Liberals pledge new laws to crackdown on hoons and road rage

Police impound yards are filling with vehicles seized from hoons and new laws to send them to the crusher are being drafted by the state government. Here’s how it’s progressing.

Tasmania Police car

Police impound yards are filling with vehicles seized from hoons and new laws to send them to the crusher are being drafted by the state government.

Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Service Felix Ellis said legislation on hooning and road rage promised during the election campaign was now on the way.

“Today we can confirm that the government has commenced drafting on our new legislation, which will make a significant impact in terms of our ability to keep communities safe from hoons on our roads who think that they are frankly above the law,” Mr Ellis said.

Police, Fire and Emergency Services Minister Felix Ellis speaks to the media at Cambridge on Monday, July 8, 2024.

“In terms of hooning, we want to be making sure that we’re getting the hoons and their vehicles off the road.

“So there will be simpler and more straightforward processes, so that we can clamp, confiscate and crush vehicles.

“We want to put whose vehicles on the fast track to the crusher.

“That’s going to be important in terms of sending a strong message to these people that what they are doing is putting lives at risk not just their own, but other road users in our communities here in Tasmania.

“These TikTok turkeys have absolutely no place on our roads,” he said, a reference to a popular social media site where footage of hooning is often posted.

Tasmania Police Inspector Kathy Bennett said hooning was a perennial problem for police — that was becoming worse in the online era.

“We’ve got over 180 cars in our compound at the moment and we’ve had 267 vehicles have been seized or clamped this year — so there’s quite a significant number statewide,” she said.

“Some people specifically set their vehicles up for hooning, what they’ll do is they’ll disengage the rear brakes on the vehicles which makes it easier to easier to drift and also just do the large burnouts that they like to do.

“If we detect those sorts of vehicles, we can give them a major compliance defect on the spot and put them straight off the road straightaway, regardless of the fact if we actually catch them hurting or not.”

Tasmania Police inspector Kathy Bennett and Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services Felix Ellis speak to the media at Cambridge on Monday, 8 July 2024.

Mr Ellis said the government was looking to other jurisdictions which has created a stand-alone offence of road rage and seeing what approach to take here.

“We want to be sending a strong message and particularly as the offence of road rage can be quite extreme in people’s behaviour will be looking to send out an appropriate message that it’s simply not on”.