Another Teenager Dies Needlessly in a Car Crash

One More Time Around the Block

Have you ever been to the funeral of a teenager who died in a car crash? If you live in New Zealand it is quite likely. Sadly I’ve been to a few. A common factor was that in all of those accidents, only one car was involved. The one young people died in.

A couple of weeks ago a close friend lost a teenager who died in the back seat of a car that crashed on a country road, with no other cars involved. The weather was not great, but they wanted to go for a ‘blat’.

I live in New Zealand where we love cars. Monaco is the only place in the world where there are more cars per capita than we have. I think to a degree it stems from the fact that our government has never been able to create an adequate public transport system that meets the needs of the population.

As a consequence kids, especially boys get their license at their earliest opportunity. Of course, they can’t buy much in their first car, so the safety systems aren’t to the same standard as a new car. All it takes to be permitted to drive is to pass some tests and drive around the block, showing awareness of other traffic, obeying the road rules and demonstrating rudimentary skills.

There is something inherent in boys, as there is in most male mammals, which is Darwinian. We have to take risks. Once upon a time it might have been about breeding and showing strength to the fairer sex, showing that we would be a suitable mate, to produce strong, healthy offspring.

That was back in the caveman days. The instinct is no longer required, the balance of genders is pretty much even, but the risk-taking hasn’t stopped. You don’t have to drive far to see a cross on the side of the road, or flowers tied to a power pole.

It’s all very well to say cars are more powerful these days, but there were plenty of fatal crashes when I was a teenager too. I’ve been in a few crashes myself, although mostly as a passenger. I did stupid stuff when I was a teenager, driving cars fast on winding dirt roads in Auckland’s Waitakere Ranges, not knowing what was around the corner. I broke my ankle riding a motorbike between a block wall and a parked car to see how fast I could race through a narrow gap. I was one of the lucky ones, as most of us were.

That doesn’t diminish the unnecessary and horrendous loss of young lives.

There are often additional factors, like drugs and alcohol, fatigue, or the other kids in the car, whooping and yelling to go faster. It’s a rite of passage. We channel a lot of that energy into sports, rugby, being our national sport, where teenage concussions are rife. But that might be once a week for 80 minutes.

Your car or motorbike is right outside your front door. It’s ready to go and just like when we were teenagers, there is always a pressing need to get in the car and go somewhere because we can, we (most of us), scrimped and saved to get that first car, and even with the price of petrol, we will find reasons to jump in the car and drive.

After attending one too many funerals for teenagers who died unnecessarily, I wrote this song, with the help of my daughter Tracy, after sitting in a cortege of V8s, in a funeral procession, all revving their engines in an ironic last salute to someone who died after losing control of a vehicle.

One More Time Around the Block

I wonder if you can relate to the lyrics in this song.

It thundered down the road like a young boy racer’s dream

 The Rockford Fosgate sub beat like a life support machine

 They never saw what hit them, on the wrong side of the bend

 They didn’t have an inkling that their lives were going to end.

  

The mourners stood in silence, dressed in dark clothes, mostly black

 A mother screamed her lungs out, cried “I want my baby back!”

Their friends stood round in circles still not coping from the shock

They said they’d be five minutes, one more time around the block.

They were the best of friends like they were tied at the seam

They knew what each was thinking and they shared the same big dreams

They were just young men in the prime of their life

Their futures lay before them, empty pages still to write

     

But now those days are over and their lives have been snuffed out

The sub’s no longer thumping and their hearts have lost their clout

If only they had listened, if only they had stopped

They said they’d be five minutes, one more time around the block

           

And now the music’s playing ………………………………..

And the mourners begin to pray

They sing The Lord’s Prayer and ask themselves why did it end this way?

The V8’s sound like thunder, can’t you hear the engines roar?

Car horns sound a last salute with feet flat to the floor

Wish we could have changed the outcome; wish we could have stopped the clock

They said they’d be five minutes, one more time around the block

They said they’d be five minutes, one more time around the block