For the last few years, California has had a very harsh way of dealing with people who have been convicted of illegal street racing. In The Golden State, if a street racer is convicted, and is found to have illegal car parts or missing identification numbers, the owner of the vehicle is made to watch as their car is placed into an automobile compactor, and, in some cases, is made to push the button that crushes their prized diggers. Morris Iemma, director of the new disciplinary plan, has even gone so far as to suggest new laws be drawn up so that the then crushed car could be dumped back onto the offender’s lawn. It would seem the only step after this would be to put the car’s “head” gasket in bed with you. If you’re going to play Godfather, you should at least do it right.
Although California, especially around the Los Angeles area, is home to one of the largest concentrations of street racers in the country, it exists all over the United States. I am guilty of it myself. As an auto-enthusiast, I find it sickening that the state can enact these cruel and unusual punishments.
Call me overly-dramatic, but my car, a 2007 Impala SS, is my baby. I named it Bianca and I refer to it as "her." Like a child, I bathe it, and take care of it, and I spend an obscene amount of money to make sure it has what it needs to be everything it can be. All in all, I have probably spent upward of 100 hours working on my car. Time like that, working on something you love, can result in the development of a real emotional attachment.
So, with that in mind, consider for a second that not only is something you care deeply for going to be taken from you, but you are going to have to push the button that leads to its destruction. For someone such as myself, who has no children, I imagine the feeling of destroying your car would feel similar to having a similar fate laid out for your child, being someone who has nothing to compare it too.
Stories of punishment have included reports of grown men weeping over the fact that their car was going to be pancaked, and even though they were tremendously overcome with grief, they were still forced to push the button. I believe in my heart of hearts that this is unconstitutional and should be considered cruel and unusual. Law enforcement argues that street racing leads to deaths and endangers other motorists, and with it getting out of control, the threat of having their tuners redlined is the only thing that might make racers think twice before running the quarter mile.
I share a deep sorrow for these racers, and when I watch videos of these sentences being carried out, it breaks my heart. I don’t know that I could keep myself together if I was forced to bestow upon my Bianca the same fate so many have been given. From Illinois, I offer my condolences. It’s a terrible thing, when a parent has to bury a child.