Sigh...

One of N's students died last night while (allegedly) racing his dad's corvette in Castro Valley.  

I don't really know how to approach it.  No wait, I do.  The kid was an idiot.  It's a sad situation - I am sad for his family, for the girl's family, for N.  I've been lucky enough that so far, in my short years of being a teacher, none of my students have died.  They've had problems with parents and drugs and significant others and friends and school and everything else imaginable (and unimaginable), sure, but so far none have died.  

This kid died while doing something that all of us know is completely idiotic (racing another car while in his dad's corvette in the middle of the night on a windy road while trying to impress a 17-year-old female passenger who also died in the accident).  He - an 18-year-old, graduated from high school and thus (allegedly) fully armed with the basic arsenal of skills required to survive in the real world - decided to lie to his dad about what he was going to do with dad's corvette (unless the dad knew he would be racing the corvette, which would open up a whole new set of issues).  He decided to take invite another girl with him (not to mention that the girl also made the decision to drive around with him).  He decided - while driving a car that did not belong to him, with another person in the car - to race another car along a windy road in the middle of the night.  

I'm not saying that I never did (or still don't do) anything that dumb.  I remember one night after I first got my really hot 1989 CRX letting Roger and Jason see how fast they could make it go down highway 50, with me in the back non-seat (really a small ledge, sans seatbelt) covering my eyes because I couldn't stand the sound the engine made when they pushed it up past what I was sure was its breaking point of 90 mph.  Did I go along with it?  Hell yes. Did I voice my concerns?  Of course not.  I was a dumb 17 year old.  

It is a very sad situation, and the community will respond as such - laws will be made enacting even tougher punishments for street racing.  PSAs will be aired about the dangers of driving too fast.  The district will probably have several assemblies to raise awareness about street racing.  Will it stop teens from driving like asshats?  Probably, for a couple of months.  But soon the awareness will be replaced by other awarenesses (like graduating, or not graduating, or prom, or experimenting with drugs or really getting into drugs, or divorcing parents, or parents who are asshat drivers themselves, etc.) and this will happen yet again.