the evening.

On the M3 motorway from Winchester, convoys of modified cars drive at high speed, racing each other, creating loud explosions from illegally modified exhausts designed to shock.

Responsible drivers are distracted from safe driving, putting road users at risk. Illegal driving behaviour.

Vulnerable citizens, small children, the elderly, those suffering from mental health conditions and animals are all affected by this anti-social behaviour every day, worse at weekends. Hampshire police have declared they will not tolerate this behaviour.

Spin and sound bites from the police and crime commissioner are disconnected from the reality of these increasing incidents in local communities.

According to Crest, there are now just 3.88 officers for every 1,000 people – down from 4.42 in 2010. For years, I have witnessed the growing menace of individuals who modify their vehicles, acting in an anti-social way. This is a blatant disturbance of the peace.

Citizens have a right to enjoy peace. Convoys of cars, revving engines, ‘backfiring’, exhausts, racing dangerously at industrial estates, car parks, local roads and the motorway network, are treated as a private racetrack by these individuals.

Despite reporting this growing menace, Hampshire police’s automated system states to report online via 101 [10,000 calls unanswered] has no deterrent to this anti-social behaviour.

The sad fact is that most dangerous drivers who cause fatal accidents walk away from a crash scene, while innocent victims lie dead.

Will this be the case before the government acts with belated legislation to effectively disrupt this growing menace?

Anti-social racers use the public highways as a racetrack, to emulate their ‘fast and furious’ fictitious role-playing.

Deploying static mobile speed cameras [at times covertly] during daytime hours, ‘speed watch’ volunteers hide behind foliage like furtive ferrets. Persecuting the average citizen driving to work or local amenities, is irked by Hampshire police prosecuting them for driving at 34mph in a 30mph limit.

Are these drivers racing around in illegally modified cars or driving uninsured?

Young male car drivers aged 17 to 24 are four times as likely to be killed or seriously injured compared with all car drivers aged 25 or over.

Recently there was a fatal collision, where a vehicle had modified gears welded together to cause a ‘drifting’ effect, resulting in a fatal collision. Think of the witnesses caused permanent suffering by such fatal RTCs.

‘One death is a tragedy, millions a statistic.’ Individuals who modify their vehicles deliberately hide these multiple alterations from their insurer, which invalidates their policy. This ‘uninsured’ risk is unfair to motorists who comply with relevant laws.

Hampshire police road policing unit. What are they doing to proactively prohibit car meets, prosecuting drivers with modified vehicles that do not comply with DOT standards and are not covered by insurance?

In 2023, the DVSA prosecuted an engine tuning company for supplying a D-CAT and remapping the ECU on a customer’s car, allowing it to be driven illegally on a public road. Why are the relevant authorities now condoning vehicles driven illegally on public roads?

Despite a vehicle passing an MOT emissions test, the D-CAT pipe and ECU remapping are still illegal on a public road, as they are not EC or type-approved.

This anti-social behaviour has similarities with illegal rave gatherings in the 1990s, replaced with road traffic offences/criminal behaviour including violence towards the police.

Updated UK legislation is always slow, based on 19th-century bureaucratic administration, and fails to keep up with current social issues.

The police have the tools of office to carry out roadside enforcement, seizing of vehicles, issuing of penalties, dispersal orders and prohibition notices.

“The purpose of the police service is to uphold the law fairly and firmly; to prevent crime; to pursue and bring to justice those who break the law; to keep the King’s peace; to protect, help and reassure the community; and to be seen to do this with integrity, common sense and sound judgment.”

The menace of these car meets, associated anti-social behaviour currently has the upper hand over the existing police response and ability to tackle this problem. In sufferance.

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