A vehicle fitted with speakers. Photo: 123RF
An Auckland school is fed up with its speakers being stolen for siren battles.
Cars decked out in sirens have been blasting music around Auckland during the early hours of the morning, the speakers strapped to the cars allegedly taken from schools.
Onehunga Primary principal Viki Holley told Morning Report the school has had about a dozen speakers stolen over the years.
She believes it is a common problem for schools.
"The issue is that school speakers are relatively inexpensive, we can't afford the big, flash ones. That's exactly what are being stolen because its easy to attach to bikes [and] cars."
She said there was a spike in speaker thefts three or four years ago, and now it is surging again.
"People and communities notice it because of the booming that will drive around the streets," Holley said.
She said her school has tried everything to stop the thefts, from securing them to putting cages around them - which got ripped off and ended up damaging the wall.
"We've landed on a solution, which is not ideal, where our caretaker puts up and takes down the speaker each day," Holley said.
A Local Democracy reporter who met some of the adherents for a story wrote that participants were mainly young Pacific people who have become fans of a style of music known as siren jams or beats.
The genre consists primarily of remixes of high-pitched reggae music played over horn speakers or public address systems, which adherents call "sirens", and are then attached to cars. These groups also compete with each other at all hours of the night.
Waitākere ward councillor Shane Henderson told Morning Report on Thursday that they park in residential areas and, while usually a summer occurrence, they had started up again.
"Who can do it the loudest I think is the game. You should see these cars - sirens all over them, it's quite a sight," Henderson said.
While they were breaking the law regarding excessive noise from a vehicle, Henderson wants higher fines and police power to confiscate the sirens.
"It creates huge nuisance for thousands of people in West Auckland especially for parents and the elderly and vulnerable people," he said.
"It's kind of funny if you're not affected by it but if you are, you realise it's quite harmful for people."
