Death Inc

RECKLESS Queensland hoons are crossing the border into New South Wales in search of illegal street races.

Locals are concerned illegal drag-racing is growing and police are not doing enough to control those wreaking havoc in their neighbourhoods.

Last Saturday night more than 50 cars were reported to have terrorised roads, roundabouts and vacant land in a new industrial estate in Murwillumbah, northern New South Wales.

Residents surrounding the estate were too scared to leave their homes and reported seeing a number of Queensland registered cars, said on-site sales consultant John Demiris.

"There is a caretaker who lives on sites and does two security patrols a night with his Rottweilers, he was too frightened to leave his property when the hoons came and instead called the police without a response," he said.
The hoons who terrorised the area for more than four hours, from 10pm until after 2am, reportedly painted Queensland on the road while racing.

Mr Demiris said the race initially started with 10 cars but continued to grow as the participants used SMS and phone calls to notify fellow hoons of the races.

Tweed Shire Council road safety officer Ray Clark described the possibility of hoons travelling interstate in search of illegal street races as alarming.

"This is a pretty major occurrence, obviously you have hooning everywhere, but not at this magnitude, it seems like a very organised event," he said.

New South Wales police denied there was a culture of inter-state hooning and are following up leads from the weekend.

Due to the isolation of the area there was no CCTV footage of the races and police are yet to lay charges.

Mr Demiris said the police response was not good enough.

"I believe it is unusual that police received such a large number of calls from residents and still not show up - by the time they got here it was all over.

"Hopefully hoons from Queensland or anywhere else don't decide to come back here," he said.