Boy racers are racing down a historic town’s high street causing major disturbance to residents, councillors have heard.
Revving engines and booming exhausts echo off the walls in Linlithgow’s High Street, in the early hours of the morning. The noise made worse by the narrow street and high buildings.
Local Community Sergeant Alan Hanna told councillors police can, and do intervene at anti social behaviour from drivers with noisy engines and exhausts and repeat offenders can have vehicles seized.
Sgt Hanna is the new community team leader for the Linlithgow area. He gave his first report to a meeting of the town’s Local Area Committee.
Councillor Pauline Orr said: “I have had a few complaints about the speed of traffic in the evening particularly on the High Street, going into early hours of weekend.
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“One gentleman who lives on the High Street is talking about popping exhausts, which as we know are generally illegal. Has that come to your attention, are you doing any work on that?”
Sgt Hanna said: “During the weekend we’ll have night time economy patrols. It is something that we’ll feed into community teams.
“If we do see speeding or hear excessive noise we can stop that vehicle and speak to the driver.” He added that persistent offending once the police had spoken to the driver could see the vehicle being seized.
The sergeant said he could also bring in Special Constables to beef up evening patrols and engage with young drivers.
In his report, Sgt Hanna said: “Numerous areas of West Lothian were targeted in relation to inconsiderate parking, misuse of disabled bays and various traffic offences.
"Tickets were issued and advice given to drivers around school areas. Further days of action carried out in areas identified as “hotspots” for car meets and ASB driving.
“Officers stopped and engaged with numerous drivers providing advice, verbal warnings along with a small number of drivers reported for Road Traffic offences. Officers carried out Speed checks in Linlithgow and engaged with the community."
