Canadian tragedy sparks calls to ban aftermarket parts
A tragedy on Toronto streets that claimed the lives of a pair of enthusiasts has once again set alight political fires alight by those looking to ban performance modifications to automobiles.
Whether the deaths are attributable to street racing remains up for debate, but the event has triggered calls for the banning of go-fast bits like nitrous oxide.
Wheels' chief scribe Jim Kenzie rants in the Toronto Star that taking such action is little better than conclusions drawn from overly simplistic metaphors like:
Prostitutes wear short skirts. That woman is wearing a short skirt.
Therefore, she's a prostitute.
Said another way, banning aftermarket parts and the tuner culture would be to wrongly attack a symptom, not the problem of street racing itself.
What do you think about street racing and the efforts made to prevent it? Sound off in comments!
[Sources: Toronto Star; PopCenter.org]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Tim UF 7:36PM (6/04/2006)
people just need to go to open nights at the local strips...
or at least get WAAAAAAAy outside of town (think, montana) where there are no curves, hills, people or traffic to get in the way...
and yes, people tinkering with their cars arent the problem, its the ones that drive irresponsibly that are the problem.
also, banning all aftermarket parts would hurt other auto cultures besides the go-fast guys. what about the offroaders that go slow on hard trails that not even the 'trailrated' jeeps cant go on without at least some sort of extra suspension articulation.
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Tim UF 7:39PM (6/04/2006)
just a qualifier: yes i have been in montana, and yes western montana has some serious mountain road that you do NOT want to speed in. eastern montana on the other hand is mostly big wide open and flat, with straight roads... theres a speed limit there again in most places now also, so i want to be clear that i am in favor of drving excessively over the speed limit anywhere.
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md 8:05PM (6/04/2006)
It is the driver's fault. period
Either the driver could not handle the vehicle or the driver did not correctly install these parts.
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rc 8:46PM (6/04/2006)
Nitrous should be banned from street use. Their is no good reason for this type of aparatus in a legal street car. This does not mean the setup for the system cannot be in place for weekend racing at the track. But like any responsible racer would do, leave the bottle at the track.
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Howard Kerr 9:07PM (6/04/2006)
Re Tim UF,
where I live, we have a local strip with once a week "open nights"...it hasn't stopped any kids (or adults) from racing on the local streets. Banning tuner or go fast parts won't work either as these same folks are prone to race anything. We had a woman and one of her kids killed here when two drivers (one in a Cavalier, yes, a Cavalier and one in an S-10 Blazer) felt the need to race on a crowded street. It's unfortunate, but a few/too many folks feel all too often that a gauntlet has been thrown down and they have a rep to defend and the only way to do that is to race to the next light.
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naggs 9:20PM (6/04/2006)
completly stupid to ban aftermarket parts. 1 of many problems is where do you draw the line between a 3rd party replacment part and a 3rd party replacment part that makes more hp? it is also impossible to inforce, if you outlaw performance parts, you drive the manufacture and sale of those parts underground. quality and safty would suffer. would make things worse not better. not to mention the fact that your taking a right away from everyone so that a few people who were going to get themselves hurt anyway will hit the tree at 90 mph instead of 100.
outlaw performance parts and only the worst kind of people will have access to performance part. if anything you should be doing the opposite, how about a special license that would allow ownership of high performance/modified vehicles?
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naggs 9:25PM (6/04/2006)
#4 rc, do you think that we should out law bacon cheeseburgers? there is no good reason for anyone to eat a bacon cheesburger. they are clearly dangerous and diffinitly cost us all every time some one eats one.
the argument can be made for lots of thing but its never a good one. your ignoring the one reason not to ban something, because people like to do it. almost everything fun serves "no good purpose" and has some element of danger.
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Gardiner Westbound 9:26PM (6/04/2006)
Model-Ts were street raced. Banning car modifications won't stop it. Life in prison without parole will send a clear message to potential offenders the price is too high.
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naggs 9:29PM (6/04/2006)
going overboard with punishment is never a smart way to go. if the enforcement of the law is more disruptive and damaging than the breaking of that law, your shooting yourself in the foot. which is worse, sending someone to jail for life or someone having a 10% greater chance of crashing?
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Tim UF 9:54PM (6/04/2006)
naggs, i think that the death of the driver or innocents is a pretty disruptive event. That said, what are the general punishments for vehicular manslaughter? I know its not life without parole, but it seemed to me like it was more like a slap on the wrist (I know of a guy that got convicted of this in highschool, i think he is still driving. i don't know if his driving patterns changed though).
There does need to be a higher penalty for street racing also. Perhaps an addendum to the reckless driving charge?
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Tim UF 9:55PM (6/04/2006)
oh, and the glamorization of the underground street racing scenes in Cali, Miami, and now Japan by fast and the furious movie franchise isn't helping.
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Cartman 10:07PM (6/04/2006)
Street racing was around since the beginning of time. Movies about it as well. See American Grafitti.
I say if these kids want to kill themselves, let them. 1/2 of the whole philosophy of "tuning" a car is to make it safer or safe enough to handle what you've changed.
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Brad 10:12PM (6/04/2006)
Ban aftermarket parts, and street racers will just race stock cars. Then the manufacturers will just pour on factory modifications, offering turbos and superchargers off the assembly line.
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dolatron 10:25PM (6/04/2006)
According to Transport Canada, road crashes involving a driver who had been drinking took 902 lives in 2003, the most recent year for which data are available.
Maybe they should ban drinking while they are at it.
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gbh 10:29PM (6/04/2006)
Reactionary and highly illogical. Banning hipo parts would solve nothing and eliminate no dangers in real terms.
The issue is the drivers. If you hurt someone being an idiot, you should go to jail. Safety Nazism is seldom effective - remember 85 MPH speedos?
Legislating the personal choice of such minutae as car mods, smoking, seat belts, or broccoli v. french fries is getting out of hand.
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Dylan 10:31PM (6/04/2006)
I live in Toronto, grew up here and its just like any other city. There are those who race and those who don't and those who race but shouldn't. Banning aftermarket modifications to cars would if nothing else be a violation of rights a violation that would do absolutely nothing to prevent racing. It would be like saying, ok you can buy this house but never do anything to change it. People would still race, they'd be going slower but none the less they'd still be doing it.
If anything Nitrous should be banned because its a bitch way to make your car go fast.
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dolatron 10:31PM (6/04/2006)
According to Transport Canada, road crashes involving a driver who had been drinking took 902 lives in 2003, the most recent year for which data are available.
Maybe they should ban drinking while they're at it.
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KAveh 10:37PM (6/04/2006)
Figures someone in a camero would ruin it for everyone else. And it looked like it was thru a busy area.
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Lee Salisbury 10:42PM (6/04/2006)
The majority of high performance car wrecks are caused by low performance drivers.
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Jane 10:43PM (6/04/2006)
1. Typical Canadian reaction. Very European: The government will guarantee ALL outcomes and eliminate risk.
2. Do that here--watch the Japanese car market shrivel.
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