Unit 5: Hoons or harassed

TRAFFIC SAFETY ESSENTIALS
For Young Road Users …not crash test dummies

UNIT 5: Hoons or harassed

CONTENTS

About Traffic Safety Essentials

Background to UNIT 5: Hoons or harassed

Essential learning

Links to AusVELS

Problem recognition: Identifying who are hoons and why they are a problem

Problem recognition: Finding out what the community thinks

Problem solving: What is being done about hooning?

Taking action: Making a difference in the local community

ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES

About Traffic Safety Essentials

Young people are at risk on our roads, particularly as passengers and when they begin driving. Road crashes are the single biggest killer of young Victorians aged 16-25 years. Victoria’s Road Safety Strategy 2012-2022 highlights the importance of road safety for young people, especially from the point at which they prepare for and begin to use the road as drivers. This starts just before they begin learning to drive right through to when they are fully licensed and have progressed through Victoria’s Graduated Licensing System.

Traffic Safety Essentials has been developed as the key Victorian road safety education resource for secondary schools with a focus on Year 10. It is in Year 10 that most young people become eligible for a Learner Permit, and begin the process of learning to drive a car.Traffic Safety Essentials links to AusVELS and is designed to assist secondary schools to implement a core road safety education program at Year 10. It is focused on helping young people to improve their decision making skills, develop an understanding of consequences and improve the safety of themselves and their peers.

This Year 10 classroom program takes an integrated approach to key road safety issues for young people at this critical point in their lives. It is around this time that they begin to learn to drive and also to travel more independently, often with their peers. Unfortunately young people can often be involved in tragic road crashes through poor decision making at critical times. The program takes this into account and features six units:

Unit 1: Driving or just steering

Unit 2 Focused or fractured

Unit 3: Speeding and stopping

Unit 4 Alcohol and other drugs

Unit 5: Hoons or harassed

Unit 6: Travel choices

All units contain a number of individual classroom activities, each of which are grouped into three sections that move students through a process, based around theories of behaviour change:

Problem recognition

Problem solving

Taking action

You can find details of other road safety education resources and programs that link with Traffic Safety Essentials at:

Background to UNIT 5: Hoons or harassed

The term ‘hoon’ is an Australian colloquial term used to describe anyone who drives in a manner that is anti-social, in what are usually high performance or heavily modified vehicles. Many of these vehicles have been modified in illegal ways to obtain maximum performance or a ‘wow’ factor. Many of these vehicles have after-market car audio systems including sub-woofers that can create a lot of noise. Drivers of such vehicles may go ‘cruising’ which can involve illegal street racing or attempts to ‘pick up’ fellow cruisers of the opposite sex. The term is also used as a verb: “to hoon”, or, “to hoon around” meaning to act in a reckless manner. 3

3 Wikipedia -

Anti-hoon laws in Victoria

Anti-hoon laws were introduced in Victoria in July 2006 and gave Victoria Police the power to impound, immobilise or permanently confiscate vehicles driven in a dangerous manner. Changes to the anti-hoon laws from July 2011, allow for police to seize a vehicle and impound or immobilise it for 30 days (increased from 48 hours) if they have reasonable grounds for believing a driver has committed a hoon-related offence. A vehicle may be impounded or immobilised, regardless of who owns it and whether the driver is the registered owner.

The changes that became law on 1 July, 2011 also include a new, more serious category of offences that include:

  • a repeat offence of unlicensed driving
  • driving at 70 km/h or more over the speed limit
  • a repeat offence of driving with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.10 or higher
  • a repeat offence of driving with more than the prescribed concentration of drugs in the person's blood or oral fluid.

Any driver committing a second hoon-related offence within three years may have their vehicle impounded for up to three months.If a person is found guilty of three hoon-related offences inside three years, their vehicle can be permanently forfeited by the court in addition to other serious penalties including a fine of up to 240 penalty units (in excess of $28,000) and/or a period of imprisonment of up to two years. The driver will also incur any demerit points and/or licence loss penalties applying to the underlying offence.4

From 20 February 2013, new legislation requires drivers and riders found guilty by a court of certain high-risk driving offences (where their vehicle has been impounded or immobilised) to completethe court-ordered VicRoads Safe Driving Program if they have not done so before.

4 Victoria Police -

Essential learning

As an outcome of this unit students will understand:

  • using the road as a hoon is both illegal and unsafe
  • hooning or driving in an anti-social/illegal manner has serious consequences
  • modifying vehicles can be both illegal and dangerous.

Links to AusVELS

Health and Physical Education

Dimension: Health knowledge and promotion

Learning focus: Students examine perceptions of challenge, risk and safety in a variety of settings such as in the home, school, the workplace and the community. They contrast risks that promote personal and social growth with those that endanger health. They discuss ways to balance risk and safety, and refine and evaluate harm minimisation strategies.

Standard: They compare and evaluate perceptions of challenge, risk and safety. They demonstrate understanding of appropriate assertiveness and resilience strategies. They analyse the positive and negative health outcomes of a range of personal behaviours and community actions.

Civics and Citizenship

Dimension: Community engagement

Learning focus: Students apply their knowledge about representative democracy and systems of government by researching and proposing possible action on an issue relevant to them at the local, state or national level. They explore the potential impact of the issue on different groups within the community, and the effectiveness of the democratic process in balancing individual and community rights in resolving the issue.

Standard: At Level 10, students draw on a range of resources, including the mass media to articulate and defend their own opinions about political, social and environmental issues in national and global contexts. They contest, where appropriate, the opinions of others. They develop an action plan which demonstrates their knowledge of a social or environmental issue and suggest strategies to raise community awareness of it. They participate in a range of citizenship activities including those with a national or global perspective, at school and in the local community.

Thinking Processes

Learning focus: Students develop questioning techniques appropriate to the complexity of ideas they investigate, to probe into and elicit information from varying sources. They work with others to modify their initial questions and to develop further their understanding that sources of information may vary in their validity.

Students explore differing perspectives and issues in depth and identify a range of creative possibilities. They are encouraged to examine and acknowledge a range of perspectives on an issue and to accommodate diversity. They engage positively with novelty and difference and are innovative in the ways they define and work through tasks, and find solutions. They practise creative thinking behaviours and strategies to find solutions, synthesise information and understand complex ideas.

Dimension: Reasoning, processing and inquiry

Standard: At Level 10, students discriminate in the way they use a variety of sources. They generate questions that explore perspectives. They process and synthesise complex information and complete activities focusing on problem solving and decision making which involve a wide range and complexity of variables and solutions. They employ appropriate methodologies for creating and verifying knowledge in different disciplines. They make informed decisions based on their analysis of various perspectives and, sometimes contradictory, information.

Dimension: Creativity

Standard: At Level 10, students experiment with innovative possibilities within the parameters of a task. They take calculated risks when defining tasks and generating solutions. They apply selectively a range of creative thinking strategies to broaden their knowledge and engage with contentious, ambiguous, novel and complex ideas.

Information and Communications Technology

Dimension: ICT for communicating

Learning Focus: Students expand their skills in locating information on websites by using general and specialised directories. They refine their searching techniques to get more precise results by using within suitable search engines, proximity operators, which specify where one term in a document must appear in relation to another term.

Standard: Students apply techniques to locate more precise information from websites, including searching general andspecialised directories, and applying proximity operators.

Communication

Dimension: Presenting

Learning focus: Students experiment with communicating complex ideas in a variety of ways. They organise their information, ideas and opinions into a coherent structure, select and adjust theirmode of presentation to suit purpose and audience, and make appropriate adjustments in response to an audience.

Standard: At Level 10, students demonstrate their understanding of the relationship between form, content and mode, and selectsuitable resources and technologies to effectively communicate. They use subjectspecificlanguage and conventions inaccordance with the purpose of their presentation to communicate complex information. They provide constructivefeedback to others and use feedback and reflection in order to inform their future presentations.

Interpersonal Development

Dimension: Working in teams

Learning Focus: Students take opportunities to work in diverse teams within and beyond school, including the workplace, to complete tasks with several interrelated components. Some of these tasks are managed by the team, with limited teacher input.

Standard: At Level 10, students work collaboratively, negotiate roles and delegate tasks to complete complex tasks in teams. Working with the strengths of a team they achieve agreed goals within set timeframes. Students describe how they respect and build on the ideas and opinions of team members and clearly articulate or record their reflections on the effectiveness of learning in a team. They develop and implement strategies for improving their contributions to achievingthe team goals.

Problem recognition: Identifying who are hoons and why they are a problem

Preparation

The class will need access to the Internet to conduct research, or this can be done as a homework activity.

What to do

Discussion

Write this statement on the board:

Hoons are young idiot drivers who don’t care about others.

Ask and discuss:

  • Is this statement true?
  • What is a hoon? (Come to a shared agreement about what a hoon is)
  • Why do some young people act like hoons?

Ask what students already know about the anti-hoon laws.

Continuum Activity

Set up a continuum in a clear space in the classroom. Have signs with ‘Agree’ displayed at one end and ‘Disagree’ at the other. Direct students to position themselves along the continuum where their viewpoint is after you read each of the following statements. Invite individual students to say why they have positioned themselves as they have and compare and contrast viewpoints. Use these statements as a guide – encourage the students to generate some of their own as the activity proceeds:

  • a modified car is a public display of the driver’s personality
  • modifying a vehicle is just another art form
  • hoon driving is highly skilled and should not be illegal
  • there is nothing wrong with hoon driving, it’s just there is no place to do it but on the roads
  • driving as a hoon is not dangerous
  • belonging to a hoon group is no different than choosing to hang out with any other group
  • the police should not be allowed to confiscate a hoon’s vehicle
  • the police should not be allowed to confiscate a vehicle if it doesn’t belong to the hoon
  • young drivers are unfairly targeted by authorities.

A bit more info…
Examples of questions to focus on:
  • What is hoon driving?
  • Is hoon driving a problem? Why?
  • Are there different types of hooning?
  • What do the terms ‘impounded’, ‘immobilised’ and ‘forfeited’ mean?
  • Can my car be impounded if I am not driving it?
  • How long can a car be impounded for?
  • How do you get a car back once it is impounded?
  • Are there any other consequences of hooning?
  • How do Victoria’s anti-hoon laws compare with other Australian states and other countries? Which seem most effective and why?

Present Findings

Each group should develop a summary of their findings and deliver this to the rest of the class.

Class Debate

Conduct a class debate on one of the following topics:

Anti-hoon laws unfairly target young males.

Anti-hoon laws are an over-reaction to drivers displaying their skills.

Motorsport promotes and encourages hooning.

Computer games and movies that involve racing on the street encourage hooning.

Internet Research

In small groups direct students to use the Internet to search for information about anti-hoon laws and the consequences of being caught hooning.

Share the findings with the class.

Problem recognition: Finding out what the community thinks

Preparation

Students will need to produce copies of their surveys or they could develop an online survey using one of the many free online survey tools (search for ‘free online survey maker’), if practical.

What to do

Survey Friends and Family

To get a better understanding of attitudes to the hoon driver problem in their community, have students in small groups develop, conduct and analyse a survey about hoons.

Working in small groups students should:

  • identify the research question(s)
  • develop a survey tool
  • survey at least 20 people from different age groups (students can survey family members and friends)
  • analyse the data and draw some conclusions.

A bit more info…
Understanding hoon drivers
  • Establish what people think a hoon is.
  • Identify what driving behaviours are considered to be hoon behaviours.
  • Establish knowledge about Victorian anti-hoon laws and their fairness or adequacy.
  • Identify how young people view hoons compared with older people.
  • Identify differences between males and females in their attitudes towards hoon drivers.
  • Establish how older people perceive young drivers.
  • Seek suggestions about what should be done about the hoon driver problem.

Present Findings

Have each group share and use the results of the survey work to build understanding about hoon driving and the laws relating to this, by developing a report using graphs, tables and written summaries of responses.

Publish reports in the school newsletter or make a display for senior students in the school.

Problem solving: What is being done about hooning?

Preparation

Invite your local Victoria Police Youth Resource Officer to talk about the anti-hoon laws - The class will need access to the Internet to conduct research.

What to do

Discussion

Remind students that in Victoria, there are several hoon-related offences. The most common ones are:

  1. Improper use of a motor vehicle, where the driver has intentionally caused one or more tyres to lose traction.
  2. Exceeding the speed limit by 45 km/h or more (or travelling at over 145 km/h in a 110 km/h zone).
  3. Engaging in an unauthorised race or speed trial on a road or spaces near a road that are open to the public.
  4. Repeat incidents of driving whilst disqualified.

Discuss what the students believe the police and the community could do to solve
the ‘hoon’ problem.

Internet Research

Divide the class into small groups and have students research:

  • What is being done, including and in addition to the laws on hoon-related offences?
  • What impact the laws on hoon-related offences have had on the problem to date?
  • How is the issue being addressed in other states in Australia or overseas?

Present Findings

Groups should present to the class their findings and discuss how effective they believe the initiatives to solve the ‘hoon’ problem are.

Have students debate the pros and cons of each initiative.

Guest Speaker

Invite the local Victoria Police Youth Resource Officer to talk about the anti-hoon laws and how successful these have been in reducing hoon-related behaviour.

Taking action: Making a difference in the local community

Preparation

Consider inviting a representative of your local community road safety group or the person responsible for road safety at your local council to speak to the class and discuss ideas. For local community road safety group contacts:

What to do

Small Group Work

In small groups research and plan a program or initiative in the local area that could meet the needs of people who may drive in a manner that is illegal on the roads. Each group should:

  • Identify the process that would be required to get the initiative to happen.
  • Identify people who could help make this happen.
  • Develop promotional materials describing the program idea.

Share the Ideas

Have each group share their ideas with the rest of the class.

Depending on the ideas for programs the class develop, you could approach your local community road safety group or local council to ask if a representative would be interested in discussing the program ideas with the class and explaining any anti-hoon related programs their group is supporting.

A bit more info…
Who could assist with a local program?
  • Local businesses providing sponsorship.
  • Community organisations.
  • Police.
  • Interested volunteers from the local community.

ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES

  • Use explore the safety of different makes and models of cars. Have students identify what is important from a safety viewpoint, compare and contrast this with what is considered important in a ‘hoon’s car’.
  • Have the class collect information about vehicles – either through car or product advertising or through magazines that come out of the street racing culture. Introduce this activity with a brief discussion about the reasons why people choose to drive particular vehicles or drive in a particular way.
  • Have each student design a car that reflects who they are or how they would like to be viewed by others. They should also design a ‘swing tag’ or label that succinctly describes the components of the vehicle and its selling points. In turn, have students present their final design and the accompanying swing tag. The class should decide:
  • Would the vehicle be considered a ‘hoon’s car’?
  • Are the design features related to performance, cosmetic/appearance, safety or all of these?

EXPLORE OTHER ROAD SAFETY EDUCATION RESOURCES AND PROGRAMS FOR SECONDAY SCHOOLS ONLINE AT: