MEMBER for Murray Plains Peter Walsh said after recently helping set up a petition to stop hoons in Echuca South, police have directly intervened.
Mr Walsh said Campaspe Highway Patrol commander Sergeant Paul Nicoll contacted his office and some of the local residents trying to pin down the schedule offenders might be running.
Sgt Nicoll said his immediate thoughts included extras patrols in the area after dark.
“What’s really important here is locals who report the hoons must dial 000 and not the local police station,” Mr Walsh said.
“It is the only way the complaints get into the official police data and that is the data the force uses when they are allocating resources at any given time,” he said.
Mr Walsh said another Echuca South resident had witnessed an even more foolhardy incident.
“I was walking my dogs on Sunday night, not too late, when I heard a car engine – it sounded like a racing car but when I looked up and down High St I couldn’t see anything,” the man said.
“I was about to cross High St and still couldn’t see anything; but the sound was getting a lost closer,” he said.
“Then this car, with no lights on, came roaring past me. Flying would be a better word, I would estimate it was going at least 100km/h but could have been a lot faster.
“The driver finally slowed down, almost at the end of the street and then switched his lights on. He wasn’t doing without lights by mistake, with no parkers on his dash would have also been in the dark.”
The man said there were still several people out and about, increasing the danger of the stunt.
He said “not only could the driver of the VW crash and hurt himself/herself; imagine if they had hit another idiot doing the same blacked out stupidity – they almost certainly would have all died”.
“The same for two girls I saw running along the footpath. They were the only serious looking runners around – and they were both wearing black and had on headphones.
“They could have easily decided to cut across what they would have thought was an empty road – it would have been terrible.”
Residents of surrounding streets have also continued to complain about revving engines and screeching tyres going well into the early hours.
Mr Walsh said the petition was getting a lot of support and when its organisers bring it to him it will go to Parliament at its next sitting in August.