By Taylah Eastwell
FRUSTRATED and fatigued mountain residents feel they have been left no choice but to delve into their own pockets to fund private security to tackle the ongoing issue of hoons in the Hills.
Fed up with trying to sleep to the sound of burnouts and boom boxes, neighbours from village towns on Mt Dandenong are chipping in to cover the costs of a private security firm to patrol the area at night.
Two Eyre Road residents, who wished to remain anonymous, said 11 houses currently pay into a fund each week for the security service.
“We pay into a fund and that means we can have security up here at night over three or four nights each week,” a resident said.
But the security isn’t your standard drive-by patrol.
“He gets out and speaks to these people and asks if they realise they are parked in an emergency access point or in front of a no standing sign,” they said.
The move comes after Yarra Ranges Council installed ‘no parking’ restriction signs on some roads in an attempt to combat late night anti-social gatherings which were seeing cars line the roads.
While Hills residents welcomed the signage, it wasn’t being policed.
“There are cars all the way along both sides of Ridge Road, protruding out onto the road and cars parked up here all hours of the night still,” a resident said.
“Council haven’t employed anyone after hours to police it, despite the fact that on any given night they are forgoing thousands in revenue they could be getting, the job would certainly pay for itself,” they said.
YPG Risk owner Grant Burton is one of the security officers who patrol the mountain, with 360 degree cameras fitted to the car and a body worn camera to record each encounter he has with people flouting the rules.
“What we have been doing is confronting and dealing with groups of hoons that just get up there and want to show other people their cars. They meet at Osprey and do their runs, they’ll get into their cars and do a quick lap around the mountain, down to five ways, back up Ridge Road back to Osprey,” Mr Burton said.
“We’ve also seen four-wheel-drive groups muscling cars up the road. They drive along in their big cars at 1am in the morning and anyone coming back from looking at the moon or the stars gets bullied off the road. We are seeing lots of angry young p-platers and their attitude is pretty poor to say the least,” he said.
Mr Burton said the “hoons” know the residents have had enough, sometimes acting out purposely in an attempt to get a response.
“They toot their horns on purpose, rev their engines going up and down residential streets just to disturb people, they’ll do really anything they can do to get a response and they know that the signs and what we’re doing is aimed at them.
“Our presence is definitely felt. They don’t like us, but they comply with our move on requests.
Mr Burton said the patrol officers give feedback to police “without overcalling the little things”.
“We’ve seen them do things to make the road more slippery. They pour oil on the roads, pour lubricant on the bends and take the bends hard which makes the back wheels slide out and people are filming from a car behind,” Mr Burton said.
“We ask them to move on and are more about educating them, saying guys, this is silly. If we can get through to them it’s great, rather than causing a war,” he said.
Mr Burton has a good rapport with Highway Patrol police, who he calls if necessary and passes on footage of illegal activity.
According to the Eyre Road resident, “the problem with relying on police is that the hoons have spotter cars at the approaches to the mountain”.
“We can see here, on a Saturday night, the racing that’s going on on Ridge Road will suddenly stop and you go yep, Highway Patrol must be up. Sure enough they’ve set up a radar and sit there and everyone drives nice and slow because word gets out. Once they take off, not having administered any fines, the hoons all come back,” the resident said.
“They did do a blitz over three weekends but they set up in the same spots each night with their radar. It’s hard from their point of view because they can’t justify sending vehicles up here all the time if they’re not getting the results,” they said.
But the private security company asking people to move on has been “fantastic”, according to the residents.
“It’s fantastic while we’ve got security up here because he can deal with most of it and ask people to move on and what he can’t he calls Highway Patrol. It’s the nights his not here when we really need a response from the police,” they said.
“Some nights when its foggy, wet and windy and cops have been up here to do their blitz, there’s no one around, it’s sleepy hollow, so they take off and must just think we’re full of cr*p.
“We are hoping the security guard will record some of the stuff we are dealing with and it will shine a light that we are not just whinging and that there is in fact a problem.
“If we call 000, we’ve had burnouts going for over an hour and we are over it. It’s not the first time we hear someone with a loud exhaust we call in, it’s because there’s someone up here doing burnouts for hours on end or demolishing street signs or something,” they said.
While some residents believe they shouldn’t have to fork out for private security, others argue they had to do something for their own sanity.
“Some people will say this is a police job, and we agree with that. We just can’t live like this, so we had to do something. We are at the stage that we are asking how much is too much, how much before we sell up and move. We always said this was our forever home, they’ll have to carry us out in a pine box, but it’s not looking that way lately,” the resident said.
