Car Cruising Injunction.

I have just read the following in the latest FBHVC Newsletter. Let’s hope that this doesn’t spread to other area of the UK.
Car Cruising Injunctions
In December our attention was drawn to news reports that a combination of local authorities who cover the Black Country had gained a High Court Injunction which was said to prohibit ‘two or more vehicles gathering together in the Black Country between the hours of 1500 and 0700’. Clearly the injunction was granted to enable these authorities more readily to police the increasing incidence of ‘car cruising’ which is seen as a growing social problem in their area. There are, we realised, several pre-existing High Court Injunctions, mostly in the Midlands, in similar terms. We made an initial approach to Wolverhampton Borough Council, one of the five Black Country authorities involved, simply to register our interest at this stage but expressing concern that our members out on a historic vehicle run might be caught by the injunction. Wolverhampton has sent us the precise text of the injunction.

While most of the injunction deals with obviously anti-social activities it does appear to rest on the implicit assumption that all ‘car cruising’ is anti-social. There is a question as to whether us more ‘responsible’ and often older motorists should be too supportive of suppression of the way in which a new generation of the young get started on an interest in cars, provided of course they do not otherwise cause offence and unhappiness to the public by way of bad behaviour, careless and reckless driving, noise etc. Were we all models of respectability and prudence in our younger more carefree days?

Be that as it may, on examination the Black Country injunction does appear to be rather widely worded. It appears to create a very slight risk that ordinary Saturday afternoon gatherings of historic vehicles might arouse the ire of someone in a community and thus be held possibly to be in breach of the terms of the Injunction. As the injunction includes a specific power of arrest, it might, in the hands of an over-zealous officer of the law, put some of our members at risk of, at the very least, some harassment and possible prosecution for Contempt of Court, the sanction which supports an injunction.

We will be considering this issue further and deciding whether or not to take it up with one or more of the authorities involved, with a view to getting a steer as to how as a matter of policy they would see historic vehicle gatherings, which might be of use to our members in case there was ever a problem in an area with an injunction in place.