Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2009, Page 72

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DREAMS OF CARS ON AN ISLAND
work among young people (Caini, 2009). To
break the silence and verbally confront the
mindless driver when feeling danger is very
hard for a teenager that wants to be cool and
popular among friends. The latent social
pressure inside the car, affecting the pas-
sengers as well as the directing driver, can
result in fatally wrong decisions taken in
silence (Mogensen, 2002). The driver doesn’t
want to look nervous and anxious when his
friends have their eye on him. The car culture
of young men at risk has its own values and
rituals that are incongruent with mainstream
middle-class values.
Identity and risk behaviour
During the last years motorbikes in large
numbers have been imported to the Faroe
Islands, giving street-races a new meaning.
The new interest in heavy motorbikes
reflects new youth cultural trends that invol-
ve even more hazardous driving than during
the Atlantic cowboys' heyday era. The
motorbike races in the underwater tunnel to
the town of Klaksvik, mentioned by several
informants, are especially hair-raising.
"The North Islands tunnel: they keep
watch on both ends oj the tunnel. Then
they enter to check if any car is in the
tunnel. If no one is there two cars start a
race from one end to the other. They
record the race on mobile phone i/ideo
cameras and think it is veryfunny"
The last years the street-racing youth has lost
respect and value among most other youth
groups that consider their lifestyle irrational,
harmful and primitive (Gaini 2006). A boy
says that today only "villagers, the 'cool' boys
and fishermen" do street-racing. Anyway, it
is not simply a question of taking risks and
being immature as a driver, because many
street-racingyouths are self-educated motor
specialists with an obsessive car fascination.
Some of them are also, even if considered
crazy devils on wheels, technically very good
drivers with vigilant senses. Let's say they just
happen to violate traffic legislation. But
several fatal crashes, involving these young
drivers, attest that they are not invulnerable,
something they unfortunately often imagine
themselves to be. Maybe you are a brilliant
driver now, a Faroese driving school teacher
tells his young naive students, but remember
that the other drivers are reckless fools on
the roads.
Security didn't come to the mind of
Faroese drivers before a lot of young blood
had been spilled on the roads (Sigvardsen
and Kragesteen, 2003). The first generations
of fishermen converted to car drivers were
awarded the license before they knew the
difference between the accelerator and
break. Everyone, old or young, wanted to be
part of the drivers' happy fraternity. The
local newspapers had weekly stories about
people driving into rivers and canyons, even
into the deep sea from harbours as well as
unlikely crashes on narrow village paths. Very
few people used the seatbelt, which was
simply considered an aesthetic decoration.
Even small children travelled without any
security belt. The shift from small oar boats
to ultra-modern motor vehicles is a bloody
tale with a very long ripening period. The
security question, risk minimization, was
completely missing when most needed.
Youth car cultures can be described as
reflections of young people's need to create