Road Safety: The Drag Race

There will always be a number of people who enjoy taking their cars on to the open road and seeing just how fast they can go, something which has led to a fairly large number of unofficial “drag races” taking place on public roads. The argument usually made by the drivers in such races is that they only race on quiet roads, usually at times when no-one else is likely to be on the road.

One potential argument against this is that you can never be certain who will be on the road. After all, it is there for a reason – people need to get from one place to another. It is no use saying after you have crashed into another car that you thought the road would be deserted. It wasn’t, and what you expected has absolutely no relevance to anyone killed or injured.

Another reason why drag races can be dangerous is in their very unregulated nature. Most car racing is carried out at tracks which have safety features as well as full emergency services – and professional car racers have still been known to die in high-speed crashes. When you are driving in an illegal drag race you have no such security to call on, and you can end up in real trouble as a result.

Although it is often the illegal and unsanctioned nature of drag races that attracts people to drive in them, a certain amount of this bravado is born out of a sense that you’ll be lucky. But you only have to be unlucky once to kill or injure yourself, a friend or another road user. Drag races, as fun as they may be, should be kept to race tracks.