Letters to the Editor
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Why not get a gun, close your eyes, and shoot in a circle?
Hey Ms. Straight, what is wrong with you? You're not a teenager. Presumably you understand that what you are doing is endangering the lives of others. What will it take for you to stop? Hit a person who wanders into the road? Kill someone's dog or cat, or just a wild animal unlucky enough to wander into your car's path as you enjoy yourself? Do you need to hear screams of pain and see sprays of blood? Will that make you finally stop using your car as a weapon?
If you crave speed, ride a roller coaster or find a race track where the only life you'll put at peril is your own. If you crave danger, there are plenty of things for you to do: go diving, jump out of an airplane, climb mountains without ropes. I have no problem with people doing dangerous things which risk only their own lives, but you, lady, are selfishly willing to take the lives of others, be they people or animals, in the pursuit of your own desires. That is indefensible.
For those of you out here who think I and other's like me here are "prigs" or some such thing: grow up.
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Perhaps you prefer jackass....
OOoooooh:
Now they're laying claim to maturity as well as the moral high ground.
Bravo.
That's just like when the republicans start every criticism of the Dems with "That's irresponsible..."
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irresponsible behavior
this story is so overwrtten. of course, its an excerpt from a book about bad girls? at this point in your life, there are three children to consider. one would think that an intelligent person like this writer who can string sentences together would have by now developed a more interesting philosophy of life and its passages. but no we get the crazy lady/bad girl vibe here so popular for womens writing today. well, i for one am appalled and not amused. and what does some memory of a brother equally reckless it seems have to do with ones own desire to deal with the cars. may as well be snorting crack in secret. count me out of this little adventure book. as for these women, grow up already. dont start with the rejuvenile male syndrom.
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yee-ha
I can certainly understand the impulse of Ms Straight, as well as the reaction of the people who have lost loved ones to careless drivers. Our impulses are rarely uncomplicated in practice.
When I was a teenager, I thought that having a French diesel was a handicap; turns out that focusing on cornering (because straight line speed was a contradiction in terms) may have been a good thing for everyone else's safety when I get sentimental for times gone by.
And before anyone else feels inclined to chastise, I have always viewed the challenge as getting round corners within my lane, which rarely corresponds to "the racing line." As Jamie Kitman (I think) once pointed out in Automobile/, most people aren't looking for you approaching from behind at 150 mph on the highway, similarly most people reasonably expect that you won't be in their lane going the wrong way when they approach a corner.
As for slowing down generally, I did so when my kids arrived on the scene. I'm worth more dead than alive from an insurance standpoint, but I like the little horrors and if (further) accusations of being boring or a cog in the machine result from not "driving fast and taking chances," so be it.
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A Christmas Story
Christmas Eve... about 1997. Family driving down a country road, looking at Christmas lights. Young city boy, just got a fancy car for Christmas, decides to drive on empty country roads to test how fast it will go. A man, a father, ends up dead, along with his pre-teen daughter and the passenger in the fancy new car. Another daughter ends up disabled for life. The young man, who was guilty of nothing more than wanting to test out his new car, ended up doing jail time for manslaughter. It must have been hard for the judge to convict him, since most of us have done something equally stupid. But he was responsible for the deaths of 3 people, and the permanent disability of another.
I know it's romantic to live out old dreams. I remember the feeling of speeding down the road when I was a teenager. But I'm not a teenager any more. I'm smarter. I learn from my mistakes, and those of others. Don't speed. Don't make your kids - or somebody else's kids - grow up without a parent, or simply not grow up at all, just so you can relive a memory. Find some other way of celebrating your brother's life... one that doesn't endanger yourself or others.
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Recording of Jim Dionne going zero to sixty in his 1965 Pontiac GTO
On my web page, I have a memorial to my brother Jim (1948 - 1999):
http://markdionne.com/JimDragRace.mp3
Mark Dionne
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VW buses don't go fast enough to fly
Great writing. Keep it up.
Although I too live on a rural gravel road and wouldn't tolerate such actual behavior on my road for long. At least as far as the speeding goes.
I never really got too much of the speed thing, since I owned VW buses for most of my youth. I did have a big Healy for a while though. It would go 120 mph. That much I know. But it was a straight deserted interstate in Eastern Washington at 3:00 am. Got rid of it after that. I could sleep - and do other more interesting things than speeding - in a VW bus.
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A Different Kind of Memorial
My dog was killed by a speeding driver. He was a grown man who should have known better. According to my parents, who witnessed the accident, the driver stopped and was very upset. It took a few days for my dog to die. I was at sleepaway camp when it happened. I never got to say goodbye to her.
Some years later I saw a rabbit get hit by a speeding car. The driver didn't stop. I put the rabbit in a box and drove her to a wildlife rehabber. There was a lot of blood, but what I remember most was the rabbit's terrible cries of pain. She died later.
It is estimated that about one million vertebrate animals are run over each day in the United States. Many of these deaths are unavoidable, but many are not. If you drive slowly and carefully on dark country roads, you increase the odds of stopping in time or swerving out of the way.
When I drive, I watch for animals. That's my memorial to speeding. The more desolate and darker the road, the more I watch and, more importantly, the slower I go. I do not want to run over an animal and kill it or worse, injure it so that it dies a slow death. I do not want to kill a mother animal out foraging for food and thereby condemn her children to death by starvation. I absolutely do not want to kill someone's beloved pet.
To the LW: I understand the thrill of speeding. When I was a kid, I sped, but fortunately grew out of it. As an adult, I enjoy scuba diving and full contact sparring. Both of those activities have a good risk of death or injury. However, in both of those activities I put only myself and other consenting participants at risk.
I you want to drive fast, go visit the Autobahn or do as some others here have suggested and go to a racetrack. If you want to do it at night while blasting music, go for it. If you end up dying in a fiery crash, so be it, though I would feel badly for your kids. However, do the world a favor and pull your head out of your ass. Stop speeding on country roads where you could easily kill someone or something. You have no right, legal or moral, to do what you are doing. There is enough suffering in this world; why would you want to contribute to it?