A 13-year-old boy was driving a pickup truck at 75mph when a tire blew, the pickup veered into an oncoming lane, and slammed into a van (pictured). The tire was a spare that failed.
The boy, his father in the passenger seat, and 7 of the 9 people in the van — a college golf team — either died from the impact or burned to death in the fires that engulfed both vehicles.
The accident happened in Texas on Tuesday, March 15, 2022 (read story here or here). It’s not legal for 13-year-olds to drive, not even in freedom-loving Texas (nor anywhere else I’m aware of). What were he and his father thinking?
Here’s what I think: There are people who just do what they want, and this is what can happen if we let them. That’s why we have rules. They exist not only to protect stupid people from themselves, but also to protect others from them. Somehow we have to get that across to them while they’re still alive. It does no good to say “I told you so” to the dead.
They’ll retort, “Freedom.” But behavior that endangers others is irresponsible and, at some point, sociopathic. This father, by allowing his boy to drive at high speed on a public highway on dangerous tires, killed his kid, himself, and 7 strangers who didn’t deserve to die because of his selfish stupidity.