2 June 2009

Illegal street racers just one step away from tragedy

| its_me13
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As seen yesterday in the Canberra Times, the Car group known has “RushHour” has once again made it into the papers. This time on the front page.

    Internet videos purportedly from a Canberra street racing group show drivers taking part in illegal street racing, burnouts and go-karting at high speeds on suburban roads.

    Police have condemned the footage, saying the racers are flirting with tragedy. While organisers of RusHHouR admit they are involved in illegal behaviour, but say street racing among the group is banned.

[ED – I thought it was rather old footage to be trying to hang a moral panic on]

Its nice to see that once again RushHour has been named as Street Racers, Once again this is not right. As previously Stressed once apon a time street racing was one thing that did happen but this was atleast 5 years ago and RushHour has tried its hardest to get a better name in canberra. Fighting and street racing is not apart of rush hour and the organisers go out of their way to provide the safest spot for the car group to meet out of the way of the community.

Rush hour respects all the work that the police do and never try to weasel there way out of what goes on.

Can not stress more that NO STREET RACING AT ALL HAPPENS AT THE RUSH HOUR MEETINGS….

Maybe if they change the name to SlowHour people will stop thinking that we are a bunch of hoons that have nothing better to do with their time and start taking note of the things that Rushhour does like their charity cruises and legal track days to help better the community. But i dont think their is any chance of that happening.

Guess we just have to keep putting up with headlines like this instead of seeing ones like “Rushhour races $7000 for new born intensive care unit”.

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old canberran said :

Danman – “Im not old, but not young, but I do not remember a KFC in Braddon, I remember Pizza Hut and when The Dog House was up the end of Braddon, but not KFC.”

Dan, I seem to remember a KFC attached to what used to be the Ampol garage in Lonsdale Street and which became a mini-market.

kfc was where fairstar and the video store are now. the car park was next to the bp, and you could drive straight through. it was a joke that people who were seen round the back on a regular basis were dropping off rabbits – it turned out they were picking up leftovers for a refuge – who knew? pizza hut was next to the ampol, and I worked at computech across the road…

peterh said :

one of my colleagues did the balmoral burn in sydney on the weekend. he raised $3,000 on his own. makes rushhour’s $7k look a bit small, don’t it?

You could get about $7k from selling a car that you stole from Victoria?…

It’s the old story of people’s view of “everything we do while driving is perfectly safe and legal because we’re expert drivers and we can do it” It’s pretty much the attitude of drivers who undertake burnouts and street racing and simlarly with motorcyclists who weave in and out of traffic, ride between traffic and down bike/emergency lanes. No wonder you see so many dead motorcyclists and dead passengers of hoons who smash into trees on a mostly straight 60kph roads. No sympathy for these idiots, only for the innocent they will eventually kill.

Felix the Cat10:22 pm 02 Jun 09

I remember the KFC and Pizza Hut and also the Dog House. And that double-decker food bus parked in the carpark where Maccas is now. Braddon only became popular as performance car fan hangout after Summernats first started didn’t it?

old canberran9:14 pm 02 Jun 09

Danman – “Im not old, but not young, but I do not remember a KFC in Braddon, I remember Pizza Hut and when The Dog House was up the end of Braddon, but not KFC.”

Dan, I seem to remember a KFC attached to what used to be the Ampol garage in Lonsdale Street and which became a mini-market.

Danman said :

Where are all the dignified hooligans

I can see it now, a collective of distinguished gentlemen, with stiffly waxed handlebar moustaches, tweed jacket and pants, monocle, pipe, newspaper under their arm, and leaning on their model A ford – challenging someone to beat their best quarter mile time of 43.29* seconds

You forgot to mention the hat…

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z125/nota_photo/PaekakarikiHillmodela.jpg

:^p

Driving gloves were a nice touch

Danman @ #8.

Gentleman racers do exist!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFSGSL3Nrmc

For those who choose to drive on our streets in a manner which puts their lives and the lives of all road users at risk, I suggest they spend time speaking to the family and friends of people who are gone forever killed on our roads, speaking to the people who are crippled for the rest of their lives through either their own actions or the actions of others, speaking to the emergency workers who are tired of pulling people from car wrecks both alive and dead, to the emergency workers tired of delivering ‘death messages’. Speak to any ambo, copper, firey, emergency nurse/doctor and I’ll bet they’ll all tell you the same thing; they have dealt with too many un-necessary injuries and deaths as a result of dangerous driving.

Good luck to genuine car enthusiasts.

one of my colleagues did the balmoral burn in sydney on the weekend. he raised $3,000 on his own. makes rushhour’s $7k look a bit small, don’t it?

We should just call Acting Super Daryl who will use his dulcit tones to chastise the naughty boys and girls on his way to saving the day.

#12

+1 – very well said!

ahappychappy4:43 pm 02 Jun 09

jessieduck said :

Good lord I am agreeing with ahappy.

Who would’ve thought? Sorry – My first posts came made me come across as a young arrogant and outspoken individual, and after having some time to cool off I realise that I sounded terrible in some of those posts. So sorry Jessie, Davo, JB, Angry and Jim as I did exactly as some of those I was defending. I DO still stand by my points, however would go about things in a different way if given a second go 😉
I should’nt have attacked directly as I was doing nothing but flame and ignite more angry responses. Which, of course, was the thing I was condemning the Riot-ACT for. So I apologise.

Now lets target these morons who think they’re allowed to engage in illegal activity as long as they admit to it! 😉

ahappychappy said :

Davo111 said :

What you are doing is still illegal, whether or not it comes under the definition of “street racing”.

+1. You may not be street racing, but I have encountered a few of your meets, and what you are doing is in no way controlled and IS dangerous for those around. You aren’t car enthusiasts meeting due to a common interest for a chat… half the cars there are automatic, bog standard, pre 2000 commodores with stockies on the back and chopped springs! The other half are old beaten up ricers or pulsars with a set of wheels and a blow off valve (if you’re awesome enough to have it turbo’d bro).

Obviously it doesn’t help with your exposure to the ACT community when members openly flaunt their attitude to those who enforce the law (not to mention openly say you break the law). Sure, you may have raised $7000, but one good deed does not reverse YEARS of bad press. Whether you feel the bad press was justified or not.

this is the thing that really amazes me. $7,000? is that it? even the OMCG in canberra generate more than that in their charity drives. considering the amount of members, surely you could raise a bit more to assist the community? or is this a token amount to show how you really help the community? try a bit harder to impress. I used to do that in a hat pass at a certain pub, now long gone…

Good lord I am agreeing with ahappy.

^^ couldn’t have said it better myself

ahappychappy3:56 pm 02 Jun 09

Davo111 said :

What you are doing is still illegal, whether or not it comes under the definition of “street racing”.

+1. You may not be street racing, but I have encountered a few of your meets, and what you are doing is in no way controlled and IS dangerous for those around. You aren’t car enthusiasts meeting due to a common interest for a chat… half the cars there are automatic, bog standard, pre 2000 commodores with stockies on the back and chopped springs! The other half are old beaten up ricers or pulsars with a set of wheels and a blow off valve (if you’re awesome enough to have it turbo’d bro).

Obviously it doesn’t help with your exposure to the ACT community when members openly flaunt their attitude to those who enforce the law (not to mention openly say you break the law). Sure, you may have raised $7000, but one good deed does not reverse YEARS of bad press. Whether you feel the bad press was justified or not.

Danman said :

I remember CB days, the red one, the cloud, my callsign – The Heretic, playing CB hide and seek – Good times, and all well within the law.

Im not old, but not young, but I do not remember a KFC in Braddon, I remember Pizza Hut and when The Dog House was up the end of Braddon, but not KFC.

I used to be part of a car group too, called RedlineGTi – you probably never heard of us, and thats for all the right reasons, but seeing as the club was founded in canberra they would have ayearly cruise and events based in canberra. We would gain access from rangers to have a show and shine BBQ down at Menindee Park, and have police approval for poker runs, and treasure hunts as well as cruise nights.

Cruise night could attract up to 50 cars nationally, and waiting at a roundabout while 50 custom swifts went through was truly an awesome site. I would be lying if we did not get any attention from roving police officers, however, we never street raced or conducted illegal activities, and lack of mainstream attention of this club was testament to that.

my call was dutch, for several reasons, and we used to go to mt ainslie so as to get the reach to talk to mates in far off kambah. mate had a massive antenna mounted on the bullbar of his ute, we could talk to absolutely everybody in canberra. then we would go to kfc, hang around for a while and cruise to designated meet places, in belco, dickson and woden.

never a gang, just a massive community held together by a commonality of the cb. it was the precursor to the internet and the internet forums… and we “educated” newbie users, much the same as RA members do. christmas CB users. sigh. much simpler back then.

I remember CB days, the red one, the cloud, my callsign – The Heretic, playing CB hide and seek – Good times, and all well within the law.

Im not old, but not young, but I do not remember a KFC in Braddon, I remember Pizza Hut and when The Dog House was up the end of Braddon, but not KFC.

I used to be part of a car group too, called RedlineGTi – you probably never heard of us, and thats for all the right reasons, but seeing as the club was founded in canberra they would have ayearly cruise and events based in canberra. We would gain access from rangers to have a show and shine BBQ down at Menindee Park, and have police approval for poker runs, and treasure hunts as well as cruise nights.

Cruise night could attract up to 50 cars nationally, and waiting at a roundabout while 50 custom swifts went through was truly an awesome site. I would be lying if we did not get any attention from roving police officers, however, we never street raced or conducted illegal activities, and lack of mainstream attention of this club was testament to that.

Danman said :

Where are all the dignified hooligans

I can see it now, a collective of distinguished gentlemen, with stiffly waxed handlebar moustaches, tweed jacket and pants, monocle, pipe, newspaper under their arm, and leaning on their model A ford – challenging someone to beat their best quarter mile time of 43.29* seconds

*Number taken at random, no historical evidence exists to support a model A ford travelling this fast.

dan, before the kfc in braddon closed, we used to all meet there and check out the noice cars. no burnouts, no dumb activity back then, as the cops used to sit across the road and watch us. There were illegal races out on parkwood road, but you had to be part of the crowd to know about it. mobile phones weren’t around, and we all had a cb radio.
they were simpler days.

the holdens, the fords and the new jap cars all met there. we looked at cars, we spoke to owners, it was good fun.

Where are all the dignified hooligans

I can see it now, a collective of distinguished gentlemen, with stiffly waxed handlebar moustaches, tweed jacket and pants, monocle, pipe, newspaper under their arm, and leaning on their model A ford – challenging someone to beat their best quarter mile time of 43.29* seconds

*Number taken at random, no historical evidence exists to support a model A ford travelling this fast.

Burnouts and racing in controlled environments is good times.

Rushhour is a bunch of westie buck tooth bogans. Most offensive to me is that these moron’s have managed to organise themselves and travel in packs. It’s obscene!

Where are all the dignified hooligans? People come together. We can overcome these bogans with a more sophisticated street racing fraternity.

What you are doing is still illegal, whether or not it comes under the definition of “street racing”.

Felix the Cat2:03 pm 02 Jun 09

Wasn’t it a get together of RushHour people at Kowen recently that were busted by Police for burnouts and a stolen car? And wasn’t it also RushHour members involved in another Police bust not so long ago out near Tharwa (Honeysuckle Creek?)?

Ur speling is grate!

But seriously, when I read things like “Rush hour respects all the work that the police do and never try to weasel there way out of what goes on”, I think you wouldn’t have to say it if it were true.

And what Danman said.

Wanna REALLY be noticed in the community, start a drive to get EVERY member of RushHour volunteering for charity, doing red cross door knock appeal, work teh soup kitchen, volunteer for work with Koomari, Cranleigh, Salvos.

You have to make the good outweigh the bad – one good deed isnt going to make up for years of negative press (founded or otherwise).

A (dis)organisation I belong to had a founding member die of cancer a few years back, then a few years later, an associated member in Canada died in the same way. On both occasions, there was quite substantial donations made to charities in memory of them.

We have not been painted negatively by the press, but still chose gestures like this.

Maybe rush hour would benifit from a few good will gestures by the majority of its members yeah ?

Surely you have professionals in your ranks, start a charity computer drive, a free workshop for single mothers on how to do basic car maintenence like change a tyre, change oil etc. Get the word out to Chronicle, Canberra Times, City News, Win, Ten etc and then see what happens. *

You could put up with headlines, OR you could GTFU and do something besides collectively saying poor me.

*not sure what would happen, but surely any good will attempt is better than none

The $7000 is just fantastic, but mate, when you have the “leader” of said group making statements to the effect of “we break the law”, as far as I’m concerned all credibility goes out the window.

“Rushhour races $7000 for new born intensive care unit”.

Ha Ha.

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