I know we’ve already done a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot blog this morning. And last time I looked, TTAC wasn’t Jalopnik. But I reckon this video raises an interesting question for all you fathers with sons out there. Is hooning a permissable male bonding experience? I’ve been blessed with [four] daughters. I’m teaching them to drive on a private road. Have done since they were five. And I’m planning on giving them track time, so they can handle high-speed evasive maneuvers and learn accident avoidance. But if one my daughters ever pulled a stunt like this when I was riding shotgun, there would be MAJOR consequences. I’m not saying they should all drive like driving instructors (when students are on board). Nor could I look them in the eye and say “buy a slow car” (assuming please God they’re using their own money). But I would never, ever accept high-speed driving on a public road (AT NIGHT?) while I was in the car. Veteran readers will know that former Car and Driver editor Stephan Wilkinson proudly relates his daughter’s driving chops on TTAC’s e-pages. So, as Bill O’Reilly asks (even though he’s just setting-up a nominal interviewee for an extended brow-beating), am I wrong?
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Not cool. Go to a track and have fun, don’t risk other people’s lives out on public streets.
I saw this video on streetfire last night and laughed. Kind of reminds me of some test drives I’ve taken my father on, only the setting was far more rural, and the cars were far, far cheaper.
“Is hooning a permissable male bonding experience?” I would say to a certain degree, yes.
I also learned to drive early; usually on private land with my dad’s guidance. But he would have never let me do something like that. I once hit the brakes too hard and I still remember what he said to me. :O
When I was a young boy my Father used to take our 59 Sport Fury out occasionally for a drive on what was called the 5 mile stretch in what is now Virginia Beach. Dead striaght road in a rural section, minimal traffic. He would put the pedal to the metal ostensibly to “clean the carbuerator” as he put it. It was never patrolled as it was sort of understood that this is where you could have a little fun. Good ole boy network in the county back then. He would routinely hit 80 for just a short stretch, but he was a good driver. Used to thrill me and scare the s**t out of me at the same time. I miss the old man.
Pffff. I remember when my dad and I drove over a Potato field in a VW Super Beetle Convertible. Nobody got hurt, I think the crops survived, and it made a life-long memory. I say it’s a great way to bond.
Would we do something zany on a public road in traffic? No. But “hoonery” is definitely a dad-son bonding experience. Especially because, at heart, all adult males are 15 years old. So, both parties can operate and communicate on the same level.
What happened to the edit feature?
Never mind, it showed up just now but I can’t edit my previous comment.
Striaght = straight
It takes real effort to pull such foolishness in either a 1976 Dodge Aspen (slant six, auto) or a 1986 Toyota Corolla (auto, front-drive), or a Toyota Van LE.
I did manage it, but it wasn’t easy. You could make a case that driving the van around a corner constituted reckless hoonage.
I think the title “Missed a Double Darwin Award by THAT Much…” oversells the level of danger or stupidity depicted in the video.
When I saw the start of the video on surface streets, I thought to my self “Oh, no. That are they going to do.” Then I kept waiting for something to happen, and received no payoff.
There were no close calls, no tailgating, no weaving in and out of traffic, and no panic stops. It was just a couple of guys accelerating quickly and slowing down again in an empty lane on a freeway with a medium amount of traffic.
It looked like something most guys would do in an overpowered car every once in a while. You have a few dozen car lengths of space in front of you, you stomp on the gas, pass a couple of cars, slow back down to the speed of traffic again.
doesnt seem like a big deal to me. he is driving much better the the d-bag in the Cherokee that was behind me on the way to work today.
I’m with Maeloch. Looked like one of my test drives, albeit with 2-3x the power.
I’ve seen triple digits more than a few times with either me or my old man driving. We have confidence in the machine and our skills and so trust each other.
you have to pick your location carefully, I don’t think they were in a proper location to wind it up.
Well, I should explain that what Farago is referring to anent my daughter is the time I wrote about sitting contentedly next to her while she cruised a Nissan GT-R at 150 on a long, straight, empty Nevada highway with 20-mile sightlines. (I believe some old lady harrumphed and it was edited out of the piece.)
Understand that daughter Brook has many miles of Lime Rock, Watkins Glen and Pocono experience during the last 10 years in a wide variety of single-seaters and high-performance cars such as Vipers and turbo and non-turbo Porsches including the heavily modified, lightened 911SC track car that we share.
Not exactly hoonage…
I have to admit that I did nearly the same thing with my dad in a modded WRX sedan that I wanted to buy. He wanted to go along to see why I wanted it…
Although the power level was nowhere near that M3, the idea was the same.
I took it up to about 85 mph on a deserted dirt road before he started to get jumpy. So no busy LA (or wherever that got filmed) streets for me.
If I happened to have a car that was so powerful that it NEEDED to be shown off, by all means would dad be my first passenger.
Is hooning a permissable male bonding experience?
Yes, to a certain extend, like speeding on a highway or some “rally stints” on deserted back roads.
Regulations are guidelines designed with the least gifted drivers and most craptastic cars on the streets in mind. Given the right driver and the right car, IMO they leave some room for a driver’s discretion to go faster.
However, if you do decide to follow your own rules on the streets and an accident has proven you overestimated yourself, you should also accept the consequences.
One related thing I get really annoyed by though is people going to a track day, getting in an accident with someone else and then suing the other guy. You are on a racetrack for some legal hoonage on your own part. You accept to be on a track with other hoons. You know accidents happen on a racetrack. You have your own responsibility to get out of a fellow hoon’s way.
If you can’t stand the heat…
I would say IF an accident happened, their speeding would have made the situation much worse but would not have necessarilty caused the accident.
Here is an example of where speeding would have made the near collision worse but was not anywhere near the cause. It was filmed during one of Alex Roy’s trial runs for that cross country record he broke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMjKiP6Xup8
If there was a collison I’m sure the police would have recorded that “Speed was a factor” and it would have gone into those stats books that police use to justify radar cameras etc. Too bad there is no stat for “Idiots who can’t drive”
technically it’d only be a single darwin if the dolt in the passenger chair is the father. which also assumes the teenaged idiot hadn’t pulled a palin (bristol). to qualify for a darwin award you have to take yourself out of the gene pool before passing any onwards …
I’m going to register thetruthanentcars.com. It’s like 1890 all over again!
What is the age of the driver, 16? 21? 26? 31? One chuckle for hoonage wipes out your ‘responsibility’ points, the same way one Oh-sh*t wipes out all you Attaboys.
You gotta be kidding me. Someone got their panties in a wad over THAT??? He must have hit all of, what, 80 mph? Ooooo…. My God, what if he’d actually spun a tire or something? Would you hunt him down and incarcerate him for life???
I’d say the title to this article definitely qualifies for the “Prickus Driver Over Reaction of the Week” award.
maybe I’m jaded, but where was the fast part?
Robert,
I have four boys. All learned to drive and then took advanced driving lessons on the track. The three oldest are now PCA instructors. All have a perfect driving record. The get their need for speed on the race track, not on the streets.
No biggie, but it’s what he does when Daddy’s not around that counts — I have a feeling that he hits the redline when he’s with his buddies.
Always check your mirrors before changing lanes, people!
That guy’s dad in the passenger seat is just a pansy.
Wrong place, wrong time.
But all in all, rather tame.
Dad’s a foul-mouthed instigator (No please, sh**, fu**, ha ha ha ha ha!). The typical I-want-to-be-seen-as-cool-and-a-friend-by-my-kids kinda dad. Which is neither cool or responsible fatherhood.
And the kid, while putting his foot into it for a few quarter-mile dashes in between traffic, doesn’t really hoon the car even a 5/8 of its potential.
But still – night, crowded streets — wrong place, wrong time.
RoweAS,
Do you know what the “5 mile strip” would be now in Virginia Beach? I am from that area so I’m curious whether or not I would have ever driven it too. Unfortunately, I’m sure there is more traffic there now.
One of the best driving roads I’ve heard of recently in Virginia Beach is Elbow Road if you know where that is. I had a friend who used to be into the street racing scene who had a whole bunch of stories about that road.