Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2009, Page 75

DREYMAR UM BILAR Á OYCCJUM
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taxi. Don't let a small drive take your lives.
I don't want others to end up like me just
because ofstupidity. I could have escaped
all this ifl had not searchedfor the car key
that Sunday night before Christmas in
1988. Finally I want to say that I am happy
to live when I think about how close I was
to losing my life."
The dream of cars underlying most young
people's struggle to get the driver’s license is
a dream of freedom, amusement and
stimulation; it is also a dream of reaching
new cultural and social horizons. The
tragedies on the roads, regularly in the
media’s searchlight, don’t break the dreams
of all young people. Even victims of accidents
caused by reckless drivers preserve the
illusion of cars as harmless irreplaceable
instruments of life in latemodern society.
"Almost four weeks have gone since 18-
year-old John Sigurd Danielsen [JS] from
Strendur was injured in an accident where
the driver lost control of the car, which
looped. JS suffered severe head injuries,
without consciousnessfor two days, was
urgently sent to Denmark [...] We had
been bowling in Leirvík, two friends and
me. That is the last thing I remember
before the crash. The next thing I
remember is when two days later, I wake
up in Denmark, says JS. He can therefore
not tell us how he experienced the accident
itself [...] He was sent to Denmark and
was lying in a respirator for two days.
After 17 days in Denmark, he could be
sent home to the Faroe Islands last Friday.
He has been in hospital in Torshavn since
that, but according to plans he will get out
ofhospital today [...] He tells that he had
started to attend a driving school when
the accident happened. Infour months JS's
fnger will be normal again, and he will
continue his lessons to obtain a driver's
license" (Dam, 2007)
This teenager, who could easily have lost his
life in a crash, looks very much forward to
going back to the driving school to get
introductory skills in the art of driving. The
dream of cars has not been substituted by
other future dreams. The relationship betwe-
en youth and cars is elastic; it can move from
intimate to relatively distant, but it is seldom
clearly cut off. Like a boomerang the car, for
most Faroese boys and girls, comes back
when you try to get rid of it (Gaini, 2009).
But young heretics contesting contemporary
society’s car culture hegemony are gaining
ground - reflected in the Atlantic cowboys'
fading power among young men - at a time
when cultural currents are amalgamated and
reconstructed in the postmodern maelstrom
of youth identities.
Analysis and conclusions
The art of driving involves different levels of
risk taking by individuals with different risk
behaviour patterns. The driver's observable
driving style unveils many elements of risk,
but other element are not recognized before
the 'unexpected’ accident is a fact... The risk
factor is hence never under full control
through advanced risk management (Mar-
shall and Picou, 2008). It takes many years to
become a good and safe driver. Experienced
drivers can forecast many dangerous
situations in traffic in order to avoid the
potential accident, but they are not prophets