Passing Quickly

Recently, there were reports of a man who bought a new Ferrari, then destroyed it in an accident just one hour later. I know I once wrote an article about how hard it is to write-off expensive, limited-edition sports cars, but I think this guy may have done it. I'm also amused by the description of the accident, "The vehicle left the road." To my knowledge, Ferraris do not have any sort of self-driving technology, so the car didn't leave the road without some guidance. "It suddenly burst into flames." I'm sure it happened "suddenly" in the sense that it wasn't on fire one moment, then the next moment it was. But "suddenly" implies a lack of obvious cause. In this case, it likely had something to do with a low-sitting car being driven through a farmer's field at high speed. So that would be like saying, I drove head-on into a brick wall, and suddenly the car was shorter than it used to be.

Fortunately, his injuries were limited to cuts and bruises. Well, that might not be so fortunate; his injuries are in the laugh-without-guilt range. It might have been worth it to him to break a wrist or something if it deterred people like me from writing about it.

But he didn't, so here we are, wondering what causes a person to destroy a car in the first hour of ownership. I figure there are two types of people in the world: given something expensive and powerful, there are the people who want to see its limits right away, and those who ease their way into it. I'm definitely in that second group. I'm not saying we would never drive the car fast, but we would want to work our way up to it over the course of a month or twenty.

That may seem like a waste: driving a fast, powerful car so conservatively. But I think there are other ways to get joy out of a high-end sports car. See, the other day, I was passed on the highway by a minivan going about 140, in the far right lane. Of course, I was hoping that he'd think about the oddness that the guy with the slowest car was going the fastest. But I'm sure that was too subtle. It occurred to me that this would be a good time to be driving an obviously fast car: someone speeds by you in an SUV. Then you honk, and flash him an incredulous look while gesturing at you car, with the unspoken message, "Really? You, a schmuck in a Hyundai Santa Fe feel the need to go faster than a showoff in a Ferrari? "