Street Racing and its outcome

[shor]

Jeff, I just saw on the local news that NJ serviceman had died in Hawaii car accident?? I wonder if that was the one?

[JChlupsa]

Sad but true both cars were being driven by US Army members. Yes the first pair of Army members in the first car were burnt beyound reconization as was the passenger in the truck. 2nd driver also Army died and the passenger is in critical at Tripler. The truck driver gout out through the drivers window and could only watch as the others yelled out for help. Another road crew who just talked with the truck occupants reported that 2 Eclipses had passed them at a very high rate of speed and then they heard a loud crash and apon their arrival to the crash site did what they could to help oput out the fireball that encapsulated the entire accident scene. These guys were in their Mid 20's.

[matt murphy]

Jeff,

Mid 20's is Young. That is the group that is just getting their first cars. Some get them at 16 or 18, but others have to wait and save. The local street racer scene here is 20 year olds. I'll admit I have done some stupid things in cars, but thankfully, I was lucky enough to not get killed. I too blame the movies and TV for a lot of this stuff these kids see and want to try to do to impress the girls or their friends. I guess fortunately for me my Mom was a nurse and saw too many tragedies at the hospital and didn't want her sons or daughters to end up like the kids she worked with. I wasn't able to get a car until I was out of school. All my friends had cars except me, but my parents believed at a young age you don't need a car. I guess I was lucky because when I was 18, I got hit by a drunk driver on a Saturday afternoon, in my friends subdivision with 6 of my friends in my dads car. We all walked away from that accident, and the drunk ran away and left his mothers car there at the scene, totalled. He convienently reported it stolen later, but left his ID in the car and we also identified him. It is unfortunite that most of us need to experience the death or tragedy to stop doing something as dumb as street racing, or just messing around in cars.

Last May at the Atlanta F-body show, about 100 kids, most of them in their 20's and 30's saw a street race go horrible bad, when 4 kids were in a new Camaro and two others were in a Trans Am. The story was that the Camaro hit his Nitrous and right in front of the host hotel at about 1:30am and with about 80 onlookers watching the race, the Camaro lost control and crashed into the embankment and hit a telephone pole and crashed so violently that the car was ripped in half and the two in the back were thrown and partly decapitated and killed instantly in front of the crowd of cheerers and people egging other drivers to race in the street all night. The driver was thought to be dead and the only one wearing a seat belt was a girl in the front passenger seat, who didn't know any of the other kids in the car, she was just along for the ride to the Waffle House restaurant, when the two drivers decided to line up and race. Their intentions were to go eat and two died and a third who barely survived and a fourth that will forever be traumatized by the accident.

All very sad . . .

[Jeff Murphy]

It's always confused me about the US (and Canada where I'm originally from) that you get a potentially lethal driver's license at such an immature age (for most) and then load on top of it learning how to drink, act like an adult, etc. Even though I enjoyed getting my license at 16 and writing off my first car at 17, I think that the Europeans have things figured out a bit better.

You can drink beer and wine in most countries when you are 16+ (although many start earlier with parents' consent), with driving, voting and military service kicking in at 18. You're a full adult at 18, still young but with a bit more experience behind you.

Plus if you can go off and fight a war you can have a drink... Never understood the 21 drinking age / 18 draft age thing.

[skierkaj]

I've heard from a kid at my high school (he was over in Afghanistan; just 19 or 20 years old!), that if you wanna drink, it's no problem when you're in the army. People will just give one to you, no matter what age you are.

[55chevy]

Man.. it's just horrible what can happen when kids become wreckless like that.... very sad indeed..

[77Z28]

I think back at my early driving experience and realize a lot of the stupid accidents or situations I got myself in were the result of falling to peer pressure. I can recall many of fridays after school egging other fellows to lay drag while leaving the school parking lot. One fellow classmate in his silver 76 TA agreed to, but probably wished later he hadn't when he lost control of car and ran it nearly into some trees.

I am sure we can all recall some classmate or friend that did something stupid with their car, possibly with horrible consequences. I for one have made plenty of stupid mistakes while operating car. It is a sobering experience when you are involved in an accident where not only you are at fault (wreckless driving) and hit an innocent, uninvolved, driver who is injured, recoveres, but eventually sues you and your family for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. And worse of all seeing the anxiety felt by your parents for fear of losing everything. Fortunately, my dad always made me and my brother pay for all expenses on our cars with our own money earned through jobs that our lawyer was able to get my parents off the legal suit.

You learn early that you are responsible for your actions and their are consequences. I hope to pass along to my sone when he begins driving that you can have fun with your car without being wreckless to others, potentially injuring others and not following what your buddies ask you to do.

Maybe more personal than necessary, but felt like sharing.

Todd

Chevy fanatic

[Mr70]

I agree Todd.

[njsteve]

[ QUOTE ]
"I'm in the same boat, Ed. If I had been wearing my seat belt I would I would have been decapitated. "

Not to preach as I have done very stupid things in my past as well, but the testimonials from very lucky people (I'll call then one percenters) who survived because they were not wearing seat belts are statisticly invalid. (Well, not to them but for others). My reasoning is this: The problem is you never hear any testimonials from the 99% of the other side who died as a result of not wearing that seat belt. Having been to variety of ugly scenes I can say it is an accurate quote that I hear from law enforcement people: "I've never had to unbuckle a dead guy". If I had the 99% chance of surviving by wearing the belt versus the 1% chance of surviving by not wearing it, I'd stick with the good odds.

[MadMike]

Seatbelts (and airbags) saved me, my wife and our 3 boys. We were impacted almost head on, except I was dodging the guy and he drove over our hood and exploded 20 feet behind us. He wasn't street racing, but it still sucked. For about 2 or 3 seconds I watched death approaching. Fortunantly we all lived through it.