A hoon is an Australian term describing a person who deliberately drives a vehicle in a reckless or dangerous manner, generally in order to provoke a reaction from onlookers. Hoon activities (or hooning) can include speeding, burnouts, doughnuts, or screeching tyres. Those commonly identified as being involved in hooning are young and predominantly male drivers in the age range of 17 to 25 years. Hoon control laws are beginning to be extended to dangerous hoon behaviour using boats and other vessels, particularly jet skis. The Australian state of Victoria passed legislation in late 2009 to control hoon activities using recreational vessels. Etymology At the turn of the 20th century in Australia, the term hoon (and its rhyming slang version "silver spoon") had a different meaning: one who lived off immoral earnings (i.e., the proceeds of prostitution, as a pimp or procurer of prostitutes). Linguist Sid Baker in his book The Australian Language suggested that hoon (meaning "a fool") was a contraction of Houyhnhnm, a fictional race of intelligent horses which appears in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Hoon, when used in relation to people in motor vehicles (or associated with car culture), may be onomatopoeia. One may speak of a car, or its driver, or its occupants in general as "hooning down the road". Anti-hoon legislation in Australia The term hoon has obtained a semi-official use in Australia, with police and governments referring to legislation targeting anti-social driving activity as "anti-hoon laws". The term has even begun to appear in the titles of legislation, e.g. Victoria's Transport Legislation Amendment (Hoon Boating and Other Amendments) Act 2009. In Western Australia, the Road Traffic Amendment (Impounding and Confiscation of Vehicles) Bill 2004, which was passed by the Parliament of Western Australia in June 2004, empowered the Western Australia Police to confiscate and impound vehicles found to be engaging in excessive speed or noise. The law was used to impound a Lamborghini after a mechanic was caught speeding in it; he had been driving without the owner's knowledge. The police claim that the law does not permit them to release the car under the only legal course of action available to the owner, that of "hardship". The police retorted that, having the means to own it, "he can afford to hire a vehicle." The owner complained that the law amounted to "mandatory sentencing without trial". The Western Australian Police Minister, Rob Johnston, "admits