2 Fast 2 Stop and Smell the Auto Accessories?

Car races in films inevitably spill over from the silver screen into real life. In response, folks everywhere are thinking of new ways to curb reckless driving. Will any catch on?

I’m getting nervous, people. In about a month and a half, the latest installment in the The Fast and the Furious saga will hit theaters everywhere, and you know what that means. “Inspired” drivers everywhere will begin transforming the streets into straightaways, roads into racetracks, and Lincoln Ave. into an ad hoc Le Mans course. The rubber will be peeling faster than an Irishman’s sunburned back after Labor Day.

Of course, it’s not hard to understand why life imitates art. Who among us can sit all the way through Bullitt, The Blues Brothers or The Italian Job (the 1969 version) and not want to go fishtailing around the neighborhood afterwards? Deep down, I think we all have a little Petty in our blood.  

However, as the Highway Patrol braces for the extra work that Tokyo Drift will bring their way, I have noticed that automotive safety is getting some extra attention these days. In particular, there are two movements afoot that have caught my attention, though not because they sounded sound. Let me break them down:

The Freewheelin’ Firestone

You might remember Firestone Tires from such recalls as the “6.5 million tire throw back of aught-zero,” and “Ford Explorer’s wild ride.” In an effort to boost roadway safety (and improve the company’s sullied image), Bridgestone Firestone is asking for suggestions on how to make driving safer. Now, you might imagine that they would be consulting with the brightest minds from NASA or DARPA for expert engineering advice, but you’d be wrong—dead wrong. Instead, they’ve tapped into an often overlooked brain-power resource: American high schools. Though hardly known as a bastion of groundbreaking thought, high schools are now, apparently, the fertile crescent of automotive invention.

That’s right, the rubber company has started a contest asking youngsters (16-21) for their ideas on how to sweep the streets clean of dangerous driving practices. Don’t get me wrong. The intentions behind the contest are genuine. As they say on their site, the company cares “deeply about driver and tire safety” (I wonder: are they more concerned about the driver’s safety or the tire’s safety?). However, it does strike me as a tad ironic that a company with a reputation for building fatally flawed tires is teaming up with a population of drivers who are notorious for causing accidents to improve road safety. Does this not reek of the blind leading the blind? Why not ask scalpel-wielding psychos and that guy who made an umbrella out of human skin to draft some new crime legislation?

Forbidden Knowledge

A local news segment brought to light another attempt at reducing accidents, but it seems to me to be more than a little counter productive. Here’s the setup: an area high school played host to an area race driving instructor, who brought a handful of turbo-charged sports cars to the parking lot for some lessons. The wide-eyed teens got behind the wheel of BMW M3s and sped around a solemn course and other obstacles. Most of the time, the students took out cones like they were at Ben and Jerry’s, which made me feel even more nervous about parking at the mall. You could tell by the way that the kids gripped the wheel single-handedly in their best Vin Diesel pose that they had tasted spirited driving, and they would need another fix.

The real kicker to this story, though, is that the purpose of this class is to break young drivers of the illusion that they are really in control of their vehicle. By killing cones all day long and experiencing first-hand how long it really takes to go from 50 to a dead stop, it’s supposed to scare them onto the straight and narrow path. But, I can’t help but feel that each kid walked away from that class jonesing for speed. Is this not playing with fire during a drought in a field of scrub brush?

Now, I love fast cars. I can’t imagine not arming my autos with performance accessories (cold air intakes, cat back exhaust systems, oversized camshafts, nitrous oxide, etc.), but I do get a little nervous when people take street racing too far. Want to put the pedal to the metal? Take a trip to your local drag strip. Some cities even have legal street racing sponsored by the Cops. It’s a great way to spend a Saturday night, and you won’t end up skidding out of control into a storefront window.

Images courtesy of  devil-soul and Lazyousuf.