Canterbury Police have sent a warning to anti-social road users after a weekend operation disrupted a planned gathering in North Canterbury.

Canterbury District Commander Superintendent Tony Hill told Chris Lynch Media police acted after receiving information that a large group was planning to gather.

“We got some information that they were planning to gather in big numbers,” Hill said.

“We get a lot of complaints from the public about them, and we know that they cause a lot of damage to roads and also the risk that’s involved in their behaviours can be really next level.”

A dedicated police operation was put in place to target the group and deal with offending on the night.

“In terms of outcomes, it’s really positive in terms of dealing with them and dealing with the offending that they were doing on the night.”

Vehicles had gathered in a commercial carpark in Rangiora before leaving the area and heading towards Swannanoa.

Officers monitored the group’s movements and were waiting with a checkpoint.

Vehicles were boxed in, every driver was checked, about 50 infringement notices were issued, and around 20 green and pink stickers were handed out, ordering unsafe vehicles off the road.

A number of drivers were also suspended for exceeding the maximum number of demerit points, meaning they are prohibited from driving for three months.

Two vehicles were impounded for previous anti-social road user behaviour incidents.

Hill said police dealt with a range of issues at these types of gatherings, including noise, disruption, unsafe vehicles, and risk to other motorists.

“We are concerned about their behaviour. We get a lot of complaints about the noise that they create and just the disturbance they can do.

“Plus, we know that they are a risk to other road users and themselves.”

Hill said police needed to take a strong approach to minimising offending and making it clear the road rules applied to everyone.

“It’s important that we bring a real strong approach to making sure that their offending is minimised as much as possible and we outlay to them that the rules that apply to the public in terms of road use applies to them as well.”

Canterbury Police had a dedicated team monitoring anti-social road users.

“We monitor the group very closely and we’ve got a dedicated crew here in Canterbury that do police them.

“By and large, we’re having operations of this nature on a regular basis.”

Hill also discussed the death of a man following a scooter crash in Christchurch over the weekend, with police continuing to seek CCTV and dashcam footage.

The incident had brought e scooter safety back into focus.

“We’ve had some really good engagement with the e scooter companies, the rental ones, about the use of them, particularly with the new stadium and trying to limit access to them around public areas where we know there’s a lot of foot traffic.”

Police had been told by e scooter companies that speed limits could be reduced in certain locations, with access also able to be restricted in some areas.

“We know that they’re used a lot, but we want people to use them safely.”

Work was also taking place nationally on the future use of e scooters.

“I think we might see some changes in the next year or so.”

On youth crime, Hill said Canterbury Police had doubled the number of youth crime investigators as part of a pilot programme.

Last year, there were about 2400 youth offences police had not been able to proactively address.

“What we do know is that there’s an opportunity to address that offending, and that’s arguably what we’re doing now.

“We’re seeing an increase at this stage around youth offenders entering into the justice pipeline, and we are trying to find other mechanisms to keep them out of crime.”

Hill said police expected that trend to continue for a period before it began to ease.

While ram raids had reduced, youth offending was still coming through the system.

“We are very effective in terms of apprehension rates.

“What we’re seeing is that the offending being committed by these youth is starting to scale down.

“That’s an anecdotal level. We are seeing this from our investigation teams, who are saying they’re having to deal with less, but we are still having reasonably big numbers coming into our pipeline.”

Hill said it was an encouraging sign and police hoped to see less harm in communities over time.

He also warned drivers to adjust their driving as winter conditions settle across Canterbury, particularly in the Mackenzie District.

“We’ve actually just gone through a small drought and yet now we’re into cold and drizzly weather.

“We had some really good frost this week. That would be on a much bigger scale when we get to the outer reaches, particularly into the Mackenzie Basin.

“We need to adjust our driving for that. The usual distance and following distances and how you might drive around a corner, that’s all going to change under these conditions.”

The speed limit should not be treated as a target.

“We encourage people to always drive to the conditions.”

Hill said police used a crime and crash calendar to help plan resources around seasonal trends.

Residential burglaries could come down during colder periods, while family harm could increase as people spent more time indoors.

“We do monitor and plan for, as we’ve traditionally seen things going up, then we plan to have more resource in those places for that.”

With the ski season approaching, police would also focus on routes used by people travelling to and from ski fields.

“We’re about to see big numbers of people coming and going from the ski fields in our region.

“We’ll have a police operation about making sure that they get there safely and get home safely.”

Hill said highway patrol resources would be dedicated to those routes during the period.