Carmageddon – Bangkok’s boy racers left standing by Cheshire’s EPL stars
Wilmslow might be one of northwest England’s most desirable postcodes, but the name of the town has a simple ring of humour. Wilmslow in the heart of Cheshire sounds like the place where Monty Python sketches take place. Not exactly Purley, but close. One expects Wilmslow residents to sell insurance for a living, to be avid collectors of used bus tickets and to obsess about the finer points of garbage sorting.
Wilmslow is a far cry from our beloved Bangkok, but the two world-class conurbations face similar social problems: delinquent millionaires, their children and their cars.
The two places could not be more different. Wilmslow is part of Cheshire’s “Golden Triangle,” the haunt of English Premier League stars past and present, including Sir Alex Ferguson and Rio Ferdinand. And along with footballers, come their cars.
The highways and byways of Wilmslow are choked by lines of boys’ toys – Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Bugattis.
The jaw-dropping processions of vehicles have turned the area into a hotspot for supercar spotters and “locals” say they have had enough.
“People seem to travel from all over the North West to race their cars here,” said Debra Brown, whose home backs onto the A34 between Wilmslow and Alderley Edge – a nearby village home to even more millionaires, footballers and celebrities.
Brown said…
“It’s terrible. It’s the noise at night that is most annoying. We will be sitting in our lounge and you can hear the noise. We bought this house knowing how busy that road was, but we were not prepared for the level of noise and the type of vehicles.
“You can see why they are attracted to it. It’s a massive stretch of road with no traffic-calming measures. You have teenagers standing on the roundabout. It’s dangerous and they are putting their lives at risk.”
Brown’s neighbour Michael Neal has similar concerns. The 81-year-old has lived in Ashford Road for almost half a century but said the noise only began recently. He said…
“It’s like a race track every Saturday and Sunday. Some weeks they come from all over the country. It’s like a jamboree. They have the exhaust modified to make as much noise as possible.
“Drivers have lost control and there have been a couple of near misses on that roundabout. Some of the neighbours have even threatened to put their house up for sale because of the noise.”
The problem is made worse by the crowds that gather to “encourage” drivers. Some fans spend hours waiting to snap photos of their favourite high-performance cars. But of course, these are supercars, some costing hundreds of thousands of pounds. The drivers are not kids – they are wealthy businessmen in their 30s, 40s and 50s.
Neal said…
“One thousand pounds or five thousand, it’s nothing to these people. They’re multi-millionaires. Take the car off them and crush it in front of them.”
The stretch of the A34 between Wilmslow and Alderley Edge has seen several fatal crashes. Earlier this week, the government announced it would be trialling noise-detecting traffic cameras over the next two months London’s Westminster Council is already using the devices to catch motorists revving their engines, using illegal exhausts and performing doughnuts.
