I've followed the Peninsula Rd accident that took three young men's lives with interest. The subject is very familiar to me. As a high performance car driver, I have enjoyed twisting back roads and beautiful scenery while piloting several top makes through the turns. Sometimes it was while evaluating a car for a road test to be printed in a magazine. Often it was for self enjoyment with my own Trans Am,'Cuda or GTO. The story of Tyler,Corey,Kourosh and Elzinga is sad.I feel anger inside but not for the usual reasons. It's too easy to blame the driver for the accident. Especially since the Toronto Star decided to print the details of each departed person's driving records, before most of them had a court date, I might add. Some anger is against Tyler for putting himself and others in a terrible position. Most of my anger is directed towards the cruel deal life imposes on us. Think of it. We have health, beauty, energy and more time than we know what to do with in our late teens and early twenties. We don't have experience, mastery of our base desires or long range planning. When we do get those skills, we've lost a considerable amount of health, beauty, etc.
Let me add another element to the deadly cocktail that grenaded that weekend. The performance capability of modern cars is so strong it makes mediocre drivers look good and flatters good drivers. Simply put, the line between control and loss of control is thin on a good vehicle. Inexperienced drivers cross the line and may live to tell the tale. Many times they do not. The Toyota Supra Turbo from the late 1980s is a good example. I was in this car when it lost control at night through a sharp turn. It went airborne and landed on an traffic island. My friend the driver did one thing wrong, he let exuberance take control and fed the car into a corner too fast for proper downshifting. A rapid series of downshifts unstabilized the car, unloaded a rear tire and sent the car off the road. We were very lucky to escape unharmed. The driver was very good, one of the best I've seen. It was youth and relative inexperience that put us airborne. Today, he'd never push the car beyond its capabilities for that corner. There was no time to react. It just happened. Very likely it was the same deal for Tyler.
Would proper driver training have saved him? I can't say. It might have given an edge. He'd still have inexperience without lots of miles accrued through years of driving under various situations. Sadly, youthful exuberance is likely what killed these three men. Yes, I know all three had run ins for driving infractions, some of them serious. It underlines their youth and inability to fully consider the cost of behaviour. We know now from studies that cognitive reasoning isn't fully developed until later in life. I'd say this is an example.
All we can learn from this is life is fleeting and easily extinguished. Anything we can do to protect it should be considered. Better driver training, better law enforcement, stronger penalties might help. I don't think it can do as much as the awareness of fragile life. That comes from within. Rest In Peace.
