Young Men, Dying Young
It's a sad and tragic story among many other sad and tragic stories that hit the newspapers day by day. Young people, particularly young men, engaging in reckless activities. Particularly driving activities. Speeding, ignoring traffic rules, becoming distracted by the use of texting messages while driving, and far more seriously, driving while under the influence of alcohol.
Young people feel they're invincible, that nothing, no course of action can ever imperil them. They harbour an attraction toward doing things that carry the frisson of danger to themselves. Rarely, if ever, considering that if they're engaged in some pursuit that is the least bit dangerous, particularly in public, their behaviour also by extension endangers others.
So high-speed chases by the police, unleashing more testosterone in the young adult male who is driving too fast, or driving under the influence - and has no intention of stopping to be queried by the police - ending in tragedy. There's always the thought uppermost in the minds of these ordinary young people doing momentarily extraordinary things that they'll get away with it.
Living to tell the tale, as it were, has enormous cachet among one's peers. Admiration and celebrity, however brief, among like-minded juvenile minds. Except when things go wrong. And that's when all the friends and acquaintances and family members make themselves available to the news media to deplore nasty fate, remembering him as a 'good guy', with a 'wonderful sense of humour'.
And then there's other, extenuating situations, where the over-enthused driver, all hopped up on adrenalin because he managed to elude the pursuing police who just happened to decide that in the interests of public safety they'll let him go, having already taken down his license. That speeding driver who just happens to lose control of his vehicle and his passengers are injured or killed in the ensuing crash.
Or, as happens often enough, that speeding driver, exultant and full of self-congratulations, loses control, his vehicle ending up in oncoming lanes of traffic, crashing into other vehicles. There's some irony along with the tragedy in a recently-reported such event where the car driver, 20, is dead, and so too is the driver, 19, of the car he crashed into.
The presumably careful driver of a like age with the aggressive, careless one, becomes yet another victim joining the cadres of young men who die far, far too early, leaving behind their grieving families.
Young people feel they're invincible, that nothing, no course of action can ever imperil them. They harbour an attraction toward doing things that carry the frisson of danger to themselves. Rarely, if ever, considering that if they're engaged in some pursuit that is the least bit dangerous, particularly in public, their behaviour also by extension endangers others.
So high-speed chases by the police, unleashing more testosterone in the young adult male who is driving too fast, or driving under the influence - and has no intention of stopping to be queried by the police - ending in tragedy. There's always the thought uppermost in the minds of these ordinary young people doing momentarily extraordinary things that they'll get away with it.
Living to tell the tale, as it were, has enormous cachet among one's peers. Admiration and celebrity, however brief, among like-minded juvenile minds. Except when things go wrong. And that's when all the friends and acquaintances and family members make themselves available to the news media to deplore nasty fate, remembering him as a 'good guy', with a 'wonderful sense of humour'.
And then there's other, extenuating situations, where the over-enthused driver, all hopped up on adrenalin because he managed to elude the pursuing police who just happened to decide that in the interests of public safety they'll let him go, having already taken down his license. That speeding driver who just happens to lose control of his vehicle and his passengers are injured or killed in the ensuing crash.
Or, as happens often enough, that speeding driver, exultant and full of self-congratulations, loses control, his vehicle ending up in oncoming lanes of traffic, crashing into other vehicles. There's some irony along with the tragedy in a recently-reported such event where the car driver, 20, is dead, and so too is the driver, 19, of the car he crashed into.
The presumably careful driver of a like age with the aggressive, careless one, becomes yet another victim joining the cadres of young men who die far, far too early, leaving behind their grieving families.
Labels: Family, Social-Cultural Deviations
posted by Pieface @ 1:03 PM
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