The solution
Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 9:18 am
It is tragic that these events take place and even more tragic that this has been happening for the last +- 15 years.
I have been part of the modified vehicle "society" for some years now and even though these tragic deaths happen regularly it seems the authorities can not come up with a solution, "what is the solution" you may ask, before we can answer that question, lets look at the problem. We were all young, we were all looking for thrills and spills, most young people dream of having a beautiful fast car among other things, many young people do not gro out of that and modifying and upgrading a car becomes a passion and for many a business, this will never change, there will always be a "society" meaning a large group of people that are interested in these kind of things.
For the last +- 15 years nothing changed, after all the deaths, all the crashes, there is no place where these normal folk can go and do what they do on the street, you have drag racing tracks scattered here and there, 2 professional tracks in Gauteng to be precise, now there lays the problem, 2 "professional" tracks, this means, you go there to drag professionally, you need a license, you need plenty of money and you drag against professionals. This is not a bad thing but the normal society does not want the "professional" setup, one of the tracks has drags on Friday nights where you can come and drag your vehicle unprofessionally, without a "racing" licence and so forth but the track is near Krugersdorp, now do you believe the people belonging to this "society" will drive around 70 km's(140km's there and back) from Pretoria, for an informal, unprofessional outing....the simple answer is NO.
There is another race track on the outskirts of Pretoria in Mabopaan called ODI, unfortunately they only support professional drag racing, apart from that, the track is also around 50-60 km's on the outskirt of Pretoria, again, same question, same answer.The result is they keep ending up in places like voortrekker road, a few years back Johannesburg had a track called westbank raceway which had "open" nights on Wednesdays where these unprofessionals could come and enjoy their passion informally in a rather safe manner, the track was closed down and guess what happened, it spilled over onto the streets again.
The owners of ODI tried using a part of the N4 magalies freeway that are not used and just standing there for this informal gathering on Sunday nights, it worked, illegal drag racing was curbed, they had a place to go and do what they like informally and safely off the streets, then there was complaints of noise, the authorities closed down the use of this unused "safe" informal track, guess what, voortrekker was on again, in the end it is a fact that this informal "sport" will never go away, all efforts to make facilities available to get these people to a safer environment failed causing them to go back to the streets.
The authorities are trying to eradicate these events from happening by using the law to try and stop upgrades and modification to vehicles, according to the authorities doing this decreases the safety of the vehicle, most upgrades and modification is done to a vehicle to increase the handling of the vehicle to be able to cope with the power, with other words, making it safer than the oem specification, the cold hard truth is, if the authorities want to stop modification of vehicles by using the law and stating that it is illegal, then all import of performance parts must be stopped, that means hundred thousands of jobs will be lost, an unimaginable amount of money will stop stimulating the economy, if you want to make modifying illegal, don't approve any performance workshops, don't allow any performance part shops, with other words, stop selling and marketing performance parts.
Question: Will this eradicate modification?
Answer: No
Question: Will this stop illegal drag racing?
Answer: No
Solution: Make easy accessible informal tracks where these people can come to regularly and you will almost eradicate illegal drag racing.
I have been part of the modified vehicle "society" for some years now and even though these tragic deaths happen regularly it seems the authorities can not come up with a solution, "what is the solution" you may ask, before we can answer that question, lets look at the problem. We were all young, we were all looking for thrills and spills, most young people dream of having a beautiful fast car among other things, many young people do not gro out of that and modifying and upgrading a car becomes a passion and for many a business, this will never change, there will always be a "society" meaning a large group of people that are interested in these kind of things.
For the last +- 15 years nothing changed, after all the deaths, all the crashes, there is no place where these normal folk can go and do what they do on the street, you have drag racing tracks scattered here and there, 2 professional tracks in Gauteng to be precise, now there lays the problem, 2 "professional" tracks, this means, you go there to drag professionally, you need a license, you need plenty of money and you drag against professionals. This is not a bad thing but the normal society does not want the "professional" setup, one of the tracks has drags on Friday nights where you can come and drag your vehicle unprofessionally, without a "racing" licence and so forth but the track is near Krugersdorp, now do you believe the people belonging to this "society" will drive around 70 km's(140km's there and back) from Pretoria, for an informal, unprofessional outing....the simple answer is NO.
There is another race track on the outskirts of Pretoria in Mabopaan called ODI, unfortunately they only support professional drag racing, apart from that, the track is also around 50-60 km's on the outskirt of Pretoria, again, same question, same answer.The result is they keep ending up in places like voortrekker road, a few years back Johannesburg had a track called westbank raceway which had "open" nights on Wednesdays where these unprofessionals could come and enjoy their passion informally in a rather safe manner, the track was closed down and guess what happened, it spilled over onto the streets again.
The owners of ODI tried using a part of the N4 magalies freeway that are not used and just standing there for this informal gathering on Sunday nights, it worked, illegal drag racing was curbed, they had a place to go and do what they like informally and safely off the streets, then there was complaints of noise, the authorities closed down the use of this unused "safe" informal track, guess what, voortrekker was on again, in the end it is a fact that this informal "sport" will never go away, all efforts to make facilities available to get these people to a safer environment failed causing them to go back to the streets.
The authorities are trying to eradicate these events from happening by using the law to try and stop upgrades and modification to vehicles, according to the authorities doing this decreases the safety of the vehicle, most upgrades and modification is done to a vehicle to increase the handling of the vehicle to be able to cope with the power, with other words, making it safer than the oem specification, the cold hard truth is, if the authorities want to stop modification of vehicles by using the law and stating that it is illegal, then all import of performance parts must be stopped, that means hundred thousands of jobs will be lost, an unimaginable amount of money will stop stimulating the economy, if you want to make modifying illegal, don't approve any performance workshops, don't allow any performance part shops, with other words, stop selling and marketing performance parts.
Question: Will this eradicate modification?
Answer: No
Question: Will this stop illegal drag racing?
Answer: No
Solution: Make easy accessible informal tracks where these people can come to regularly and you will almost eradicate illegal drag racing.
