Hooning Fact Sheet from QUT Brings Car Club Cruising into Disrepute

[ZC-Cruiser]

There is a new Hooning Fact Sheet out (linked to below) that mentions Cruising in a very discriminatory way.
Hooning Fact Sheet

I have drafted a letter to the authors regarding this.

I encourage all interested people to send a copy of this letter to the Fact Sheet Authors at:
marketing.carrsq@qut.edu.au

To Whom it may concern.

I have recently been made aware of fact sheet on Hooning produced by your office.

While this document does contain a lot of statistics that I do not have the resources to verify, there is one paragraph that caught my attention as not belonging in a document purporting to be a "Fact Sheet".

I Quote from your "Fact Sheet":

“Cruising” - where groups of vehicles slowly drive around an area to exhibit their vehicles is a behaviour that can be associated with hooning. While cruising, in and of itself, is not a hooning behaviour per se, it is a behaviour sometimes engaged in by those drivers who engage in the hooning behaviours described. However, many drivers who engage in cruising behaviour do not engage in the hooning behaviours listed at left.

This paragraph serves no purpose other than to attempt to drag into disrepute all owners of vehicles who enjoy cruising in the company of like minded people.

I note that in stark contrast to the rest of your document, you have not included any statistics regarding the proportion of drivers who participate in cruising and also engage in hooning behaviours.

To demonstrate how flawed the inclusion of this paragraph in your "Fact Sheet" is, I have provided 3 examples below where I have simply substituted another common activity undertaken on our roads for the word "Cruising".

“Driving to work” - where groups of vehicles slowly drive around an area to get to work is a behaviour that can be associated with hooning. While driving to work, in and of itself, is not a hooning behaviour per se, it is a behaviour sometimes engaged in by those drivers who engage in the hooning behaviours described. However, many drivers who engage in driving to work behaviour do not engage in the hooning behaviours listed at left.


“Going to the shops” - where groups of vehicles slowly drive around an area to obtain food and other goods is a behaviour that can be associated with hooning. While going to the shops, in and of itself, is not a hooning behaviour per se, it is a behaviour sometimes engaged in by those drivers who engage in the hooning behaviours described. However, many drivers who engage in going to the shops behaviour do not engage in the hooning behaviours listed at left.


“Going to visit Grandparents” - where groups of vehicles slowly drive around an area to visit their Grandparents is a behaviour that can be associated with hooning. While going to visit Grandparents, in and of itself, is not a hooning behaviour per se, it is a behaviour sometimes engaged in by those drivers who engage in the hooning behaviours described. However, many drivers who engage in going to visit Grandparents behaviour do not engage in the hooning behaviours listed at left.

As you can see, your logic fits these activities perfectly and will also fit almost every other activity undertaken by road users.

By singling out "Cruising" with no mention of the myriad of other driving activities "sometimes engaged in by those drivers who engage in the hooning behaviours described", you are discriminating against the enormous section of the population who are members of Automobile Clubs and enjoy participating in cruises organised by those clubs.

The inclusion of this paragraph in this document will have the effect of bringing into disrepute the entire Automobile Club community, rather than focusing attention on the tiny portion of that community who engage in hooning behaviours.

I respectfully request that you remove the paragraph quoted above from your document.

I also request that you remove the word "cruising" from the following paragraph on page 3 of your "Fact Sheet":
Qualitative exploratory study to examine the experiences and thoughts of local car enthusiasts who are typically associated with street racing, hooning or cruising activities.

Kind Regards,