Hairdryer ploy used on speeders
August 1 2002
Melbourne residents who used hairdryers like police radar guns to deter speedsters in their suburbs risked fights with motorists, Victoria Police said today.
Assistant Commissioner for Traffic Ray Shuey said local police would be talking to eastern suburbs residents who took the law into their own hands by pointing hairdryers at speeding motorists.
"It's not appropriate from our point of view to engage in that type of activity," he said.
He said the residents were risking altercations with motorists and urged them to look to their own behaviour on the roads first.
"Quite often we have the concept that we don't want people speeding in our side streets," Assistant Commissioner Shuey said.

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"And yet we're quite prepared to go into other people's side streets and zip around and disregard kids or the elderly or anybody walking in those locations. It's okay to speed everywhere else but not in my patch."
Boroondara City councillor Judith Voce confirmed residents in her ward had been using their hairdryers against motorists.
She said speeding was an endemic problem in the east and residents were angry about "rat-runners" - motorists avoiding Citylink tolls or leaving the main arterials looking for short cuts through the suburbs.
"People did slow down (for the hairdryers)," Cr Voce said.