Think twice about boy racers
7th February 2009

Every parent and teacher knows, or should know, the futility of losing your temper with a child. We’ve all been tested. Even the sweetest child chooses at some point to goad us to our boundaries and then, often with astonishing calculation, take a deliberate step beyond. At that moment we have a choice: we can either calmly but firmly apply established consequences – or we can lose our rag.

There has been a fair bit of rag-losing this week around boy racers. After goading the establishment with an escalating war of words the attack by a group of boy racers on a police officer in Christchurch last Saturday was the deliberate step over the boundary. Our response will have delighted them. Just as the parent who loses his temper with a child discovers he has also lost trust, respect and control, the frenzied response to last weekend’s incident moves us further away from solving the boy racer problem.

Let me be clear, the attack on the police officer was abhorrent. There is an element within the boy racer fraternity that deliberately offends, but the appropriate response is to support the police to identify the offenders and, calmly and firmly, apply the force of law.

Whipping ourselves into a lather with threats of car crushing and other unspecified sanctions is like an enraged parent shouting, “watch what you’re doing sonny, or, or, or…you’ll be sorry!”

There are dimensions to the boy racer problem that we seem unwilling or unable to grasp. For one thing, labelling all young men (and women) who possess late-model, low-slung cars as ‘boy racers’ is as counter-productive as the ‘war on terror’ because it marginalises a range of mostly unoffending people to a point where they see little alternative to behaving badly. Just as the war on terror glamourised terrorism for some, lumping all car enthusiasts together as ‘boy racers’ gives them an identity, a common purpose and a desire to bait the law that they previously did not possess.

Have we ever tried to find out who ‘boy racers’ are or what motivates them? Are they a constant group? Do they all deliberately break the law?

I suspect those who incite violence are often an older, criminal element who manipulate the energy and youthfulness of boy racers for their own ends.

The government’s response has been disappointing. Threats to increase penalties against boy racers overlook the fact that recently toughened laws are not working. Using the force of law to shut down boy racers on the streets needs police resources far beyond our means and would require mass court actions that will almost certainly fail for lack of evidence or for breaching civil liberties.

Just as in the anti-terrorist raids in Ruatoki, attempts to enforce impractical laws against boy racers will frustrate police, diminish trust in legal process and boost the mana of the alleged offenders.

A better approach is to tackle the supply side of the problem. If government restricts the ability of car dealers and finance companies to offer almost unlimited credit to young men off the street we will curb the proliferation of vehicles in their hands. If the only way I can buy my first car is to save the purchase price there’s a chance I will be more mature by the time I can afford it and I will value it enough not to risk having it confiscated.

Eventually we will have to accept that the long term solution to boy racers is to address the underlying causes, which are our cock-eyed societal values that produce young men with appallingly limited role models and aspirations.

Until we offer boys a better model than the alcohol-inspired, fuel-injected macho posturing that passes for masculinity in this country we will continue to have mayhem on our streets. As a community we must accept that their behaviour has been learned from us. As the collective parents of these young people we could do better.