Boyracer Death

Police make arrests in boyracer death crash
6:10AM Tuesday November 20, 2007
By Martha McKenzie-minifie

Two men have been charged with reckless driving causing death, after a delivery man was killed in an Auckland street race that went terribly wrong.

A 28-year-old man and a 35-year-old man have been charged with reckless driving causing the death of Aaron Chan, a 21-year-old from Manukau.

Witnesses said Mr Chan went through the windscreen of a blue Nissan Skyline, which was chasing a white Subaru WRX along West Coast Rd just before 6.30pm.

Anand Kumar, of Aj's Superette on West Coast Rd, said it appeared the cars were racing and touched when one tried to overtake the other.

The Skyline apparently hit the truck first, then the man - described as an "innocent bystander".

"He got hit, taken up, went through the windscreen and he was inside the car," said Mr Kumar.

It is understood two people were in the Subaru and four in the Skyline. Police said five people from both vehicles were taken to hospital.

Patrick Hunt, of BTS Gym in West Coast Rd, said he and a client saw the cars racing before the crash.

"We just heard burnout noises down at the lights - that's what got out attention - and we looked up. We heard a loud bang."

Mr Hunt said there was little he could do at the crash scene.

"I saw him just lying there - pretty much every single bone in his body was broken." he said.

"The windscreen was broken but it wasn't broken going out, it was on impact, it was obviously something from the outside."

The road was closed for several hours as crash investigators studied the scene.

Earlier, Inspector Ian Brooker said police had both cars and were interviewing the drivers. Investigators wanted to speak to anyone who saw the crash or noticed how the two vehicles were being driven beforehand.

Boy-racer legislation introduced in May 2003 gives police the power to automatically impound cars for 28 days if they are being driven with unnecessary speed or acceleration or are doing burnouts. Scores of cars have been taken off the roads.

In South Auckland alone police have seized as many as 50.

Staff in the Waitemata district, which covers West Auckland, North Shore and Rodney, had impounded 933 cars by May this year.

But some road policing managers have called for more powers, saying the legislation means they have to wait until the drivers have committed an offence before they can act.


Authorities in Tauranga have gone a step further, introducing a bylaw last month that means boy racers face $500 fines if they are caught in the city's industrial areas.

It bans vehicles under 3500kg from entering dozens of industrial streets in the city between 9pm and 5am.