Last week, the B.C. Civil Forfeiture office began looking into whether it can seize 13 luxury cars that were involved in an alleged street racing incident on Sept. 1.
A group of young men, none older than 22 and six with the green N of a new driver stuck in their back windows, were accused of driving more than $2 million worth of cars at up to 200 km/h on Highway 99 in rush hour.
Each driver was fined $196 and will likely pay $300 extra on their insurance next year. Big deal.
A used Lamborghini Gallardo will set you back around $150,000 to $175,000, and a new one goes for up to $250,000, depending on the options.
All the cars involved - Maserati Turismos, Mercedes SLs, a Ferrari 599, an Aston Martin - were in this absurdly overpriced class of luxury sports cars. One of the cheapest was the Nissan GTR, which goes for just $109,000 new. While many kids across the Lower Mainland are scraping together money to buy 10-or 20-year-old used cars, or simply taking the bus or borrowing the family minivan, these kids were handed the keys to road rockets by indulgent, wealthy parents.
Tickets aren't going to bother these spoiled, irresponsible young men.
Taking the cars, on the other hand, is a great idea.
The loss of a six-figure car will bring home to their parents the impact of the actions of their overgrown children.
Hopefully the parents will lay down the law, or at least not buy replacement cars.
Given the actions of these young men, if they don't learn their lessons, they'll end up wrapping their next cars around trees, street lights or an innocent bystander's car.
Second, the sale of these cars by the provincial government would raise quite a lot of money.
Some of the cars are worth more than land and buildings seized from drug dealers, for example. Putting that money into education programs for young drivers would be a good use of the cash raised.
