Boy Racers

Time to tackle a problem symptomatic of our decay

At any time of day now, you hear a 'pop pop pop' as loud as a knock at the door, like some sort of vehicular flatulence. This is followed by a vociferous roar as the car accelerates as if driven by Jeremy Clarkson on amphetamines.

You've just been boy-racered.

Except it isn't usually a 'boy' - these are not the 17 year old hell raisers of the 1990s. These are, it seems, 25 year old men who have not saved up enough to buy a house (who has?), but have spent their wages on a high-end car instead. Credit schemes for buying such cars are easy to obtain. They probably spend their free time illegally modifying said car to make it even louder and more annoying, before taking it out to show off to other 25 year old men who they've seen on TikTok. Sometimes they drive around in convoys late at night, racing about in circles making everyone else's life a misery. They hold improvised 'car meets', as if they're in The Fast and The Furious, where they do 'donuts' and drifting in car parks.

The car is usually what Richard Hammond would refer to as a 'hot hatch', or powered-up hatchback, but sometimes it is a large saloon made by Germans or even an SUV. It has a double exhaust, which does the pop-popping. It often has 'spoilers' and low ground clearance for extra speed. The wheels might light up in different colours. Windows are tinted. It is deliberately menacing and intimidating, an extension of the driver's ego. It's the human version of a male bird puffing itself up and singing loudly to attract a mate.

We tend to ridicule the middle-aged man who buys a powerful sports car as a last hurrah of youth, but at least those vehicles are usually within the law. Only the real petrol-head does illicit modifications. It is yobbery, but respectable yobbery. And it's a bit sad, which negates the menace. The mid-life crisis racers were never such a problem as their younger equivalents have recently become.

Now, I get it. Cars are fun. It might not be my bag, and I might dislike driving, but of course I can recognise they are entertaining. Working on engines, oil and carbon fibre are perfectly normal male interests. Cars are an expression of personal independence, a key part of youth. It's also natural to want to attract women with your horsepower. Indeed, it would be sexist to overlook the fact many women are complete petrol-heads too. But society has to protect the collective from the excesses of the individual. We all have to be reasonable, and not act like selfish, dangerous morons.

And the latter is exactly what these boy-racers do. They speed in residential streets. They overtake and swerve around corners. They may be high on cannabis or worse while at the wheel, and they do it all while making a dreadful amount of noise with their engines, tyres and pounding music. This isn't harmless fun, it is a plague of antisocial behaviour. Our authorities seem no longer up to the task of stopping them, and the offenders are laughing in our faces.

It is symptomatic of a wider decay of our system - both material and moral. If regular citizens can see the impotence of our system to deal with threats and problems, then so can the criminals and the yobs. They will feel confident in pushing the boundaries further and further, until they feel in control. It's happening with shoplifting, with drug use, with vandalism, street violence and traffic crime. There are no longer the necessary resources allocated to tackling these issues. An indifferent political class does not back up the people charged with enforcing its laws. We must fight  against this apathy as well as against the wrongdoers. Covid, economics and foreign wars cannot be hidden behind as an excuse. If you want a decent society, you have to make it happen, no matter what the circumstances.

So what are the laws on this matter? Firstly new cars (since 2016) cannot produce over 72 decibels, when tested under certain conditions. Before the General Election was called, there were plans to bring the limit down to 68. Tyres are also limited in the volume they can create, between 72 and 76 depending on type (a law since 2012). Secondly it is illegal to modify your exhaust with the result of making your car louder than 72 decibels. Exhausts have silencers fitted to suppress noise - and boy-racers remove these so their cars sound more 'impressive'. £50 fines can be issued by the police for an exhaust infraction, or the vehicle may be removed from the highway until it is road legal again. It is also prohibited to unnecessarily rev your engine. Then of course you have speed limits and laws against dangerous or drug driving.

Cars over three years old have to pass the annual MOT. This includes visual examination of the exhaust system, silencers and under-bonnet insulation known as 'noise deadening material'. Some garages may be passing MOTs knowing cars are at fault, perhaps bribed to do so. If so, this should be clamped down on upon harshly. The MOT also involves a discretionary judgement from the mechanic on whether the vehicle is too loud. This is ambiguous and too open to abuse - we should look at making a proper noise test mandatory in the process. Another ambiguity in the law is that some of the practices to modify exhausts are legal, and so are many parts used to do so. This could also be looked at - can the law be made tighter on such matters so that it can't be abused to make vehicles louder? I hate to over regulate, but we have to get a grip of this problem.

In 2023, a firm in Kirklees called 'AET Motorsport' was prosecuted and fined over £7,000 for modifying a car to increase its exhaust noise. They did this by removing the catalytic converter, replacing it with a 'delete pipe' and altering the engine software. These sort of prosecutions must be increased as a deterrent to others.  

There are, then, dozens of ways to bring these offenders to book. What we need is a police force that is capable and motivated to do so. We need more police officers, with a keen interest in keeping their patch free of crime. They need to go out there, look for nuisance drivers, examine their cars, and fine or detain them depending on how serious their infractions are. They cannot shirk the task just because they are scared of physical trouble, risking allegations of discrimination or making paperwork for themselves.

A visible and competent police force issuing the harshest penalties will soon bring the problem to bear. Word of mouth and word of social media will let the racers know their fun is over. There need to be fines levied, and then multiple points issued on licenses if the offender persists. If the points are used up then the license must be revoked. If the offender is found driving without a license at a later date, there should be a custodial sentence. We should do this if they have been involved in dangerous driving as well. These people need to see accountability for their actions.

There have been trials since 2022 of 'noise cameras' that capture offending vehicles and then issue fines. If such a thing could take off, this would be another weapon in the arsenal. We could also make it much easier to report nuisance drivers to the police. Perhaps we could develop an app where the public can report number plates of offenders or areas where 'car meets' occur, allowing the police to target locations for speed traps and vehicle-checks. Indeed, in general, non-emergency contact with the police needs to be greatly improved. It has got to the stage where reporting anything seems pointless. Another factor to be considered is curbing the cheap credit schemes allowing young people to afford high-end cars. Could we put a higher age limit on them, or make them illegal for those with criminal records? The authorities could also get tougher on the social media pages encouraging illegal driving.

It is certainly very odd to see dozens of obvious vehicle-noise offenders when the rest of us are being encouraged by hook or by crook to become more environmentally friendly, and electric cars are spookily quiet. While we pay our ULEZ fees, buy parking permits and are threatened over eating meat or having boilers in our houses, the yobs attempt to rival Formula One in full view of the authorities. In what has become known as ‘anarcho-tyranny’, the law-abiding citizen is coerced and punished while the lawless are allowed to run amok - forcing the citizen to become more reliant on the state for protection. Many contend this is a deliberate agenda being pursued, and when your high street turns into a Vin Diesel movie, it does not seem so implausible.

Certainly something has to give here. The issue feels like the front line of a much broader societal battle against crime and disorder. If the streets feel unsafe, intimidating and lawless on the surface - and to the criminal a paradise - more serious crime is only going to intensify. The boy-racer problem is of course trivial when compared to the almost daily stabbings in London and elsewhere, but it is part of the same culture. It's a culture where the authorities have given up and selfish nihilists do exactly what they want without fear or boundaries. If we grasp the nettle now, maybe we can reclaim the street for law abiding, respectful citizens. Like James May.

All rights reserved, Ed Pond, 2024