Don't blame tuner cars for street racing tragedies
Jil McIntosh
As the weather gets better, tuner cars come out of storage or shed their winter wheels in favour of big chrome hoops – and everyone gets nervous. That sure sign of spring must also mean that another season of street racing is upon us. Someone will do something stupid on the Gardiner or the 400, the heat will be turned up, and the cops will be instructed to go round up as many Hondas and Toyotas with tomato-can exhaust pipes as they can find.
But not that long ago, I opened my paper to find that three teenagers were charged in Ajax with street racing, after one hit a tree after tearing off from a light. According to the report, officers seized all three vehicles: a Chevrolet Venture minivan, a Pontiac Torrent, and a Pontiac Grand Am. Those don't sound like tuner cars to me.
Two of the drivers were 17, the other 18. Now, unless things have changed drastically in the many years since I was a teenager, a full-size minivan generally belongs not to the young man, but to the young man's parents. That was also the case in 2006, when two drivers in Mercedes-Benz cars owned by their parents caused the death of a Toronto taxi driver.
In fact, when I read about crashes caused by street racing, full-blown tuner cars don't really seem to make the list all that often. Here's a thought: maybe it ain't just the car.
The harsh reality here is that impromptu street racing is like drunk driving: we can work to reduce it, but we're never going to eliminate it entirely. We can crush cars, we can ban nitrous oxide, we can tell the cops to pull over cars with little blue lights on their windshield washers, and we'll still get testosterone flowing and brain cells shutting down when the light turns green and it looks like your mom's minivan can take his mom's minivan. We need to stop with the knee-jerk reactions, and work on realistic solutions that don't involve herding up Hondas whenever a BMW hits a hydro pole.
I don't have all the answers, but I do see things that don't work. A couple of years ago, I rode with the cops during a tuner car blitz in Woodbridge. Most of them spent the night pulling young drivers over.
But one sergeant was a gearhead, and he went into the parking lots, talked with the guys about their cars, and made suggestions when modifications could have been done better. While every ticketed driver I spoke with was angry with the police, most were comfortable talking to the sergeant, and a couple planned to make the changes he'd mentioned.
As we've done with drunk driving, we also need to get everyone on board. The racers in Ajax came to grief just after midnight. Maybe parents should be asking where their children need to go with two tons of steel and very limited driving experience late on a Friday night.
And if there's no good reason, maybe they shouldn't be getting the keys.
jil @ ca.inter.net