The Fast and The Dangerous: Be Careful on the Road

The Fast and the Furious movies continue to be monster hits, and it seems the dangerous lifestyle depicted on screen is bleeding over into real life. More and more cities are dealing with death and serious injury caused by young people engaging in illegal street racing. Establishing clear causation between popular culture and real life is always difficult, but it seems reasonable to assume that the dangerous activities in movies are leading to dangerous behaviors in real life.

The most recent incident occurred in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Two people were killed when two black Mustangs raced at high speeds. One driver lost control and swerved into oncoming traffic. One of the drivers was only sixteen years old, and is now potentially facing murder charges or voluntary manslaughter charges.

Incidents like this have become much too common. In just the past month:

• A street race in Rhode Island left two cars as fiery wreckage
• A six car crash in California was caused by two cars racing
• Three children in Chicago were left orphaned after their parents were killed in an accident caused by street racing

The common denominator across all these accidents is the young age of the offenders. In most of the cases there was at least one sixteen year old involved, and the oldest street racers were only in their mid-twenties.

This type of dangerous behavior is highly likely to lead to severe injury or death, due to the high speeds reached during street racing. Intervening before the act is important, because once young people start engaging in dangerous behavior, it can be difficult to get them to stop.

If you or someone you love has been involved in a car accident, it is important to determine whether or not dangerous activity on the part of the other driver was a contributing factor. The police will do a basic investigation, but an experienced lawyer will be able to guide you through the process of determining just what caused the crash.