For residents living along North Sydney’s Blues Point Road, having your evening disturbed by screeching tires and roaring motors can be a regular occurrence.
After years of complaints from locals, the council has been forced to act, installing concrete speed humps along the road in an effort to curb “anti-social driving behaviour”.
What happened: Blues Point Reserve is a popular spot along the Sydney foreshore, but what makes a great location for brisk morning walks and sunlit picnics also happens to attract motor vehicle enthusiasts looking to snap a picture of their ride with the Sydney Harbour Bridge as a backdrop.
Mika, a long term resident of Blues Point Road, said she could still remember wondering how she would ever get used to the noise of loud cars revving their engines at night. Five years after moving in, little has changed. “Our apartment is east and west facing, but the bedroom faces the street”, she told the Lorikeet.
“There's groups of them that come in their modified cars”, she claimed. “It's not just a little bit loud. If you're in bed watching a film, you can't hear the movie anymore”.
Images posted to the Sydney Car Meets Facebook group
Council steps in: The issue has attracted the attention of the local council. In July, Mayor Zoë Baker held a “Hooning Roundtable”, attended by local residents, NSW Police and Transport for NSW representatives.
“Hooning” is an Australian term used to describe reckless driving such as speeding, or performing burnouts and doughnuts.
The discussion: “Tips for a sick burnout” was not on the agenda. What the roundtable did discuss was the installation of speed humps along Blues Point Road, which is the main traffic corridor for McMahons Point.
The “Mayor’s Hooning Roundtable”.
Along with a suite of other accessibility and pedestrian upgrades, North Sydney Council is now pushing ahead with that plan, which will see speed humps installed at five points along Blues Point Road and Henry Lawson Avenue.
Will it work: “What council can do is very limited”, Mayor Baker told the Lorikeet.
“It's not going to be a silver bullet, it has to be part of a larger multi-agency approach”.
Baker claimed that while prevention of hooning largely fell between the NSW Environment Protection Authority (who manage noise regulations) and NSW Police, council could make small changes to disincentivize the practice.
The plan will also see parts of the road narrowed and curved with extended nature strips, causing cars to reduce speed to turn.
Not all hoons: Pointing to the recent “Distinguished Gentlemen’s Ride” — where motorcycle enthusiasts rode classic bikes through McMahons Point — Baker said that not all car and bike events were a problem.
“Highway patrol say it's a relatively small cohort of people who aren’t representative of the broader car enthusiast community”, she said.
Thumbnail: Christopher John via Unsplah, Google Maps