Petition launched to stop noisy car races by reducing speed limit on Milton Keynes grid roads

The man, who lives on Giffard Park, is one of hundreds of people kept awake by late night car enthusiasts who allegedly use the city’s grid road system as a race track.

He has launched a petition on Change.org urging that grid roads and dual carriageways that pass through residential areas should have the speed limit reduced to 60mph.

And he’s asking that speed cameras should be installed to enable anyone breaking the law to be punished.

The petition states: “Most weekends some dual carriage ways are used to race, where the vehicles well exceed the speed limit.

The road noise impacts quality of life by interrupting residents sleeping schedules...Often the vehicles have modified exhaust systems that make excessive noise.”

It adds: “Local government authorities and Milton Keynes Council need to address this issue.

The Citizen has reported previously on the unofficial ‘race nights’, where drivers sometimes come from all over the country to show off their fast and modified cars in MK after dark.

Often the high speed sessions start late at night and continue into the early hours. And, despite police putting out warnings and doing their best to intervene , the sessions seem to be happening more and more frequently, say residents,

One fed-up householder signing the petition this week said: “"The racing is becoming a nightly occurrence and something needs to be done to tackle it. It is very noisy and compromises other road users' safety.”

Meanwhile, police and MK Council are working together to make organised car cruises a thing of the past in MK.

In January 2020 they introduced a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) to ban antisocial car cruising locally and give police powers to issue fines of up to £1,000 on the spot to anyone caught breaking the order..

PSPOs were introduced by the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, and are intended to deal with a particular nuisance or problem in a particular area that is detrimental to the local community’s quality of life.

According to MK Council, car cruising is an unregulated activity that has grown both nationally and locally. Car enthusiasts gather to exhibit and drive their cars, sometimes in a dangerous manner.

"These events are unregulated and pre-planned, usually via social media," an MK Council spokesman said,

"In Milton Keynes there have been regular car cruise events which can attract in excess of 1000 cars. This gives rise to complaints of associated anti-social behaviour from residents including excessive noise and dangerous driving activities.

The PSPO followed a public consultation in 2019. It proved one of the most popular consultations the council had ever held, with 56% of respondents from Central Milton Keynes and surrounding areas saying they were in favour of introducing a PSPO to ban anti-social car cruising.

And more than 1,000 respondents said they had recently experienced or been affected by the anti-social use of cars within the past year.

People said safety and excessive noise was their primary concern.

The PSPO made it an offence for a person without reasonable excuse to break the band and the punishment is a fixed penalty notice (FPN) of £100.