Driving themselves to death

Enthusiast Ricci Hewitt reckons it cost about $15,000 to customise the $2000 Honda that thieves tried to car-jack this week. Picture / Martin Sykes

Sebastian Sigamoney killed himself and three mates at Easter, just over a week ago. He was speeding, he crashed, the car burst into flames, they died. Sebastian was 19. Two of his mates were 16.

Years ago another young man was 18 when he wrote off his car. He walked away and the accident changed his life. It was Greg Murphy, petrolhead legend, and four-time winner of Bathurst. He regularly drives at 300km/h. He loves speed and he loves cars.

More than most, Murphy understands the car culture in New Zealand, the young men and growing number of young women who soup up their cars, spend a fortune modifying them and weekends polishing them.

He understands those others who adore high-performance vehicles for their smoothness, sleekness, power and handling.

He might understand them, but Murphy has no time for anyone, young or old, who abuses any kind of car. He drives fast but he does it on the race track, where stupidity is not tolerated.

Murphy hates bad drivers, casual attitudes and soft penalties. He is a passionate proponent of sweeping and radical law change.

Perhaps more than anything though, Murphy respects the car and what it does, how it works and just how dangerous it can be.

He sweeps aside excuses. Death on the road is not the fault of those ever-enticing advertisements on television, tempting people with bigger, faster, more powerful cars.

And he sweeps aside as a "ridiculous waste of money" the opposite advertising message that warns against speed - "the faster you go, the bigger the mess" - because, he says, no one listens anyway.

He wants tougher penalties, the age at which you can get a licence raised, restrictions on types of vehicles young people can drive and confiscations of cars and licences if they do not drive them properly.

He wants young people to learn the dynamics and the physics of the car so they understand it. The petrolhead says this is the way to make a difference, to stop young people killing themselves, and others, on the roads.

Murphy was just starting his racing career when he had his accident. It was the worst day of his life. A passenger was hurt. He reckons he was not being an idiot at the time, just inattentive.

"I was probably too tired and wasn't concentrating. I came around a corner and the rear of the car hit some damp grass. I spun my car and lost control, went across the road and down an embankment into some trees."

He was lucky. Murphy says he is not too big to admit he made mistakes. "I do, I have. That was the worst one I've ever made and I'll never do it again."

As for Sebastian Sigamoney? He should not have been on the road, says Murphy. The repeat speedster often went over 200km/h and his mother admitted paying his speeding fines. Murphy is appalled. His licence should have been taken off him "for 25 years".

Murphy asks why a person has to be killed, or kill someone else, before his licence is taken away. And why are licences in New Zealand so easy to get? As soon as a child turns 15 they are entitled to get one?

It's a joke, he says. A rigmarole of regulations covers owning a gun, also a dangerous weapon. . "But to get a car licence? Piece of piss."

The problem with young blokes in cars is that they all think they are racing car drivers, says the racing car driver.

But on a race track most would fail "because they're not talented, they're not clever, they're not smart. They're stupid. And young men need to be treated like that.

"They need to be treated harshly so it gets in their heads they're not invincible, they're not bullet-proof and they will kill themselves and their mates if they act stupidly."

But that is not restricted to young men who are stupid. There is the rest of us.

When Murphy is driving on the road in New Zealand he counts the people he sees who should not have a licence - the erratic drivers, the ones who drive at 70km/h in a 100km/h zone, and the ones who hug the centre line and do not allow others to pass. These people are dangerous, too.

"If someone is tail-gating you get out of the **** way. You know, move over. It's many issues, it's not just the young men."

 

New Zealanders don't just love cars, we love powerful cars. We have the fourth-highest level of car ownership - nine out of 10 people over 16 own one.

An ACNielsen survey shows more than half of us like cars with two-litre engines. It seems young men love them a lot. But this is partly a stereotype, says Rick MacDonald, owner of Keywest Cars in Glen Eden.

Keywest Cars sells customised and performance cars, and MacDonald has been dealing in them for 12 years. It is a big industry. He sells cars already customised, but shops have sprung up everywhere selling flash parts for people to modify their cars themselves.

He says these cars are not about going fast, but about fashion. Every Friday night you see them parading in Queen St, revving, holding up traffic and driving former Auckland mayor John Banks crazy.

They are buying these cars to look cool, and some are spending tens of thousands of dollars.

Most of the cars MacDonald sells are not high performance. They are basic family cars modified to look like monsters of power.

But a Toyota Starlet is still a Toyota Starlet and all the lowering, body kits, wings and spoilers do nothing, says MacDonald.

"Most of the accidents you see aren't these people in these sorts of cars, because these are their pride and joy."

He says the ones who are killing themselves are usually from another group, those driving cheap performance cars from the late 1980s and early 1990s. RICCI HEWITT is a bit of a trendsetter, a fashionista. He drives a souped-up Honda he made to look so sleek and powerful people tried to car-jack it last weekend, running over his father in the process. His father is still in hospital but they did not get the car.

For months, Ricci lovingly pulled his Honda to pieces and put it back together. It is painted blue in a new type of paint, a multi-pearl effect. The paint alone was about $3500, which is more than the car cost. But it's still a "stock-standard granny-mobile," he says, with no embarrassment. "It's not even fast at all. Not turbo, nothing."

It has been lowered. It has race seats and custom-made tail lights. He spent 250 hours on it, every night and weekend for months. Because he had sponsorship he has not put a lot of money into the car, but thinks at least $15,000 has been spent on a car which cost $2000.

"I don't know what the attraction would have been [to the carjackers] but it's probably one of the most stunning Hondas around. I'm not blowing my own trumpet, but a lot of people are saying that."

Ricci is a car painter and reckons he is showing off his work to get business. Then he confesses, yeah, it's more than that.

"You love people looking at your car. It brings attention around. That was the main reason, I would say, just to make something that was better than everyone else's."

 

Ricci is a "car enthusiast" but the 17-year-old explains the car industry has two types of people: the boy racer, "somebody who likes to be an idiot in front of their mates, really try to piss the cops off, and then ones like me".

When he is cruising in the granny-mobile he has nothing against the police pulling him over to check which category he falls in to.

He is the kind who goes to the legal drag racing, while the others - who he says do not know much about cars - go to illegal drags.

Another car nut is the acting national road policing manager, Inspector John Kelly. He admits he is a petrolhead, despite the hundreds of accidents he has attended, from mere dings to those where body parts are strewn on the ground.

He still likes to go to car shows and poke around in showrooms, and he loves Greg Murphy. But he does not agree with some of the legend's views.

Restrictions, for example, sound a fine idea but are fraught. In the 1960s a law was brought in which said if you were a learner motorcyclist you could not ride a motorcycle more powerful than 250cc.

But, says Kelly, a 250cc motorcycle can still travel at speeds of up to 250km/h. So can your old Mazda Familia. "And how is it enforceable? The fact that the thing has a 1600 badge on the back doesn't tell me what's under the bonnet."

Kelly says there is no one solution. "The one thing we know is that international experts and scientists and researchers tell us that speed is the biggest problem and if you control speed you will control a hell of a lot."

Murphy says his accident all those years ago made him realise quickly that he was not invincible.

"I slapped myself in the face and said, 'You don't know everything, you never will'.

"Things will sometimes happen that can't be avoided but certainly there's a damn lot of stuff out there that can be avoided."