“We are desperate,” Contern residents told RTL. After more than three years of being regularly woken up not only at weekends, but also during the week, residents do not know where else to turn.
Car enthusiasts have chosen Contern’s industrial zone as one of their preferred locations for night-time meets, where they participate in activities such as drifting or drag racing, using highly-modified vehicles with noisy exhausts. The activities are often filmed by the drivers themselves and shared online.
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Crowds can attract up to 200 people, with around 70 modified vehicles participating in the noise. Local residents are extremely frustrated with the lack of sleep and continued noise disturbances. “As soon as the weather is nice, it all kicks off at around 9.30 or 10pm at night, lasting for several hours. To conclude the events, they all drive off at full throttle through the village, as loudly as they can.”
The noise is just one of the side effects, with other traces of the group’s activities visible on Contern’s road surfaces in the daytime. “It’s not just noise pollution from their races or drifting shows, but also air pollution from their exhausts, leftover rubber from their tyres, all sorts of mess on the roads which petrol station employees and “Grand Frais” supermarket staff have to clean up every morning,” a resident told RTL.
The car meetings attract drivers with French and German licence plates, as well as Luembourgers. Both the municipal council and the police have been informed of the events, and a police patrol will turn up when residents contact 113 at night. However, it does not resolve the issue, say residents. “Two police officers against 200, 300 people - they can’t do much.”
The founder of the “lxmb.cartuning” Instagram account, which shares content on fast, often modified, cars, contacted RTL to establish their position on the incidents in Contern.
“We as a community, as car fans, do not want to attract negative attention for dangerous racing, or risky behaviour in traffic. We just want to calmly pursue our hobby with others, much in the way that footballers pursue theirs.”
The tuning group has taken steps to distance itself from the Contern races. “The races in Contern, where cars reach up to 100km/h speeds, with people standing about, put them at risk of suffering life-threatening injuries. This cannot and should not be accepted.”
They advocate for more police intervention. “We do want police to intervene more, however, this should only target the racers themselves, and not the tuning community as a whole.” The group also questions the lack of proposals from political authorities.
One option suggests establishing a safer route for the event participants, such as in Colmar-Berg, where there would be less risk of road traffic.
At present, the issue is unlikely to be resolved, just moved. The events used to take place in Kockelscheuer, but now it is no longer possible, therefore the racers have moved on to Contern.
“lxmb.cartuning hopes for an understanding and unity from the Luxembourg tuning scene,” concluded the Instagram account founder.
