How new Antisocial Road Use Legislation brings back car crushing

Explainer - National is hyping it as the return of car crushing. But what do tough new antisocial road user laws mean?

The Antisocial Road Use Legislation Amendment Bill passed its third reading earlier this month, and gives police and courts more powers.

"Communities across New Zealand have been forced to put up with illegal street racing, burnouts, fleeing drivers, intimidating convoys, disorderly dirt bike gatherings and siren battles for far too long," Transport Minister Chris Bishop said in announcing the bill's passage.

"This law sends a very clear message: if you use our roads to intimidate or endanger communities, there will be serious consequences."

Waikato District Council mayor Aksel Bech told RNZ's The Panel that the problem is epidemic in rural communities.

"It's causing havoc and costing thousands of dollars. It's pretty antisocial and we'd like to get on top of it."

"You've got 50, 60, sometimes 100 people gathering on a small rural road and then for a number of hours tearing it up, leaving litter, leaving shredded tyres and making a [lot of] noise."

One of the biggest talking points is the return of confiscating and destroying the vehicles of repeat offenders.

"Car crushing is back," Prime Minister Christopher Luxon declared on his Facebook page.

But didn't we do that once before - so how is this legislation different? Here's what you need to know.

What would the bill do?

It sets up a variety of new offences and penalties for those broadly described as "antisocial road users".

These include:

Establishing a presumptive sentence of vehicle destruction or forfeiture for those on a first offence of fleeing police, street racing or burnouts. That presumptive sentence can also apply to expanded offences for withholding information from police or the new 'intimidating convoy' offence.

The 'intimidating convoy' offence applies when people are travelling in a group of two or more vehicles in an 'intimidating manner' and commit offences of fleeing police, street racing, burnouts, dangerous and reckless driving, or careless driving causing injury or death.

There is an expanded offence for failing to give information to police officers who are trying to identify offenders in cases including street racing, burnouts and intimidating convoy offences, which can include a court fine up to $10,000.

Giving police more powers to manage antisocial vehicle gatherings by closing roads or public areas and issuing infringements. This includes a fine up to $3000 for people who fail to leave a temporarily closed area when directed by police.

Increasing the infringement fee for making excessive noise from or within a vehicle from $50 to $300

Read more detail from the Ministry of Transport here.

"These changes mean convicted fleeing drivers, street racers, and people participating in intimidating convoys can expect to lose their vehicles through destruction or forfeiture, unless limited exceptions apply," Bishop said.

Hang on, didn't we crush cars before?

Yes indeed, and a politician even got a memorable nickname from it.

Former police minister Judith Collins got the tag "Crusher" after introducing the law in 2009 which allowed boy racer vehicles to be seized and destroyed.

However, only two cars were crushed in the first three years of the law. By 2017, eight years on, Stuff reported a grand total of three cars had been crushed.

A later police minister, Anne Tolley, said in 2014 the goal wasn't to crush cars but to decrease dangerous driving.

She said then that illegal street racing offences had halved since the legislation was introduced in 2009.

Tony Herring, president of the Law Society which offered submissions on the new bill, said while car crushing made dramatic headlines, it only ever affected a small group.

"There has never been strong evidence that car crushing itself was a significant deterrent. Even when it was introduced in 2009, it was expected to apply in only a small number of cases."

So does this new bill allow more cars to be crushed?

Police Minister Mark Mitchell told RNZ "this new legislation goes significantly further" than the 2009 iteration, with its "presumptive sentence" of vehicle destruction or forfeiture on a first offence of street racing, burnouts or fleeing police.

"Under the previous law, a vehicle could only be crushed after a third qualifying offence, and even then, courts could choose an alternate resolution. This meant that the crushing of vehicles was rarer than the government intended when the original law was written."

Herring agreed the new legislation was much broader than in 2009, where the focus was mostly on illegal street racing.

"It creates new offences, expands police powers, broadens vehicle forfeiture, and introduces new powers to close public places and disperse people. So while people talk about the return of car crushing, this legislation is really a much wider package aimed at antisocial road use generally."

Deven Solanki is the editor of NZ Performance Car, the largest automotive magazine in New Zealand. He said car enthusiasts were concerned how the legislation might affect them.

"The vast majority of people causing the problems are not car enthusiasts," he said.

"The problematic people openly destroy and dispose of their cars; a car is just a toy for them, so using crushing as a penalty is largely redundant anyway, they will not be 'scared off'. They will source, build or sometimes steal another one by the next weekend."

The Law Society has also expressed concerns on the bill, Herring said, and some were addressed as it made its way through the House.

"That said, many of our concerns remain. The bill still contains broad new police powers and mandatory forfeiture provisions that raise questions about proportionality and how they will work in practice.

"We all support tackling antisocial driving. The challenge is making sure the laws are both effective and consistent with fundamental legal rights."

There are exceptions to car destruction orders if it will result in "extreme hardship" to the offender or "undue hardship" to any other person that might have an interest in the vehicle (a relative or partner, for instance).

During debate on the bill, according to Hansard records Labour MP Ginny Andersen pointed out the previous car crushing plans came up against the hardship claims and "in the past it's resulted in very few vehicles being actually confiscated and destroyed."

"It has been, in the past, a fundamental reason why attempts to curtail street racing and illegal street racing haven't been effective. Because they're registered to someone else and because they front up to the court and say, 'I need this to get to work', and it's hardship."

Herring said he would not call the hardship defence a loophole.

"It is an important safeguard that protects against unfair outcomes, particularly for innocent family members or people with a legitimate interest in a vehicle.

"The bill certainly makes forfeiture easier by creating a presumption in favour of it, but Parliament has deliberately kept the hardship and manifest injustice exceptions. The Justice Committee also restored some judicial discretion, recognising that there will always be cases where an automatic outcome would be unfair."

Solanki said he felt car crushing would just see offenders causing trouble elsewhere.

"If you crush the cars of the main people causing this problem, you'll just find yourself with a new trend to squash, because this group's energy still has to go somewhere. That's bound to turn into something even more damaging, like theft, drugs or ram raids. It's just about chasing attention, adrenaline, or showing off to others.

"Just like in the 'Crusher Collins' days, this flashy change is trying to address a symptom, not a root cause."

The government maintains the new laws will discourage boy racers.

"We expect this version of the law to have more impact" compared to the 2009 legislation, Mitchell said.

"Ideally boy racers will quickly learn that, since their vehicle is on the line, their anti-social behaviour is completely unacceptable. If it works as intended, most behaviour will change before the courts need to order the forfeiture, or forfeiture and destruction, of any vehicle."

What exactly is an 'intimidating convoy' and how will that be determined?

The bill also adds the offence of "Dangerous or reckless activity offence conduct in frightening or intimidating convoy". It defines a convoy as a group of two or more motor vehicles travelling together.

There's been some concern that the notion of what a "convoy" of vehicles is could be misinterpreted.

"The ambiguous 'intimidating convoys' part is what real enthusiasts are worried about, because a huge part of car culture is around people coming together as a community," Solanki said.

People who don't understand cars often automatically assume the worst, he said: "A completely legal car in a cruise convoy might simply change gears, and sound like 'racing' to someone who doesn't know any better."

During debate in Parliament, Bishop said the offence is directed specifically at groups engaged in menacing behaviour.

"The point is that any convoy of vehicles, by itself, is not committing an offence.

"To commit an offence for participating in an intimidating convoy, an individual driver must commit illegal street racing, burnouts, fleeing police, or otherwise driving in a reckless, careless, or dangerous manner, and they have to be travelling in a convoy - so two or more vehicles - and they have to be operating the vehicle in a manner that is either frightening or could cause intimidation."

But training of the police who will enforce laws is a worry, Solanki said.

"A sensationalist law like this only causes collateral damage to real car enthusiasts because of how broad and widely interpretable it is to a cop that doesn't know any better," he said.

Bishop did say that work will be needed to train police on how to deal with the new bill.

"We're saying that, with any new offence, there will need to be training for front-line police staff to train them up as to what frightening or intimidating means," Bishop said in Parliament.

How will it tackle noise like 'siren battles'?

Cars laden with high-volume audio systems have been waging "siren battles" throughout the night to see who can make the biggest noise.

"It creates huge nuisance for thousands of people in West Auckland especially for parents and the elderly and vulnerable people," Waitākere ward councillor Shane Henderson has said.

The bill knocks up the infringement fee for making excessive noise from a vehicle from $50 to $300.

"No more $50 slaps on the wrist," Associate Minister of Transport James Meager said in Parliament during debate.

"Submitters and other members of the public have spoken or have written to our offices to remind us how distressing this is. It's distressing due to nights of having no or disrupted sleep because of this totally inconsiderate behaviour."

When will this all take effect?

"Most changes will come into effect in six months' time," Mitchell said.

"This transition period allows for changes to be circulated with frontline staff and for judiciary and legal stakeholders to be able to operationalise changes.

Will this really lead to less antisocial driving?

That depends on who you ask.

Mitchell has said the law gives authorities the power they need.

"For too long, the consequences haven't matched the harm being caused."

During Parliamentary debate, Green MP Julie Anne Genter said police have not been given enough resources to deal with existing problems, let alone new offences.

In the end, the bill was supported at its third reading by National, Labour, New Zealand First and ACT, with the Green Party, Te Pāti Māori and independent MPs voting against it.

NZ Performance Car's editor said more understanding of the root causes of antisocial driving was needed.

"There's a right way and a wrong way to go about antisocial driving; I believe they're doing it the wrong way," Solanki said. "Have they even tried to first understand why the problem group is actually doing this?

"Forfeiture, as long as you have some damning evidence and warnings at least, makes more sense. But what's the point in crushing a car? It's a sensationalist grab at attention, which has worked, by the way."

But Waikato mayor Bech said he thought something needed to be done as existing laws weren't working.

"As a society we need to say this is not OK, this is not an appropriate thing for anybody to do in public spaces."