Speed kills




The weather is dry again and good traction has returned to the scenic mountain highways, but aggressive young drivers who use the serpentine surfaces for their own private raceway are liable to end up in the hospital with traction issues of their own.


A group of public safety officials last week announced a crackdown on the local canyon racers, and said that driving tricked-out cars and motorcycles at top speed on the mountain roads, especially Mulholland Highway, is a recipe for disaster.


We’ve reported on the problem in two of our last three Acorn issues. We regret to say, however, that a website billing itself as an "underground sanctuary for arguably the fastest canyon drivers in the world," www.mulholland raceway.org, took The Acorn to task for publishing the articles.


The culprits in this high-speed game of chicken are testosterone-driven young males—perhaps with a wife or girlfriend urging them on—who like to take fast driving to the extreme. Pop a wheelie, burn a doughnut—it’s all great fun until you or, worse yet, an oncoming driver ends up at the bottom of a 200-foot ravine. In the last two years there have been over 750 traffic collisions in the canyons and 11 deaths, according to the CHP.


To all the hot-rodders out there we say this: Gamble with your own life if you must, but don’t inconvenience the rest of us by making us sit in traffic while the paramedics airlift your corpse out of the ditch.


Nobody has the "freedom" to drive fast, despite what the renegade website and the racing community say. This is not the Bill of Rights we’re talking about. Dangerous driving on curvy mountain roads is against the law and is harmful to the safety of everyone.


One more thing: Parents, please, think twice before buying Johnnie that souped-up BMW for his 16th birthday. Most young men, teens especially, haven’t fully learned what it means to be responsible behind the wheel.



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *