The ability to punish street racers by destroying their cars has seen illegal street racing crashes, injuries and deaths more than halved, says Police Minister Judith Collins.

'When I passed this legislation in 2009, I said that confiscating and destroying the vehicles of the worst, repeat offenders would be the ultimate deterrent.

Police Minister Judith Collins says the legislation she introduced in 2009 is halved the number of crashes.

'Critics of this law have completely missed the point. The number of deaths, injuries and crashes due to illegal street racing have plummeted.”

Judith says this shows the law has been an extremely effective deterrent. She believes it has made the streets safer and saved lives.

'The Sentencing Amendment (Vehicle Confiscation) Act 2009 sent a strong message that illegal street racing would not be tolerated. It is working exactly as intended.”

The table shows the number of deaths, injuries and crashes where ‘racing' was recorded as a factor contributing to the crash, for each year from 2001 to 2015.

Year Deaths Injured Crashes (injury and non-injury)

2001 7 77 70

2002 3 88 85

2003 9 79 72

2004 8 71 77

2005 6 97 97

2006 9 87 92

2007 9 91 116

2008 5 68 82

2009 6 49 69

2010 1 49 71

2011 4 29 42

2012 4 27 36

2013 2 14 32

2014 0 23 33

2015* 0 7 15

*As at 30 September 2015