Crush on Car Racing

New Zealand government is drafting legislation that will allow to crush the cars of repeat offenders of street-racing.

NZ Police Minister Judith Collins has announced that new laws, currently being worked on, would allow courts to order the crushing of a car of a notorious street-racer.

This rather extreme measure is intended to be an emotionally deterring factor to street-racers who usually have a strong bond with their racing car.

Less drastic solutions, such as reposessing the car of a street offender, selling it and donating the money to charity do not seem to have enough discouraging effect.

Also, it's been claimed that it's just another street-racer who will buy a racing car from such a sale. Just change of hands, no change of approach.

Critics of the crushing approach point to a list of potential issues.

Firstly, what if the car belonged to a dad, uncle or a friend of the offending street-racer? Would the car still be crushed?

Also, there are fears street-racers will now turn to stealing a car and race it. Who is going to be the end-loser? Certainly not the street-racer.

Other countries have been battling similar problems.

In Poland, in the city of Lodz, an official night of street racing has been introduced.

Once a month, one of the main streets gets closed off to public traffic and street-racing goes full steam.

Lodz has since become the Polish capital of street racing.

Statistics are yet to show if this move has actually reduced illegal street-racing at other times, or, on the contrary, increased it as a result of wide publicity and more racers training for the racing night.

More info:
New Zealand: Stuff.co.nz: New laws this year to crush cars