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The jaw drops ...

In the news today: Ontario's Alcohol and Gaming Commission is investigating whether staff at a club might have played a part in a recent crash that killed three young men when the driver put an Audi S4 into a river. Police have stated that alcohol and speed were factors in the crash.

The 20-year-old driver had several traffic charges already on his record. The sole survivor of the crash said that he was praised by his friends for driving the S4 at high speed, and that she reached over and turned up the already-loud stereo when her favorite song came on. According to newspaper reports, the Audi S4 belonged not to the driver, but to the driver's parents.

According to an article in the Toronto Star, the father now says that, "In retrospect, it is obvious I would've wanted the Joe Club to take away the keys or stop serving..." But while he doesn't think closing a bar or restaurant is the solution, according to the story, he does support "zero blood (alcohol) level for new drivers until (age) 21-25, and zero tolerance (for) speeding infractions to age 21. In both those cases I feel the licence should be revoked and every kid will really think before drinking or speeding when driving," he said.

Let's do the math.

The driver was 20 years old.

According to this article, he had so many speeding violations that he was in danger of losing his driver's license.

And yet his father apparently lent his son a 340-horsepower vehicle under circumstances that he now says should have been grounds for revoking the young man's license, with zero tolerance.

I don't get it. I simply don't. I wonder how much money the lawsuit will initially name...

Look, Ma, no hands!

I was on the highway today, driving at approximately 110 km/h. I was passed by a young woman in a Cadillac Escalade. I'd say she was about 25 and trying very hard to be Paris Hilton.

She had her cell phone jammed up against her left ear. In her right hand she held an open bottle of water, and the only contact she had with a vehicle doing a minimum of 115 km/h was the side of her hand resting against the bottom of the steering wheel.

Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino says speed kills. I dunno. I'm not afraid of someone doing 140 km/h in a capable car when they're paying attention. But I'm bloody scared to death of supermodels who seem to think that driving is fourth or fifth on the list of important things to remember when you're piloting two tons of steel at 32 meters per second. And what terrifies me even more is that Ms. Hilton Wannabe probably doesn't even comprehend that she's doing anything wrong. I wish you could fix dumb, but it doesn't look like it's possible anymore.

Note to the cops: It ain't the speed, it's the stupidity

 In the news today: Ontario Provincial Police chief Julian Fantino ain't happy. It seems that the media -- more specifically, my colleague at the Toronto Star, Jim Kenzie -- has been on his case about Section 172 of the Highway Traffic Act, better known as the "street racing legislation".

In short, if you're caught doing 50 km/h (31 mph) over the posted speed limit, the cop takes your license and your vehicle away on the spot. For seven days, sans judge and jury. It's just him, you and the towtruck.

That's even though Fantino, in a press release sent out today, said that "It is our job to lay the charges; once that happens, it's up to the judiciary system beyond the police to deal with each case individually."

Okay, but even letting that go, I can't agree with Fantino when he then says, "OPP officers are doing a great job of apprehending the most dangerous drivers." Because that all depends on your definition of who the most dangerous drivers are.

Fantino says it's someone driving at 150 km/h in a 100 km/h zone. I say it's someone driving at 100 km/h on a highway with a cell phone stuck to her ear. I say it's someone driving 60 km/h with a hamburger in one hand and a coffee in the other. I say it's someone who's been allowed to take the family vehicle out at midnight, even though he's only been driving for six months, and he's taking along all his friends.

Much of Fantino's effort is the result of a deadly crash in June 2007, when a truck driver went for the shoulder and was killed rather than take out vehicles around him. He had to take action when a speeding driver cut him off. No question: that driver should have been nailed to the wall. But one thing that very few people seemed to notice was a comment from a witness, who said that she saw three cars race past her in the right lane, according to a newspaper report, and then cut across to the left lane just moments after she let the tanker merge into the centre lane in front of her.

Read that again slowly. It doesn't exonerate the man who cut in front of the truck and caused the collision. But if our witness -- who apparently thinks she did nothing wrong, and the police seemingly agree -- had been in the right-hand lane where she was supposed to be, my guess is that the three cars would have continued up the highway in the left-hand lane, and that truck driver would have finished his route safely.

Here's my suggestion, Commissioner Fantino: put your men out there looking for the real problem drivers. Look for the ones who aren't paying attention; who don't know which lane to drive in; who don't obey amber or red lights; who don't know what "right of way" means; and in short, who need to go back to driving school.

Speed makes the result of a collision worse, but it doesn't cause the collision. Stupidity causes collisions. Bone-headed moves cause collisions. Hit on those folks, Commissioner, and the 150 km/h guys will still be breaking the law, but chances will be good that nobody will die. One early morning a few years ago, I hit 220 km/h on a deserted stretch of Highway 407. I knew my car, I knew my ability, and save for the illegal speed, I didn't do anything dumb. I'm still here. I wonder how that is.

So who gave them the keys?

Note to the government, the police, the media, old-car enthusiasts, new-car enthusiasts, and to the general public at large: This is not a tuner car.

Okay, some background. In Ontario, where I live, all of the above regularly get into huge kerfluffles regarding tuner cars and the propensity of their drivers to engage in either planned or impromptu street races. When the heat gets hot enough, the government instructs the cops to go round up as many Hondas and Toyotas with tomato-can exhaust pipes as they can find. At one point, in the most ridiculous media stunt I think I've ever seen, two seized tuner cars were crushed by a bulldozer, with the warning that more would follow. (To the best of my knowledge, they haven't.)

So I opened my newspaper today, and found that three teenagers in my area were charged yesterday with street racing, after three vehicles tore off from a light and one of them hit a tree and landed on a fire hydrant. According to the paper, "Officers found a 1997 Chevrolet Venture minivan on its side ... about 12:10 a.m. yesterday. ... Police seized the van and two other vehicles, a 1996 Pontiac Torrent and 2006 Pontiac Grand Am."

Two of the drivers were 17, the other 18. Now, unless things have changed drastically in the many years since I was a teenager, a full-size minivan generally tends to belong not to the teenager, but to the teenager's parents. That was also the case in 2006, when a Toronto taxi driver was killed by two young men driving Mercedes-Benz cars owned by their parents. In fact, when I read about crashes caused by street racing, full-blown tuner cars don't really seem to make the list all that often. Here's a thought -- maybe it ain't the car.

Maybe parents should be asking where Junior needs to go with two tons of steel and very limited driving experience late on a Friday night. And if he doesn't have an ironclad reason, maybe he shouldn't be getting the keys.

Here's the harsh reality. Street racing is like drunk driving: we can reduce it, but we're never going to eliminate it entirely. We can crush cars, we can ban nitrous, we can tell the cops to pull over cars with little blue lights on their windshield washers, and we'll still get testosterone flowing when the light turns green and it looks like your minivan can take his minivan. We need to stop with the kneejerk reactions and work on realistic solutions that don't involve herding up the Hondas whenever a BMW hits a tree.

If you're of a certain age and grew up in southern Ontario, you probably remember the reminder on Buffalo's Channel 7 every night: It's eleven o'clock. Do you know where your children are?

Do you?