I have a “modest proposal� to make, something along the lines of Jonathon Swift’s Modest Proposal made back in the late 1700’s. Ol’ Johnny boy was a leading whit and political satirist of 18th century’s London, sort of the Bill Mahr of his time. Swift’s famous proposal was that the best solution to the pressing issue of hunger amongst the working class was to “eat the Irish.� While the joke may not translate today, at the time it was a considered a shocking and obviously satiric answer to a legitimate problem of the time.
While hunger and poverty continue to plague the world today, this is not a political blog but rather one devoted to automotive issues. One of the most pressing concerns in the automotive world is the rash of nasty, unnecessary traffic accidents involving teenaged drivers racing on the streets. Young blood runs hot and rational decision-making is not a long suit of that demographic. The consequence is that young people look to test their cars and the limits of their abilities with illegal and often dangerous street racing.
My modest proposal is that every young driver be compelled to take a driving instruction course on a real racecourse in real racecars and instructed by real racecar drivers. Put the young drivers at speed, allow them to lose control of a car and teach them how to recover. Make practical physics come alive for the kids by showing them how to toss a car into a drift and how to recover from traction loss.
And then let them race. Put them out in groups of a dozen or so in matching sedans with complete safety equipment suites on a track and let them run against each other. Instruct them to run hard, let them run off the road, bask fenders, even roll over if they play too rough. But give them that experience and show them that the track is the place where that kind of behavior belongs. Make auto racing accessible to young people; make sure that there is a drag strip and an autocross course available for “run what ya brung� events that kids can test each other in their street cars.
Showing kids that there is an appropriate place for exercising their youthful enthusiasm for fast cars will only serve to make our street safer.