Police retreated from a hostile crowd at a Taranaki car meet this week. The story feeds a narrative we hear constantly: young drivers are out of control, disrespecting authority, making our roads dangerous.

Here's what that narrative misses. Youth court orders for traffic and vehicle regulatory offences dropped to 189 in 2024. That's down 41% from 2023. It's the lowest figure in over a decade. (Source: Stats NZ, youth-court-orders)

Go back four years. In 2020, courts issued 387 orders for young people breaking traffic laws. By 2024, that number had been cut in half. This isn't a blip. It's a collapse.

The peak was 2004, when courts handed down 1,127 traffic-related orders to youth offenders. Twenty years later, we're at 189. That's an 83% decline.

So what happened in Taranaki? A large group gathered. Some got aggressive. Police made a tactical decision to withdraw rather than escalate. It made headlines because it felt symbolic of something larger: lawlessness, disrespect, a system that's lost control.

But one incident doesn't define a trend. The data shows the opposite: fewer young people are ending up in court for dangerous driving, unlicensed driving, vehicle theft, or any other traffic offence serious enough to warrant a youth court order.

This matters because the perception gap is massive. Politicians talk tough on youth crime. Communities demand crackdowns. Media reports every car meet confrontation. Meanwhile, the actual number of young offenders being prosecuted for traffic crimes has quietly fallen off a cliff.

Two things can be true at once. A crowd at a car meet can be hostile and dangerous. And youth traffic offending, measured by court orders, can be at historic lows. The first makes news. The second doesn't.

The 2024 figure is preliminary and may be revised upward slightly. But even accounting for revisions, the trend is unmistakable. Young New Zealanders are committing far fewer traffic offences serious enough to land them in youth court than at any point in the past three decades.

That doesn't mean boy racer culture has disappeared. It doesn't mean police don't face real risks at car meets. It means the scale of the problem, measured by courts actually prosecuting young offenders, has shrunk dramatically.

Next time someone tells you youth traffic offending is spiralling out of control, show them this number: 189. Then ask them what it was in 2004.