All the training in the world while you’re sitting there shotgun really doesn’t mean much once you’re out of the car and the kids 4 buddies hop in. It helps, but you can still quickly outdrive your skill in a powerful car. If you forgot how much different you drove when you were 16 and your parents were in the car vs how you drove when your buddies were in the car your memory is slipping too quickly for your age.
And I don’t care if it was the kids car that he bought, the kids car that the parents bought, or the parents car. If the kid lived under their roof they ultimately had control over what he drove. If the kid was entirely living on his own then there really is nothing more the parents could have done, but how many 18-19 year olds paying all their own bills can afford an 08 M5?
lol, good points, sort of. My friends “taught” me to drive… I kind of just got behind the wheel and went. Refinment came with experience - that whole “learn from your mistakes” line.
But, yea.
and… its south florida. There is aton of money down there.
You know damned well that I’m arguing the principal at the matter - solely because I’m bored and don’t feel like working.
I completely agree that teh kid is an idiot, and assuredly deserved his fate for risking the other 4.
I’m sure the parents feel bad, but then again, I don’t see them “at fault” socially. I’ve spent a lil time in the Tampa area, and if it is a good example, then the people down there definately don’t have the same “hardluck blue-collar town” mentality that Buffalo does… whereas an M5 is “too much” for an 18-20 yr old.
That pretty much backs you into a corner on this debate then. Had you been learning from your mistakes in a 500 HP M5 they probably would have been scraping you off a bloody smear 15 feet up on a big oak tree. The higher the speed the more you pay for that mistake. And if your parents bought you that 500HP car, or even just let you drive it without supervision, you can’t tell me they wouldn’t be questioning that decision the rest of their lives.
And not singling you out. I punched that Tercel off the road once at a pretty good clip once, and had plenty of near misses when I was learning to control my own serious need for speed. Had the car been capable of a lot more I don’t doubt the outcome would have been much worse.
And m5board.com won’t even load now. They must be getting slammed. Do a search for “AmericanM5” on google and his pre-death posts are all over the interweb now.
More than likely this is a “fly-in community” where you literally fly your private plane in and drive it right to your house. We stay in a community like this in Daytona Beach for the races. Huge houses with attached plane hangers for garages.
If this is the case, you can easily access the runway by simply driving on it. THe planes use the same roads as passenger cars. The security gates are at the entrances to the community but not at the air strip.
Great find.