One fine May morning not long ago my oldest son, 17 at the time, phoned to tell me that he had just spent a couple hours at the state police barracks. Apparently he had been driving “a little fast.” What, I asked, was “a little fast”? Turns out this product of my genes and loving care, the boy-man I had swaddled, coddled, cooed at, and then pushed and pulled to the brink of manhood, had been flying down the highway at 113 miles an hour.
Moody. Impulsive. Maddening. Why do teenagers act the way they do? Viewed through the eyes of evolution, their most exasperating traits may be the key to success as adults.
My record as a youngster was 225 km/h (140 mph) between Montreal and Quebec City, and I did not get caught. The best part of it was getting *passed* by a young lady in an Audi. I had the pedal all the way to the floor, and I just couldn’t hold her off. The friend I was with took her picture as she passed, cute smile and wink from her as she left us behind – still have the photo.
I was not a teenager, but mid-20’s.
No regrets whatsoever.
Only 113? Tell your son to get a real car.
Teenagers have a constricted temporal focus. They think about the here and now, not about the there and then.
This is normal.
They lack the cognitive capacity to consider the future, because they haven’t experienced much of it. If you don’t believe me, think about the fabulously short-sighted and stupid things you did when you were younger. If you deny you did such things, you are lying to yourself, and it’s not a good idea to lie to yourself. You lose your capacity to understand reality.
In Rebel Without a Cause, Natalie Wood perfectly nails the mentality of constricted temporal focus. It’s all there in one scene.
The main things to do are to strongly object to self-destructive behaviour, and set conditions for everything. Do not enable. If he wants you to bail him out, ask for the car keys until the bail is paid back. If he keeps secrets, take the door off his room. If you find dope in his room, phone the police. If you do these things, it will be easier to love him, which you should try to keep doing.
When people experience the negative consequences of their actions, they begin to broaden their temporal focus. They understand the future better.
Keep up the fight. Parents have been fighting it for at least 5,000 years.
Pro Patria
” “ ’Reckless’ sounds like you’re not paying attention.
I like that.
Years ago when I was closer to that age,I found myself in a courthouse in Idaho,using the same defense.I split a couple of cars om my bike,fully aware of what I was doing and very aware of the cars,you don’t have a fender bender on a bike.
The judge harumphhed,and asked if I was aware that I could go to jail,and it was her decision. She then gave me an opportunity to change my plea.
I thought,smiled,changed my plea and threw myself at the mercy of the court. It worked out.
When you are young you take chances to test yourself and others.It is the way it is.
I took my 17 year old son out in my VW Jetta, and found it would go 180 km/h, he said “Mum’s car only goes 160 km/h.” I told my wife who asked “How does he know how fast it can go?”
If that’s the case, then I have 2 CEO’s of multi-nationals in waiting.
Why does teenagehood have to last 15 years?
Something in the Quebec air I guess.
Never did much +100 stuff but those dark nights with no traffic
and two 2 lane roads meet at a right angle for a slow turn but
there was this long speedy “do not enter” ramp coming from
where I wanted to get to but it was for the opposing traffic ….
.
When you see on enough occasions, the impacts on innocent lives by those who drive recklessly – you start to feel guilty about what sort of jerk you were on the road when you were a kid.
165 in 64 e-type coupe (black) – how the driver/owner kept in a straight line I don’t know. The sound of the dohc remains permanently embedded in my memory.
THC stores itself in the brains fatty tissue which is why smoking weed, especially at today’s high THC content, is so damaging to a young persons cognitive development.
Schizophrenia and other mental illness is steadily rising for precisely this reason. Maturity is arrested when a young person begins smoking weed regularly, for some even occasional smoking can have devastating effects if there is a family history of mental illness. It’s very sad. Some do not recover and suffer lifelong mental illness as a result.
The THC content in weed began increasing in the mid 80’s.
Exert from linked article:
“For starters, the brain’s axons—the long nerve fibers that neurons use to send signals to other neurons—become gradually more insulated with a fatty substance called myelin (the brain’s white matter), eventually boosting the axons’ transmission speed up to a hundred times. Meanwhile, dendrites, the branchlike extensions that neurons use to receive signals from nearby axons, grow twiggier, and the most heavily used synapses—the little chemical junctures across which axons and dendrites pass notes—grow richer and stronger. At the same time, synapses that see little use begin to wither.”
Scientific proof we should repeal the 26th Amendment. Our Founding Fathers understood this more than two centuries ago.
Reckless and carefree: pretty much describes your typical teenage liberal.
My cousin got pulled over in his truck. The officer said “I had a hard time catching you”. My cousing replied “Thanks, I just had ‘er tuned”
oh God, here we go again.
the right wing ‘I’m my own man’ crowd cooing about the capabilities of unchecked technology.
what future is there for the innocent bystander who gets plowed over by some Formula 1 wannabe?
one of the best jobs I ever had was at 18 yrs age when my brother the auto body repair shop owner hired me to remove the damaged parts. the shop was on highway 21 on the way to Sarnia. He got the high speed highway wrecks.
one day I asked him what’s with the bulges in the windshield??? came the answer, oh, that’s where their heads hit.
EEP !!!
he also sponsored a race car and I had the chance to talk to the driver who said he sometimes felt safer on the track than the highway because at least there you were dealing with pros whose actions were far more responsible and predictable.
but every system has built-in limitations, so let’s hope the lead-footed elites continue to kill off themselves and leave the serious business of using vehicles as a tool of commerce instead, to the rest of us.
@CEO Not a clue what life is about, have you? Not every trashing of the rules leads to tragic failure. Sometimes it simply lifts and energizes the spirit. Take a chance once in a while, you have no idea how far you can go.
NASA: Hi guys, were thinking about a trip to moon. who’s up for gig for a couple of days that’s out of this world?
Astronaut Rodney: Dunno boss, sounds dangerous, what if we can’t get back? What if we miss and keep on going? I got a restaurant reservation that took me 6 months to get – hate to miss it.
Astronaut Buzz: Bitchin! Sign me up! Food’s terrible at that restaurant anyway. Let’s go fly!
“Not every trashing of the rules leads to tragic failure”
hi skip. let’s compare dive logs, both the scuba and parachute type. then let’s discuss what ‘life is all about’.
care to count the number of dead astronauts and cosmonauts? we KNOW what space travel is like. it is instantly fatal even when you aren’t ‘testing the limits’.
my point stands; every system has within it a limitation. NASA learned that and all those windshield bump makers learned it too.
Im not a thrill seeker but Im still here exploring my world and critiquing others who may not be.
anybody care to take in an air show? be sure and put your crash helmet on and keep the vid camera at the ready.
This would be the video game generation. God help us all.
Some of you are complete idiots here. Once you’re vehicle is going over 140km/h, it CANNOT BE CONTROLLED PROPERLY. It’s not a matter of how good the car is, or how good a driver you are, it’s simple physics.
At those speeds, the kinetic energy is so high that when something goes wrong, people die. We’re not just talking about the drivers here, we’re talking about other people’s kids. This is not just some cute phase kids go through, this is CRIMINAL.
Hey CEO @ 8:24
Ever heard of the law of gravity. “What goes up must come down” does not say anything about comming up after you go down.
As for getting out of a perfectly good airplane to hang off a piece of cloth, enough said.
COE and Adunce
we should all go to a garden shed in the back yard and smoke weed and pretend to be cool, no one else gits hurt. Problemo is that when mums cash runs out you either go on welfare or steel other people’s money by other means
Yesterday’s cars (the lead sleds of the late 60s and early 70s) had some nice built-in obsolescence, that helped signal the young and fearless driver, that I was at that time. Late 60s Mustang, 74 Torino, 70 Fairlane, each one of them would start to shake and rattle once they hit that area over 85.
But when those cars did wipe out, of that era, at least there was a modicum of protection, due to the heavy gauge sheet metal and frames of yesteryear.
Today’s tin cans rip apart upon collision, very nice design feature.
Plus today’s cars handle far better than those beloved sleds of yesteryear, and are at least as powerful, while not feeling like you are going fast at all.
The 02 1.8T Jetta sailed along the Coquihalla at 160kmh, and had LOTS of pedal to go….and that was -in traffic- with the family! Felt like we were doing 100.
Th 00 GT Mustang is another beast entirely. Again, its been at 160kmh up Island on the highway by Campbell River, and was begging for more, but, didn’t have to go more than that, I knew that car has huge top end, bien plus!
But that’s why today’s young kids are more -in danger-, the cars are much much better engineered than the days of my youth, in terms of handling and power, but the kids aren’t experienced enough to know or understand.
The old cars would tell you their limits before you were in trouble.
@adune “Some of you are complete idiots here. Once you’re vehicle is going over 140km/h, it CANNOT BE CONTROLLED PROPERLY. It’s not a matter of how good the car is, or how good a driver you are, it’s simple physics.”
No, this statement is not about physics, its just nonsense. Of course it can. Don’t run with scissors. In fact, don’t run. Your kinetic energy may kill you. Don’t fly. Airplanes regularly fly above 140 kph. The kinetic enrgy will kill you.
My CAR handles and drives BEST in top gear at 130.
Is it legal? No. Will it work? You betcha. Can all roads be driven at that speed? No, dummy. Can a driver (pilot, helmsman, runner, climber, walker, swimmer) exercise bad judgment? Absolutely. Sh*t happens. There’s a picture/video currently circulating about a poor young woman who was sitting in her car, stopped in traffic, chatting on her cell phone, when the tree next to her on the boulevard decided to fall. Right on top of her. Completely crushed the car. She was killed instantly. Must have been the cell phone that caused it, it was the only illegal thing she was doing. Some of you safety n*zis need to get over yourselves. If you don’t want to get killed stay home. Oh, wait, your odds of getting hurt at home are higher than anywhere else…
DemocracyRules: ” They lack the cognitive capacity to consider the future, because they have’nt experienced much of it”
What??????????
I’m assuming your car does something no other car can at precicely 88 mph.
CEO I see what your getting at, but I think that type of thinking has metastasized into a bunch of idiots with perfect world ideas trying to micro manage people’s lives, it’s getting boring and turning individuals into drones without a clue and the free will to live alittle.
I know a race car driver as well.In his youth he out ran a cop just in the wee hours of the morning of outside a small town near Sarnia in a Mustang with the lights off pedal to the floor. The passenger in the front seat backwards watching how far the cop was behind them. They ditched it in a cornfield wiped it down with beer and reported it stolen (and got away with it).
Extreme maybe to many but from where I came just a little more ballsy then most of us that grew up when crop touring and weekend dances where a past time.
Until younger cops, stiffer laws and insurance rates decided different.
“Late 60s Mustang, 74 Torino, 70 Fairlane, each one of them would start to shake and rattle once they hit that area over 85.”
Fairlane Yup. Shoulda bought a GTO or Olds 442 🙂 Happy at 100mph, no shake, rattle and roll. My 70 GTO, even at 25yrs old, would still snap you back at 140kph. Today’s cars are more agile than yesterday’s, but they’re not more powerful.
Around here, the defacto speed limit is 130 kliks in heavy traffic. What’s another 10kph?
I think helmets in cars should be mandatory. It will make things much safer, and helmets would be far better at preventing head injuries than airbags. Also, 5-point seatbelt harnesses should also be mandatory whenever you drive on the highway, as should fire retardant driving suits.
I think all cars should also be installed with a mandatory sensor, that communicates with sensors in the road, such that the car is prevented from ever going over the speed limit for the road it is on. The government should have the ability to also dynamically set the speed limits to which the sensor adhere depending on weather.
Anyone who defeats their car’s sensor should go to the electric chair.
tj….nothing should be manditory sorry man .
I will say that it should be suggested and that evidence proves that seat belts save lives so i can only assume thata helmet and a five point harness would do an even better job but i am not about to demand that from anyone. If your dumb eneough to not wear a seat belt and you drive like a maniac oh well we generally know the out come
P in C, TJ left off the /sarc tag….
TJ, electric chair? Come on!
Hang ’em. Rope’s cheaper, chair’s a waste of perfectly good electrons.
CEO said: “oh God, here we go again. the right wing ‘I’m my own man’ crowd cooing about the capabilities of unchecked technology. what future is there for the innocent bystander who gets plowed over by some Formula 1 wannabe?”
First of all, what the hell is it with you Lefties that you can’t find the f-ing shift key? Is it an affectation or a mental disturbance?
Second of all, cars are not “tools of commerce”. They are personal property, to be used as the owner sees fit. People use their own judgement as to what they feel is reasonable at any given time. 115 mph down a clear back road with no laneways and no livestock is not unreasonable, its just illegal. Its illegal because laws are (by neccessity) one-size-fits-all. Cops are not the be-all and end-all of what is reasonable, they are primarily TAX COLLECTORS. Speed traps are not set up for safety, they are for the income stream.
115 mph through a school zone at lunch time, clearly a different situation.
Loosen your girdle a bit.
Skip said: “Today’s cars are more agile than yesterday’s, but they’re not more powerful.”
Skip, dude. 1968 Mustang Fastback vs. 2010 Mustang GT? It’d be a slaughter at the drags and on the road course.
I’ve got a 1964 Buick Riviera with a 425 nailhead in it. It produces prodigious horsepower and torque. If I compare it to a modern fuel injected V8 (with comparable displacement), there’s no contest. Roller cams, tuned exhaust, intake geometry and flow, head design,ignition, even castings are all better and tolerances are much tighter.
1900cc VW vs 2000cc Subaru? Slaughter! I’ve seen some turbocharged 400hp VW engines in sand rails, you have to rebuild them every season because they just can’t take it. Subaru will make 400hp just by changing the spring in the turbo blow-off valve.
“First of all, what the hell is it with you Lefties that you can’t find the f-ing shift key?”
Phantom you just touched on one of my biggest pet peeves! These idiots think that not using the shift key is “cool”. It’s too bad Kate does not have an automatic filter for such posts.
“Its illegal because laws are (by necessity) one-size-fits-all.”
Exactly right. If you are sitting in a standstill traffic jam where the road has been temporarily closed due to an accident, it is technically illegal in BC to use your cell phone. Don’t dare call your wife and tell her you’ll be an hour late so she does not worry. That is the absurdity of law. But as you say, it is one size fits all. May laws are written for people with average intelligence and experience.
Skip – the point is, trashing the rules while enjoyable, usually affects others. A friend in college occasionally felt the need for 100+mph highway driving. He killed is best friend that way. It was a tough education; his high speed runs ended after that. I imagine he would have said he hadn’t had a clue what life was about, as he barreled over the pavement at maximum speed.
Or should he have continued as he had before his crash?
Everyone who advocates being “left” should be forced to register as such. A registry shouldn’t bother them as they advocate registries all the time.
From there we can go into their lives and start regulating anything we feel is unsafe, unhealthy or deemed unwise by us for them.
It would never work of course because they would be living in houses full of rubber rooms, and we in turn would have become the Liberal Left. Yet the justice for humanity’s sake seems appropriate
“small c” people die every day just driving the speed limit.
Young men have something in large quantities called testosterone. It can make them do some crazy things.
Part of the problem is that youngsters today take far too long to grow up. The testosterone is going full blast, but mentally they are immature, and that is a risky combination. It is usually the immature ones that end up in accidents, because they cannot make sensible decisions as to when it is safe to go fast and when it is not.
In the hands of a mature and intelligent mind, a fast car can be a good deal of fun, and it can be safe.
Last summer I made a startling discovery….
I got out on 401 (super slab) with my bike…traffic moving fast…then I spotted a body on an overpass about 1 mile away…I backed off and exited to check it out.
A Kojak with a kodak, with 3 catchers–more coming it turned out….he kept 5 catchers busy.
He had set his devise to go off at 140k (100k limit) his victims were mini-vans, SUVs…no bikes, sports car or trucks…and still he had to let some get away….catchers were busy writing.
He enquired as to my destination and suggested I go the scenic route….”It’s nuts out there”…I agreed that was the plan…..
I was once young and foolish too,…..I survived….now I drive some-what defensively…especially wary of the aspiring Mario Andretti’s charging STOP SIGNS…
My reflexes are not what they were once and I figure I have used up my luck……
“sometimes felt safer on the track than the highway”
No kidding, that’s because every car is going in the same direction.
“Once you’re vehicle is going over 140km/h, it CANNOT BE CONTROLLED PROPERLY” Adune @10:24
What utter bull. I won the 1978 British Formula Ford Championship & recently raced a 500 hp carbon fiber Grand Am car at 185mph. Crashed many times too, not because the car couldn’t be controlled, but because I either ran it beyond it’s capabilities in a corner, or made contact with another while scrapping for the same piece of road. Never did I lose control on a straightaway. Ever.
TJ – In the hands of a mature and intelligent mind, a fast car can be a good deal of fun, and it can be safe.
Is the “mature and intelligent human” cognizant of all the unknowns that can happen driving over the speed limit on a road some other mature and intelligent human is also traversing feeling reasonably safe with his/her family safely secure in their approved seat belts?
Free advice for a safe thrill: Rent a raceway. Or, take up sky diving and pack your own parachute.
I agree RCGZ, it is utter bull. I have a jacked up diesel F-350 with 38″ mud tires and have found myself unintentionally flirting with 140 kph many times and have always been in total control. When you are sitting that high off the ground 140 feels like 100, and 100 feels more like 70, so it’s easy to get speeding if you don’t pay close attention to the speedo.
Adune said: “This is not just some cute phase kids go through, this is CRIMINAL.”
Yeah, uh huh. You’re going to need a lot more jails dude, because except for you and maybe two other people in the world, its normal.
By the way, if you’ve never pushed your car faster than 140K, you’re a mega-wuss. Standard traffic on the QEW goes faster than that some days. There are plenty of highways in the USA where the speed limit is 80mph (130k) and the average speed is 95mph (150+k).
Highway I-10 from Phoenix to Tucson springs forcibly to mind. My rented Kia Sophia handled it like a drive to church, didn’t even move the engine temperature needle off “normal”.
If you think your car can’t handle speeds faster than 140K safely, your car is a POS and you need a new one.
If you think your extreme fear gives you the right to regulate -my- life to fit your unreasonable preconceptions, you must be a liberal.
Rules and laws that prevent others from being hurt undoubtedly make sense. It is a civilized society that creates a safe environment to live from the criminality and stupidity of others. On the other hand rules & laws preventing harm to oneself is simply socialist nanny state interference in free people’s lives for no other purpose than control and power. A society of free thinking adults would get by quite well on education and warnings. Unfortunately today’s society is full of liberalized misfits, the perpetual youth and life’s other entitlement losers. Yet it is they the stupid and the needy that demand that Big Brother watches and controls all things for everyone.
Laws do not prevent the stupid from committing crimes. Regulations only restrict and target sensible law abiding citizens from exercising their basic freedoms and rights to property.
It is a delicate balance to live civilized, safe and free. We’ve done a hell of a good job of it up until late. That has rapidly changed for the worse as we lose the balance towards restricted freedoms in a “Liberal”/ “Progressive” society of regulation, entitlement slavery, increasing crime and massive third world importation.
Kinetic energy increases with the square of velocity. Which aspect of control improves in proportion to KE? in proportion
to velocity? None, including the skills of the driver. The fact that some drivers may claim they maintain great control at higher speed is a matter of perception, and doesn’t change the physical reality of the situation.
Small c, is safety the ultimate moral value then?
“My rented Kia Sophia handled it like a drive to church, didn’t even move the engine temperature needle off “normal”. Phantom@ 1:55
You’re making me smile. When I first got to England in 76, this old boy from speed regulated Canada was stunned to see Ford Escorts blowing by me on the M1 at 90mph with engines whining like sewing machines @ 6000rpm.
Then there was the autobahn. Now there was speed.
Montana: No Speed Limit Safety Paradox
“The study shows the safest period on Montana’s Interstate highways was when there were no daytime speed limits or enforceable speed laws”.
http://www.motorists.org/press/montana-no-speed-limit-safety-paradox
My father, bless him, would never drive faster than 90 mph on gravel, because he didn’t consider it safe.
If you couldn’t control a car at 140 mph on open, flat, straight pavement, I’d be dead many times over. You do have to pay attention. And indeed, there’s an awful lot of road out there that you can’t drive at such speed, and it sneaks up on you fast, so I don’t recommend it. But that’s not quite the same as being impossible.
I agree knight 99 , i don’t think the state has a right to tell me to wear a seat belt (even if it does save lives) or not to speed (even though that may harm others around you) ..I just don’t understand people logic . i alway’s wear my seat belt , and i don’t speed. But if i did what right does the state have to stop me , and order me to pay them money ? it makes no sence at all. i think the punishment is fitting if you decide to drive your car fast and your not wearing your seat belt ….have a nice flight and if you survive your private health care cost is going to go up ..plain and simple..oh wait someoneelses stupidity cost’s me money. uhm never mind. lol.
Phantom – I believe highway drivers prefer more safety over less safety. Treating others as they wish to be treated is always morally superior to ignoring others wishes. So driving safely on public highways is better than driving selfishly. Very few drivers actually are indifferent about individual car traveling 50 mph faster than they are.
If you are driving at a fantastic speed on a deserted highway, then that moral aspect of respecting other driver’s wishes is not relevant, but others still are, such as responsibilities towards dependent family members at home. In a larger sense, is anyone’s life so meaningless that risking their life simply for a thrill doesn’t matter?
TJ: AB has gone way further in the stupidity game. Not just no phone, but no gps, no media player, no other electronics, no personal care, limited food/drink consumption, controlled pets…the list goes on. Smoking is allowed, as long as you’re not doing something else at the same time. It starts the time you enter a public roadway (including parking lots) to the time you leave it or properly park. I think the fine is $175.
There are specific exemptions for emergency workers (on duty only) and some professions like cabbies during the course of their work. As well, the traffic cops are allowed to use “discretion”, but recent reports indicate that they don’t have a clue yet.
It came into effect on the 1st. It’s one of the biggest, most useless, stupid pieces of BS to come out of Edmonton ever.
Paul in calgary >
Noting spin off effects, have you ever driven/ ridden in places like China, South East Asia, India or the Middle East?
It makes the head spin to realize we are importing those drivers wholesale. Yes and they do indeed seem to miraculously pass Canadian drivers exams?? It’s very confusing for those who have witnessed these perpetual accidents in motion behind the wheel. I find it hilarious to see the confusion on Asian faces in Canada when they try to reconcile ideas such as “pedestrians have the right of way” and not the right of their most precious car.
small c conservative >
“….is anyone’s life so meaningless that risking their life simply for a thrill doesn’t matter?”
Not to debate your safe driving comments, I also drive safe when on public roads out of courtesy and personal safety. Occasionally I’ll get out on isolated back roads with my bike and let er rip, but it’s just me, free space and no seatbelt.
On the flip side, what is meaningful in life if there is no thrill and everything is regulated for your safety? Living day to day safely as a government tax slave is certainly no life, nor is living in a depressing nuclear family scenario controlled by “progressive” regulation and regimented scheduling. No one really cares for your personal safety outside of your family and possibly small circle of friends, period. Certainly none of these so called “safety do-gooders”. At the core they are little tin pot Stalinist tyrants in sheep’s clothing.
At the end of the day, one regulation breeds 2 more regulations and so on. The Liberal left and their insistence on more regulations & tax’s is not to any one individuals benefit and health. It’s about power & control over the mass‘s, a backwards movement of European based constitutions of freedoms and rights hard fought over centuries.
To the teen thing. When I was that age (like to think it wasn’t TOO long ago), I sped a lot. So did all my friends. Was it bad? Yes- but when you are that age you have your whole life in front of you and think you can survive anything and will live forever. Is that a bad thing? No. That is the same dynamic that drives teens forward a little later in life. It urges them to take chances, live life to the fullest and be successful.
Teens these days have had all their natural outlets curtailed by a nanny state. Wear helmets. Slow down. Don’t eat junk food. The list goes on forever.
My advice to the original poster is to let your son get a job. Let him buy his own car as soon as he can. If he chooses to speed he will be caught and will learn the price of consequences.
Lastly, I think our police spend WAY too much time on our highways looking for speeders. They sit in their expensive cars essentially collecting money for the government. I really wish they spent more time responding to real crime. In my neighbourhood, I passed three speed traps on a fifty k drive. The response time to a burglary call is in the hours. They say speed kills. The reality is that it is folks who hang off your back bumper on the highway, talk on their cel phones or switch lanes constantly.