Stunt-driving videos prompt concern at firm

Viral videos of motorists performing stunts in the car park of a business have renewed concerns about unsafe driving and trespassing, with the firm at the centre of the videos installing additional surveillance equipment after repeated late-night activity and damage to its building.

Quality Tyre Plus said its Lower Estate, St Michael premises had become a regular weekend gathering place for groups of drivers and spectators, with roaring engines and stunt driving sometimes continuing until near daybreak.

A company spokesman told Barbados TODAY that the situation had become untenable after more than a year of complaints from residents and the business: “It’s been over a year now [that we’ve been] struggling with this, and we’ve put in a lot of surveillance equipment to try and get a person’s information, so that they can be prosecuted.

“We have had a tremendous amount of complaints all hours of the night, early hours of the morning. The cars…just screaming up here and all up through St George.”

The company said it had since installed additional surveillance equipment and erected a sign warning against trespassing after hours “because the police said that that is one of the main things we would have to do, and we’ve done this.”

But despite those measures, the stunts have continued.

The spokesman added: “We’ve put up surveillance equipment…because all hours of the morning you got emails coming through of persons up there. [Numerous] cars up there…it’s become a hangout spot.”

Quality Tyre Plus had already experienced the consequences. About two years ago, a driver making a stunt manoeuvre crashed into the building, smashing the showroom glass and damaging a shutter.

The spokesman continued: “It’s come to a point now where we’re not standing for it anymore. The police will become aware of any information that we find. I think enough is enough…we can’t just continue.”

Quality Tyre Plus said it could not simply block access to the property owing to its arrangements with emergency services and motorists who need to leave damaged vehicles on the premises after being towed there.

“The reason why we cannot block it is because we have arrangements with some of the emergency [services] that bring vehicles here. A vehicle may drop in a pothole and break the rim or something and they come on a wrecker, and persons will leave the vehicles at Quality for repairs [during] the very next possible opening hours. This is something we don’t want to stop if we block it off and put up gates and so on. It means that the customers that normally would bring vehicles here will not be able to do so. So we’re looking for other means to stop it.”

As a result, the company is looking for other ways to keep stunt drivers and spectators off the property from the early evening without preventing legitimate customers from accessing it.

“As early as seven o’clock some nights, some nights between 12 and 3 and 4 in the morning. You’ve got constant activity up here, especially when it’s wet; as soon as the rain falls, everybody seems to arrive. It seems to be on social media that certain people come up here and then the crowds follow.

“So it is a bad situation we’re in, but we can’t allow it to continue.”

Road Safety Association president Roland Lowe said that while the problem was seen predominantly among motorcyclists in the past, there have been more reports of people using cars to perform stunts and drift in empty car parks and on other properties.

BRSA President Roland Lowe (File Photo)

Lowe said the practice creates a serious risk because the stunts are being performed without the safeguards of a controlled environment.

“Persons can also find themselves getting involved in collisions, accidents, and it’s not a controlled environment.”

He said such activities should be conducted only in areas where safety personnel are present and can respond if something goes wrong.

Lowe’s warning was blunt: “To do otherwise is to put your life at risk.” 

(SB)