There’s one GQ Patrol owner whose hooning is likely to find him in a bit of hot water very soon if not already after a video was posted by ACT Parks and Conservation on facebook of someone having fun off-road at Bulls Head in Namadgi National Park, the park that covers the ACT side of the beautiful Brindabella Ranges south west of Canberra.
Now, some of us like to have fun, some don’t have enough power to pop a single pegger on black ice.
…and then there’s this bloke. Drives into a National Park. Tears the crap out of the grass. Leaves a churned mess.
Isn’t it just a transmission easement?
Yes. At first glance, there’s a flat bit of cleared ground, a transmission easement, which had been bulldozed years ago and gets slashed every summer as a fire break. It’s not threatening the critically endangered Leadbeater’s Possum or destroying the last vestigial habitat of the recently extinct Lesser Bilby.
What it is though is hoon behaviour. The very thing that most 4X4 owners try and distance themselves from. We love our 4X4s, we love driving, modifying and spending excessive amounts of money to get from point A to point B the longest most impractical way we can. We don’t want our favourite activity curtailed by bureaucrats and tree huggers. Don’t give them ammunition by hooning!
The solution
Should you feel the desperate need to chuck doughies, there are places to go for this. We call it private property. There’s Landcruiser Mountain Park in QLD and TJ’s 4B Park near Sydney and most likely others that have mud flats exclusively for cutting sick in RWD. There are diesel drags at various drag strips around the country. There’s your own front yard, especially if you’re renting.
On public land? No. That means no hooning in National Parks, State Forests and Crown Land. That also means transmission easements are off limits for hooning.
UPDATE: Landcruiser Mountain Park don’t allow circlework. Probably because it is antisocial. Thanks to the comments left letting us know better!
While you’re at it
If you think you have mad driving skills, and this bloke sadly doesn’t display any here, don’t rely on National Parks to film you, find a properly difficult track and a mate with a GoPro and show us your actual talent on youtube!
