Californian Racing Accident: Who Is Responsible?
A crash at a Californian off-road race this week has highlighted the issues surrounding the dangerous nature of motorsport.
The accident, which cost eight people their lives, has been on the cards for some time, according to critics. They argue that the loose nature of safety regulations concerning off-road racing inevitably results in the kind of accident we saw on August 14th.
The accident occurred in a part of the Mojave Desert, in the southern part of the state, owned by the Bureau of Land Management. Steve Parker of the Huffington Post, a former off-road racing driver himself, is critical of the BLM for not ensuring that their rules were adhered to.
Regulations ask that drivers not exceed 15mph when driving past crowds of spectators. Parker says that not only were the racing drivers disobeying the rule this time, they always do. Racing is racing, he says. It is similar to the yellow-flag rule, in Formula 1, which orders that drivers 'slow down' and do not overtake when a yellow flag, which signifies danger, is being waved. How slow 'slow' is, is open to interpretation.
In rallying, which is very similar to the off-road racing which led to the Californian accident, spectators are able to virtually touch the cars as they drive past at three-figure speeds. If something goes wrong, as if often does, the driver and his navigator, safely encased in their strengthened vehicle, are fine even if the car decides to take the aerial route before landing in some trees. Any spectators that get in the way have a rather less pleasant fate.
The omnipresent danger is part of the thrill, much like participants in the Pamplona Bull Run, say proponents of motorsport. The close proximity of one-ton metal boxes being driven at top speed, and rallying enthusiasts standing in their path holding their cameras, would have health and safety officials in Britain going grey overnight. And there are still so many anomalies in the motorsport world.
Take, for example, the Monaco Grand Prix, the jewel in the Formula 1 circus' crown. It has been a fixture on the calendar for sixty years, and the race was run for about thirty years before that. The circuit has been modified over the years, but it still retains the characteristics that it has always had: safety barriers are at waist height and run-off areas for cars are essentially non-existent. If something goes wrong here, it can go very wrong.
If Monte Carlo was to submit an application to host its first Grand Prix these days, it would be rebuffed. Modern circuits have to have every single last eventuality covered in the name of safety (commendably) and this means great distances between the crowds and the cars. If a fatal crash occurs at a race meeting, then the organisers are culpable. Culpability means lawsuits, and lawsuits mean bankruptcy, unless, as Parker says, the promoters have a '$100m insurance policy.'
Implications for spectator deaths can go even further than that. At the Le Mans 24 hours of 1955, Frenchman Pierre Levegh's Mercedes vaulted over the safety barriers into the crowd, killing 83 people and injuring around 120 others. The shockwaves of this incident were felt so keenly that, to this day, motor racing is banned in neighbouring Switzerland.
Some countries take their responsibilities very seriously when it comes to racing. When triple world champion Ayrton Senna was killed in front of millions of live TV viewers in the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, his was the second death of a driver that weekend. Under Italian law, the death of any driver or spectator at a circuit must be investigated. The trial which attempted to put the blame on to the key members of the Williams team that built his car rumbled on for nearly a decade after his death before it was decided that no convictions would be made.
Of course, the world of Formula 1 is light years ahead of that of off-road racing, simply by nature. Rallies and desert races take place over giant areas of land that are nigh-on impossible to police properly: through tortuous forests, villages and mountains.
On the back of a Grand Prix ticket it says, 'Motorsport is dangerous.' No matter how many safety precautions organisers take, spectators, especially the ones who like to stand in the path of an approaching car, take their lives in their own hands and there is an element of blame-apportioning when it is blatantly their own fault.
And yet, it is true that race promoters do have a duty of care to protect people who pay to come and see their events. Unfortunately, short of banning motorsport and especially off-road racing, there will be accidents, deaths, arrests, fines to be paid and compensation to be claimed for as long as this type of racing continues.
Sometimes people seem to think it's worth the risk.
by: Richard Craig
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