A farming advocacy group is calling for police to crack down on boy racers after a new nationwide survey found 62% of farmers reported illegal street racing near their properties.
Concern over the issue has driven many farmers to move stock away from the roadside to avoid injuries – and it's left some families feeling "intimidated".
Federated Farmers dairy sector chairperson Richard McIntyre told Breakfast this morning: "Farmers are just sick of it.
"As you know, farmers get up pretty early in the morning, and having all of the noise and the yahoo-ing up and down their roads at night keeps them awake.
"Then there's what they encounter in the morning which is usually a whole lot of broken glass, bottles thrown around the place, often cars have gone through their fences and their stock have been scared, often have gone into different paddocks."
McIntyre said Federated Farmers aren't asking for police to be taken from urban areas to rural areas.
Instead, he wants police to be better resourced overall – and he urged farmers to be better at reporting crime as well.
"One of the concerns for us is that nearly half of all rural crimes that were reported to us via this survey aren't actually getting reported to the police, because rural people have come to the conclusion that the police are overburdened and aren't going to follow it up."
Farmers are left having to clean up after street racing events, he added.
"Especially the areas where it happens week after week, farmers have just completely had enough."
The latest results mark the first time Federated Farmers has included illegal street racing in its survey of members.
McIntyre said the group wanted to quantify the issue after feedback from farmers.
"We're really surprised with the results," he said. "It's actually come in at the most common rural crime incident.
"The idea of having antisocial behaviour up your quiet rural road at night is never pleasant.
"You've got people that are obviously breaking the law, creating unsafe environments... The streets are being blocked off."
McIntyre recalled an incident where a group stopped a milk tanker in Waikato before trying to pull the driver out of his cab and release the milk from the tank. In another case, he said a car went through a farm fence and was set on fire.
"Often other crime sort of comes along with the illegal street racing," he added.
"We've had fuel thefts over the last couple of years and we've had a couple of motorbikes stolen as well.
"It's really uncomfortable knowing that you've got people actually entering your property with a view to stealing things in the middle of the night, and it's not like our motorbikes and our fuel weren't secured... It's a real struggle."
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