I'm from Auckland and know firsthand how much of a problem this is becoming!
Just remember that Auckland's young is made up of 95% young teens in high performance jap cars that are considerant and are really just looking for a good time and the other 5% in high performance jap cars that can't drive for **** that give the rest of us a bad name, know jack-all about cars and basically obey everything that is the "Fast and the Furious" Scene, thus classing EVERYONE as "boy racers" because you never hear of the "good" through the media, just the "bad".
I have a restricted license, I am 17 and live in Ponsonby/Grey Lynn which is a 5 minute walk to the Auckland CBD. Over the holidays my elder brother has been kind enough to let me borrow his car on certian nights when he or his girlfriend are not going out. The car is an R33 GTS-T 2.5 Turbo 2dr (Manual), he is fully insured and I am able to drive the car within the conditions of my license and his insurance company, if I get into an accident and It's my fault, I PERSONALLY will have to pay the $5000 access fee, and the rise in his premiums, through an aggreement between my brother and I. I am one of the few out there on Friday and Saturday nights with FULL INSURANCE, the car is a bloody rocket as I'm sure most of you know and I'm sure (I think) that "P" platters or whatever the Aussie equivalent are not allowed to drive a car as powerfull as the R33 Turbo. In NZ if I had the money I could go out and buy a 290kW Falcon at the age of 17 and fully register it under my name, all at the age of 17, there are no Hp or kW limits on any car licenses in NZ, even on a learners! - This means that a 15 yearold, A 15 YEAROLD, can legally drive a A Lambo, Porsche, Ferrari Enzo, whatever.
IMO the problem is mainly the new immigrants. I'd like to state the fact THAT I AM ASIAN MYSELF, I'm born and bred in NZ and consider myself as a Kiwi. There is corruption within AA Centres where anyone can get a licence with out doing a test. Let me explain, I have a few chinese/korean friends, all of which are at my school as exchange students. There can bearly speak a work of English. The all have cars, one owns a bloody Sti Rex, the way they get their licences is... in NZ if you cannot speak English you can request a translator to sit beside you at the test (scratchies for a learners test, if a restriceted test they are the person that takes you for the drive(same as Final test)), and what they do instead of translating is give you the bloody answer instead. The person who wants to take the test contacts the translator before hand, this translator actually works for the AA Centre by the way. Apparently this is how about 75% of new immagrants in NZ get their licences, without turnning a single ****ing page of the NZ road code, these AA wokers charge $200 + for this, so I am told. They advertise openly in the local chinese papers and my friends say that know of alot of people that obtain there licences in this way, infact it's become the norm in many circles.
I work at New Zealand Performance Car magazine, durring the holidays and after school, (I mainly deal with subscriptions) ,I love certian Jap cars, yet i despise anything that is not RWD or 4WD. I am as a blue blooded Ford guy as they come, I live and breath V8's and the Supercars and all things associated with Ford, without owning one. I'm planning to buy my first car midway through this year, because I've had a job since I was 15 and working my arse off I am in the position to be a fairly decent car as my first. Everyday I deal with "Boy Racers", and I know that it's a select few that think they're gods gift to the streets and adding a bigbore and a tacho to their Civic (not forgetting the stickers, oh god no) think that they have the same cars as on the movies. If I see rice, I'll point and laugh. I've tought my girlfriend to identify rice, as we all know it's not hard. I take pride in demorializing egos at the lights, even if I don't own the car I'm driving. And I believe that this attitude makes me a "boy racer", if so, so be it.
As for the Auckland Airpot inncident, I have not heard of anthing along those lines. BUT, there was a night when my girlfriend and I decided to follow the trail one night, we drove all the way out past Piha (for those of you that know where that is) and the people ahead parked alongside some lifestyle blocks and blocked the roads with witches hats, orange cones, then they began their runs, although well short of a bloody quarter mile and in certian parts lose gravel that was blind in the night, people were lining up in pairs in their milkbottles and reving them to a couple of billion, before spinning their FRONT wheels and tearing down the road. Samething applies on Quay St beyond the docks and just after the Helipad, although cops patroll this are durring rice activity nights they all seem to disapear when needed most. Although they don't block these roads, the pairs beind them are virtually stopped and thus affectively blocking the roads as slow traffic.
The problem is too big and well out of hand in Auckland and in certian parts around NZ such as Christchurch and Rotorua. The police are already over streched and there is no short term solution by the looks of things. The cars that you can buy in NZ at the prices that they sell for are unreal, I was once told that the reason these types of cars are not redily avaliable in Aus is because the Government applies a $5000 to $7000 tax on imports, inplace to protect the local car manufacturers (Holden and Ford...), because NZ has no car manufacturers and all of our cars are imported from Aus, Japan, Germany etc, this tax is not neccasary as there is no local car manufacturer to protect.
I've been to Aussie and the States on various family holidays and the Rice problem is the worst in my beloved NZ. There are so many things that need to be addressed and not enough police to do so. Thats the end of my rant!
I'd also like to apologize for the many a spelling mistakes, gimme a break, school's out for the summmmmer!
Pritey