[00:00:11.200] 
This is Doug Phillips, age twenty-one.

[00:00:15.040] 
He has killed a woman in an auto accident.

[00:00:18.230] 
Before he killed Doug Phillips,
had been found guilty of reckless driving,

[00:00:21.940] 
speeding, and driving
on the wrong side of the road.

[00:00:26.560] 
Charles McLamb, thirty-nine.

[00:00:29.160] 
Sixteen speeding convictions,

[00:00:30.960] 
found guilty four times of driving after
his license was suspended or revoked,

[00:00:35.440] 
and once of reckless driving,

[00:00:37.080] 
running a stop sign
and, failure to yield the right of way.

[00:00:41.040] 
His record shows three accidents.

[00:00:47.080] 
This is Ronald Seaman, age twenty-one.

[00:00:50.800] 
He has killed three people.

[00:00:53.040] 
 Before the accident

[00:00:54.280] 
he was convicted three times of speeding
and once of running a red light.

[00:00:59.280] 
Murray Skeen, nineteen. Convicted of involuntary
manslaughter and prearranged racing.

[00:01:10.960] 
This is Garland Williams, twenty-two.

[00:01:13.920] 
Convicted of manslaughter
and reckless driving, one accident.

[00:01:23.920] 
My name is Chris Connelly or
Norman Harrington of Peyton Place.

[00:01:27.560] 
In real life, I've had four speeding tickets.

[00:01:30.240] 
One for failing to yield to right of away
and one for passing a no passing zone.

[00:01:35.080] 
 Like these other drivers,

[00:01:36.440] 
I have come here to discuss why we kill.

[00:01:40.760] 
How about you?

[00:01:42.480] 
I've had so many
offenses I can't count them.

[00:01:45.700] 
I've had—

[00:01:48.240] 
not had any in the last couple of years,

[00:01:50.680] 
but I was a habitual violator
and had my license revoked.

[00:01:56.880] 
I went without them for five years.

[00:02:01.280] 
Did you still drive during that time?

[00:02:01.840] 
Oh, yes. I got caught numerous
times driving without it.

[00:02:05.560] 
Cost a fortune to get out of that.

[00:02:08.040] 
You'd pay off?

[00:02:09.080] 
That's right.

[00:02:10.760] 
And I wrecked five or six cars.

[00:02:13.280] 
I total lossed at least four.

[00:02:17.320] 
I rolled one new car,

[00:02:17.920] 
I had it a week, and I rolled it doing
a hundred and five miles an hour.

[00:02:22.240] 
Doug, what about you?

[00:02:24.080] 
Well, wreck was pretty bad.

[00:02:27.960] 
I can't remember that cause it

[00:02:29.120] 
 made me lose it.

[00:02:30.440] 
You can't remember it at all?

[00:02:31.280] 
No, it gave me a slack concussion.

[00:02:36.680] 
I didn't even know nothing about the wreck until

[00:02:36.680] 
got out of the hospital—well I knowed about the wreck,

[00:02:40.260] 
but I didn't know it killed woman

[00:02:42.680] 
until I got out of the hospital.

[00:02:43.400] 
Were you speeding though?

[00:02:44.710] 
I don't know.
See, that's what's got me puzzled.

[00:02:49.280] 
I'm the same way.

[00:02:49.560] 
I don't know whether I was speeding or not either

[00:02:51.120] 
when I had mine.

[00:02:54.840] 
Muffler was busted,
speedometer was broken.

[00:02:58.400] 
I believe I was about half asleep.

[00:02:59.440] 
Yeah.

[00:03:00.960] 
Had you had anything
to drink or anything before?

[00:03:03.080] 
Well, I had drunk three beers all night
in six hours.

[00:03:06.480] 
I don't think three
beers would affect me that much.

[00:03:12.160] 
Well, some people are a little
different on drinking, now.


[00:03:14.120] 
A guy [?] and drank five or 
six and still be able to drive.

[00:03:17.480] 
Yeah, but some people that can drink one
knock them, put them out on their head.

[00:03:24.000] 
I don't think the amount
of whiskey makes you drunk.

[00:03:26.680] 
It depends on your system and

[00:03:29.520] 
 your mental attitude of everything else.

[00:03:31.460] 
Another thing is the way you drink it.

[00:03:35.080] 
Now if you're up moving around, it's
not going to affect you as much.

[00:03:41.400] 
Sitting in a car drinking it,

[00:03:42.400] 
it's worse on you.

[00:03:46.571] 
That's right.

[00:03:45.520] 
It'll get you a lot quicker.

[00:03:51.120] 
 Now I've drank, in a period of maybe six or
eight hours, drank half a gallon of whiskey

[00:03:54.080] 
and then still drive a car.

[00:03:56.500] 
And at other times I drink two
drinks and I just couldn't walk,

[00:03:59.800] 
couldn't talk.

[00:04:01.000] 
Well, was you moving around at the time?

[00:04:04.000] 
I never moved too much
when I was drinking.

[00:04:08.160] 
Another thing, too, if you drink—

[00:04:10.400] 
I could drink a couple of drinks.

[00:04:12.480] 
Say I would be sober,

[00:04:13.880] 
I would take and pass a highway
patrolman and I'd wave at him.

[00:04:17.040] 
I wouldn't think anything was wrong.

[00:04:18.880] 
But if I had a couple of drinks

[00:04:21.000] 
I figured he's gonna be after me and I'd
get around the corner and around a curve

[00:04:25.200] 
from him and I'd let it go.

[00:04:26.557] 
And a couple of times I was caught.

[00:04:29.080] 
I was caught one time doing
a hundred and five miles an hour through

[00:04:34.720] 
[?] right through the middle of town.

[00:04:35.560] 
Of course, he chased me four more miles

[00:04:37.600] 
before he finally
caught me and put me in jail.

[00:04:41.840] 
But do you think, like if you put a highway
patrol car, just empty with nobody in it,

[00:04:45.250] 
and you're driving along
and you saw this highway patrol car,

[00:04:48.400] 
that would slow you down
and keep you slowed down?

[00:04:51.000] 
No, I definitely don't.

[00:04:52.640] 
He's the common enemy. 

[00:04:53.680] 
That is just like the Gestapo to me.

[00:04:56.280] 
 When I automatically go to the speed limit

[00:04:59.200] 
and just as soon as I'm out of his sight,
I feel like I'm

[00:05:02.200] 
getting away with something if I
break the speed limit a few miles.

[00:05:06.200] 
Most of the people

[00:05:07.420] 
they work, around in this area,
they work in a mill, or someplace like that. 

[00:05:11.120] 
They've got they've got someone
telling them what to do all the time.

[00:05:13.440] 
Right.

[00:05:14.320] 
Well, once they get behind the

[00:05:16.400] 
 wheel of a car, they're their own boss.

[00:05:18.100] 
Right.

[00:05:18.960] 
They've got the power of life
and death in their own hands.

[00:05:22.440] 
They feel like that they're
their own boss.

[00:05:25.280] 
But if you see that cop sitting over on the
side of the road, you say there's somebody

[00:05:31.440] 
trying to boss me.

[00:05:31.640] 
He'll try to boss me.

[00:05:33.120] 
And you've got that built up
resentment in you, the Gestapo again.

[00:05:36.400] 
You hate him, because you've
just left the boss in the mill

[00:05:40.010] 
that gives you a hard time.

[00:05:41.470] 
You're out on your own
and you see another boss out there.

[00:05:44.520] 
I can't even drive my own car on my own
highway that I pay taxes to build because

[00:05:49.310] 
that thing sitting over there is
gonna give me a ticket or try to.

[00:05:52.420] 
I'll outsmart him.
I'll slow up then I'll give it hell.

[00:05:57.240] 
Do you feel that policemen are kind of

[00:05:59.560] 
like if you have a beat up car,
do you think they're prejudiced?

[00:06:03.440] 
Do you know what I mean?

[00:06:04.520] 
I think they're more prejudice
if you're driving a Cadillac.

[00:06:07.720] 
Well, yeah.

[00:06:08.320] 
You know, like, oh, I had a Corvette
and I got tickets like wildfire.

[00:06:13.000] 
I mean, I couldn't believe how many tickets I got.

[00:06:14.320] 
And  I said to the cop one day, I said,
"Hey, man, what's with you guys?

[00:06:18.890] 
Are you guys, you know,

[00:06:20.240] 
looking for hot rodders or what, 
are you just hot on sports cars?"

[00:06:24.560] 
I think if I was a patrolman
or a policemen I would,

[00:06:28.680] 
I would watch the faster cars,

[00:06:32.960] 
the stronger engine in the car,
because most the time

[00:06:39.000] 
 the guy that buys these kind of cars
are going to use them.

[00:06:41.371] 
Right.

[00:06:43.280] 
 Now like in a small town,

[00:06:45.720] 
do you feel that

[00:06:47.320] 
 when there's nothing to do, you do—


[00:06:50.600] 
That's another problem that I got.

[00:06:53.160] 
There's not but one place open in town.

[00:06:58.960] 
And for every girl that goes
there there's about twenty boys.

[00:07:01.280] 
So when I go there, more than likely,

[00:07:05.040] 
when I did go there,

[00:07:07.520] 
 first thing I think about is getting over there

[00:07:09.600] 
with a bunch of boys and start drinking.

[00:07:11.480] 
Yeah.

[00:07:15.080] 
Carry on among ourselves
cause there wasn't much else to do.

[00:07:16.080] 
Right.

[00:07:19.760] 
And sometimes we'd get up, about
five or six of us, and get about half drunk

[00:07:24.370] 
and we'd take off
and go thirty or forty miles, just riding.

[00:07:29.440] 
Just looking for something.

[00:07:29.880] 
Yeah, looking for something to do.

[00:07:32.920] 
Where I live everybody would meet
at one service station

[00:07:36.760] 
and you get five or six boys there

[00:07:40.000] 
eventually there's gonna be some kind
of drag racing or going somewhere.

[00:07:43.960] 
And that's all there were to do.

[00:07:47.600] 
Where I live there's a little store.

[00:07:49.960] 
Well, as long as I can remember
they've been racing down there.

[00:07:53.720] 
No drag strip?

[00:07:54.400] 
No drag strip

[00:07:55.720] 
or anywhere around that [?] about—
there's one in Greensboro, which is

[00:08:01.440] 
 about thirty miles away.

[00:08:07.600] 
And I can remember when I was just small,
say, ten, twelve years old

[00:08:09.480] 
there'd be cars lined up down at this store

[00:08:14.000] 
and they would race two by two
by our house.

[00:08:15.040] 
I'd stay awake at night
and sit up and watch them.

[00:08:22.480] 
And they would come from High Point down,

[00:08:20.171] 
and turn around in the store yard
and just line up two by two.

[00:08:23.480] 
And maybe it would be ten or twelve
cars and it would be six teams

[00:08:28.240] 
just racing one right after the other

[00:08:29.360] 
and then they go up,
and turn around, and come back.

[00:08:32.040] 
More than likely if I'd
never lived at this place where I'm at

[00:08:36.800] 
chances are maybe I'd never have raced

[00:08:38.214] 
But see, it was just always that thing

[00:08:40.840] 
down there that everybody
about that was young, raced.

[00:08:45.360] 
See I had seen thing ever
since I was just small,

[00:08:47.960] 
seen them race.

[00:08:49.200] 
And they'd come from High Point
and Asheboro and Thomasville

[00:08:52.840] 
and Lexington. They would come
from four or five towns all the way around there

[00:08:56.480] 
and come up there and race.

[00:08:58.640] 
And it was just
something that all the guys did.

[00:08:59.680] 
I had my accident, we was there
at the store that night.

[00:09:03.440] 
Was it on a Friday, or?

[00:09:06.240] 
It was on a Saturday night, late Sunday
morning, when I had the wreck.

[00:09:07.786] 
We were all there [?] and we raced twice

[00:09:07.786] 
and then I had this wreck and the
boy who I was with was killed.

[00:09:14.360] 
And you were saying that all the
boys around where you live race,

[00:09:18.500] 
do you know why?

[00:09:23.160] 
They did race, they've all about
quit it now since I've had my wreck.

[00:09:25.400] 
But, why?

[00:09:27.960] 
 I don't know.

[00:09:29.440] 
It's roughly about fourteen miles from High Point.

[00:09:35.440] 
It's out in the country.

[00:09:36.840] 
And

[00:09:43.560] 
I don't know, its just been passed down.
There's guys down there from fifty years old,

[00:09:45.040] 
I say forty years old, down

[00:09:47.600] 
that remembers whenever they raced
when they was boys, at the same place.

[00:09:50.960] 
And why?
I don't know.

[00:09:52.840] 
It just—I guess maybe to start
out it there was nothing to do.

[00:09:55.871] 
And maybe some of the guys
that raced when I did was like me,

[00:10:00.160] 
they saw it whenever they was small

[00:10:02.040] 
and it was just kind of handed down to the
younger boys and we'd just race.

[00:10:07.680] 
How many have killed because of,

[00:10:09.280] 
you know, driving under
the influence, being drunk?

[00:10:14.000] 
I don't know what it would—if
the beer that done it or not.

[00:10:17.240] 
Could have been.

[00:10:18.840] 
Well, in my case,

[00:10:21.400] 
 I'm not sure,

[00:10:22.040] 
but I don't think it was a liquor because,
well, I'd been up for two days without any

[00:10:26.200] 
sleep because I was
running a pool room at night.

[00:10:28.680] 
It was outside the city limits.

[00:10:30.320] 
Yeah.

[00:10:31.440] 
And I was gonna stay up and go see the race
at the Charlotte World 600.

[00:10:36.640] 
So I went to Jones' Restaurant and I
had two drinks about eight o'clock.

[00:10:40.480] 
Then I went to a dance.

[00:10:42.560] 
So I come back to Jones' and we're
planning to go to a race.

[00:10:46.240] 
And I decided I just had
to go home, go to bed

[00:10:48.920] 
because I wouldn't be able to
stay up and go to the race.

[00:10:50.329] 
A half a mile from home I had my wreck

[00:10:53.400] 
and I don't know
whether my system was too weak

[00:10:58.000] 
and the liquor had anything
to do with it or not.

[00:11:00.280] 
Being tired?

[00:11:01.080] 
Being tired and I did have the two drinks.

[00:11:04.200] 
Yeah.

[00:11:05.360] 
What happened in your accident?

[00:11:07.800] 
Well,

[00:11:10.240] 
I was up at Jones' Restaurant
about eleven thirty at night.

[00:11:15.000] 
This is what they tell me because I don't

[00:11:16.320] 
remember anything about
an hour before that.

[00:11:18.360] 
Well, that's where you had the—
Yeah.

[00:11:20.240] 
And we had went to a dance.

[00:11:21.840] 
And the boy said I didn't
talk to him or anything,

[00:11:23.760] 
I just left, went out the door

[00:11:25.880] 
and was going home.
It was about five miles from where I live.

[00:11:28.760] 
And about a half a mile from
where I live there was a curve.

[00:11:32.040] 
Instead of going around the curve
I went straight and hit another car.

[00:11:35.960] 
Do you think—was it head on, or?

[00:11:38.000] 
It was practically head on. It
was driver's side, the driver's side.

[00:11:43.440] 
Well then, do you think, you know,
being tired you fell asleep?

[00:11:46.960] 
Yes.


[00:11:47.590] 
How many were killed?

[00:11:48.840] 
There were three people
killed, all in the other car.

[00:11:52.480] 
And

[00:11:53.880] 
the way I feel about it,
before I left home that night,

[00:11:58.240] 
 I knew that I didn't have enough,

[00:11:59.920] 
well, to start off with I wasn't planning

[00:12:01.360] 
on driving my car the way it was.

[00:12:03.720] 
But we ended up, I did drive my car.

[00:12:07.280] 
But

[00:12:08.920] 
I shouldn't have.

[00:12:10.440] 
I knew that I hadn't had any sleep,
but I felt good at the time.

[00:12:14.410] 
And I didn't know
it was going to hit me.

[00:12:16.760] 
I needed to, you know, wanna
sleep all at one time.

[00:12:19.720] 
So there I was.
I guess my mind just told me to go home.

[00:12:22.680] 
I didn't make it.

[00:12:24.960] 
Do you think that—

[00:12:27.760] 
how many tickets have
you had prior to that?

[00:12:30.640] 
I think three or four.

[00:12:31.320] 
For speeding, or?

[00:12:33.040] 
Well, running a stop sign. 
I stopped for it. Or it what was a stoplight.

[00:12:37.560] 
I stopped for it and I was mad and I went on
and I got a ticket for that. And

[00:12:42.160] 
two speeding,

[00:12:43.160] 
one forty-five in a thirty-five
and sixty-five in a fifty-five.

[00:12:46.320] 
Do you think they would have
jerked your license before this?

[00:12:48.071] 
I sure do.

[00:12:49.880] 
I think if they would have taken my license
about a year then it would

[00:12:54.600] 
have slowed me down and I would know what I
know now before the wreck happened.

[00:12:59.640] 
Does being mad cause accidents?

[00:13:00.420] 
That's the main cause, too, besides drinking.

[00:13:03.080] 
Of course the drinking will get you mad.

[00:13:06.720] 
If you drink
and you get mad easier I think.

[00:13:09.480] 
Right. Like if some old lady
pulls out in front of you. 

[00:13:15.360] 
That's right.

[00:13:15.760] 
You get behind an old lady, or an old man,

[00:13:15.960] 
and you cuss and you want
to get ahead and you pull out.

[00:13:20.640] 
I've done that.

[00:13:21.680] 
I've passed them on the wrong side
of the road a lot of time.

[00:13:24.080] 
I've even gone up behind them and put
my bumper on theirs and pick up speed

[00:13:28.040] 
and give them a push and tap them
with the car.

[00:13:32.960] 
Why, because you were mad?

[00:13:31.029] 
Because they made me mad.

[00:13:33.640] 
Old people on the road or women drivers,
especially women. 

[00:13:37.000] 
Frame of mind, I think.

[00:13:38.600] 
And another thing, too.

[00:13:39.800] 
Most of the time I was drinking.

[00:13:42.440] 
It bothered me, anything.

[00:13:45.200] 
 And especially if I had

[00:13:47.960] 
had a little aggravation at home
and gone out for a ride.

[00:13:51.080] 
Right then, you know, and hostile then.

[00:13:52.440] 
And take a couple of drinks and

[00:13:54.840] 
then the least little thing happened,
I would want to,

[00:13:57.760] 
I'd actually want to run into somebody.

[00:13:59.214] 
Yeah.

[00:14:00.520] 
I have tapped the back of cars and
get my speed equal to theirs and then push

[00:14:05.800] 
down on the accelerator
and give them a ride. Of course -

[00:14:08.920] 
You didn't think, though,
that you could have an accident, did you?

[00:14:12.360] 
Well, it never occurred
to me one way or the other.

[00:14:14.320] 
I figured I was the most
skillful driver in the world.

[00:14:17.920] 
In my case, I thought I could drive.

[00:14:20.520] 
I thought I could handle a car real good.

[00:14:24.080] 
Probably I could

[00:14:26.560] 
 say at the speed limit.

[00:14:28.480] 
But when you get over the speed limit
you're not driving a car you're aiming it.

[00:14:32.880] 
How many of you do have
driving licenses now?

[00:14:36.400] 
I don't.
I don't.

[00:14:36.680] 
I don't either.
I don't either.

[00:14:37.200] 
There's only two out of
six that has driving license.

[00:14:39.743] 
And it is a problem.

[00:14:43.240] 
Now I went to driver's education

[00:14:44.760] 
and got my license back after
being five years without them.

[00:14:48.080] 
And

[00:14:50.040] 
on the way from driver's education,
I got two tickets coming back.

[00:14:54.560] 
Of course, it was late at night and I came

[00:14:56.800] 
back and I stopped at a—
I didn't stop at a stop sign.

[00:15:00.080] 
And I was going about seven miles over

[00:15:03.160] 
the speed limit, first time,
and then I didn't stop at a stop sign.

[00:15:06.000] 
How fast was that?

[00:15:07.600] 
It was forty-five in a
thirty-five mile zone.

[00:15:11.560] 
The only thing that I
remember about getting my license back is

[00:15:16.400] 
when I went to this
driver's education school

[00:15:18.600] 
you have to have a change of attitude.

[00:15:20.720] 
You just can't say my attitude's changed,

[00:15:23.880] 
but you actually
really have to have it.

[00:15:25.920] 
And I remember when I was in this
school my attitude really did change.

[00:15:31.120] 
Do you think they should have a refresher then,
like every six months where you go in again?

[00:15:35.160] 
That might that might be a good idea.

[00:15:38.080] 
I think the main thing is that

[00:15:40.760] 
I gained a little respect

[00:15:42.480] 
for the highway patrol at the school
because they were all nice fellas.

[00:15:45.920] 
They were real good group of guys.

[00:15:49.320] 
But then

[00:15:51.160] 
 I got involved in a little thing.

[00:15:52.920] 
I was actually speeding.

[00:15:54.360] 
I was going about ten miles over the limit

[00:15:57.320] 
and I spotted the highway
patrolman three cars back,

[00:16:01.160] 
and I knew he couldn't get me
and clock me for speeding.

[00:16:04.400] 
And so I slowed up.

[00:16:06.200] 
And when he stopped me, I gave him
the argument about, "Take me to court.

[00:16:10.110] 
I don't care.
You know, nobody's gonna convict me.

[00:16:12.880] 
No jury with you

[00:16:14.280] 
three cars, two cars,
in between you and me and you

[00:16:17.640] 
with no radar."

[00:16:19.520] 
And so,

[00:16:21.440] 
he changed it and said,
I passed on the wrong side of the,

[00:16:24.640] 
you know, the yellow line,
which I didn't do.

[00:16:29.000] 
He did get you though. He wanted to get you
for something. Is that what you feel?

[00:16:29.840] 
That's right since he
knew that I was speeding.

[00:16:31.357] 
Yeah.

[00:16:32.160] 
And he couldn't get me for that.

[00:16:34.000] 
And then I lost all respect
for the highway patrol.

[00:16:36.920] 
Did anybody ever have a feeling
of hate, you know, for

[00:16:39.571] 
patrolmen or anything?

[00:16:41.720] 
I've been driving along

[00:16:44.160] 
and some old man or old
woman pull out in front of me

[00:16:48.440] 
 and they'll poke along up a hill.

[00:16:50.520] 
You'll say [?], darn it, something,
you'll always cuss them a little.

[00:16:56.000] 
Right.

[00:16:56.960] 
And you'll want to get around them.
You say, "Well they're slowing me down."

[00:17:01.440] 
They'll just poke along. Just

[00:17:07.400] 
driving too slow.

[00:17:04.371] 
And I'll hate that, I mean.

[00:17:08.714] 
Yeah, well,

[00:17:10.800] 
how do you think,

[00:17:13.320] 
 I mean, out of our own experiences,

[00:17:16.080] 
do you think we could prevent

[00:17:18.680] 
 fatal accidents?

[00:17:20.680] 
Well, I don't know how mine happened

[00:17:22.480] 
so I can't—

[00:17:24.120] 
But you kind of have an idea
right before, don't you?

[00:17:27.720] 
Well, all I know is I was at a dance

[00:17:32.240] 
 and I don't even remember leaving the dance.

[00:17:35.880] 
Do you think you were drinking?

[00:17:40.080] 
I know I wasn't drinking.

[00:17:42.040] 
Was it an "I don't give a darn" attitude, or?

[00:17:43.720] 
I don't know.

[00:17:45.200] 
Talking about fatal accidents

[00:17:47.520] 
If you look at a truck driver

[00:17:50.320] 
and take a little courtesy from him.

[00:17:53.614] 
Like if you're following a truck driver

[00:17:57.160] 
and you're on a hill or something, or you can't
see, and he can see that the road is

[00:18:02.040] 
clear in front of you, he's gonna
give you a signal to come around.

[00:18:05.400] 
If some of that would just
rub off on the other people,

[00:18:10.080] 
have a lot more courtesy on the highway

[00:18:12.560] 
that would slow everybody down I believe.

[00:18:13.650] 
Well yeah,
how do you get people to think

[00:18:16.840] 
you know, be more careful instead of careless?

[00:18:21.480] 
How do you think you could, you know?

[00:18:23.000] 
Well there ain't one way to make them think

[00:18:26.200] 
and that's losing and then they'll
think about getting them back.

[00:18:29.520] 
So in other words, you have to
you cause accidents in order to—

[00:18:33.720] 
Well, not necessarily,
but you've got to come close

[00:18:37.880] 
before you'll even think about it. I mean,

[00:18:45.920] 
man will get out here and he'll
drive, say, "Well it ain't going to happen to me."

[00:18:44.200] 
That's it.

[00:18:44.886] 
After it one time happens though

[00:18:46.400] 
he knows that it can happen.

[00:18:49.440] 
I believe I've got a different
problem from the rest of you.

[00:18:53.040] 
I've always had an inferiority complex.

[00:18:56.400] 
And when I get up with a bunch of boys,
I try to be just as rough as they are

[00:18:59.760] 
or do I feel like I'm not in place?

[00:19:04.720] 
In other words, I'm self-conscious of everything I do.

[00:19:06.680] 
Sitting here I'm self-conscious.

[00:19:09.000] 
You're self-conscious, but why?

[00:19:11.800] 
I mean, you know.

[00:19:14.080] 
Do you know why?
No.

[00:19:18.720] 
It's just always been that way all my life.

[00:19:18.400] 
[?]

[00:19:19.890] 
I'm self-conscious all the time,

[00:19:23.840] 
driving or other [?], doesn't make a difference.

[00:19:24.400] 
Did you ever drive a hundred
miles an hour on a car?

[00:19:27.414] 
Yeah.

[00:19:30.000] 
Did it give you a good
feeling or were you scared?

[00:19:31.320] 
Well, when I get up to a hundred, I get scared.
About eighty I don't mind it.

[00:19:37.440] 
At eighty do you have a good feeling?

[00:19:36.614] 
Right.

[00:19:38.520] 
Feel like you're maybe
a little high or intoxicated?

[00:19:42.800] 
You know, if you—
Well you could say it that way.

[00:19:46.280] 
I mean,

[00:19:50.040] 
speed in itself, I like to get up in
a car with a boy that's rough driving.

[00:19:53.200] 
For him to spin around and stuff like that.

[00:19:54.440] 
Just like my brother.
My brother's a pretty good driver.

[00:19:57.240] 
Now he can take a car

[00:20:00.040] 
and spin it round, and round, and round.

[00:20:02.400] 
He can handle it. I don't
mind getting in a car with him.

[00:20:03.960] 
Now if he was to have a wreck

[00:20:05.880] 
 how safe would you feel with him then?

[00:20:11.000] 
I don't know.

[00:20:12.760] 
 How can you, you know, stop wrecks?

[00:20:14.920] 
I mean, do you have any idea at all?

[00:20:18.920] 
That's a funny thing, you know.

[00:20:20.871] 
In my case, I

[00:20:24.240] 
was sitting in a store
before I had this wreck and

[00:20:27.880] 
we knew we was going to go race.

[00:20:30.440] 
And there's this boy that
argued about riding with me in the car.

[00:20:33.440] 
The boy that was killed and this other boy

[00:20:36.200] 
was arguing about who was
gonna ride with me.

[00:20:39.480] 
And the boy that lost the argument you say,

[00:20:44.214] 
he

[00:20:47.160] 
 he watched the race.
He was watching it.

[00:20:49.560] 
And he was there whenever I had the wreck.

[00:20:53.000] 
And after this happened in, say,

[00:20:56.200] 
two or three months afterwards,
he bought him a police interceptor car.

[00:21:01.120] 
And I saw him racing with it.

[00:21:02.800] 
And I thought, well,

[00:21:03.800] 
how can you get out here and race when you
see that you come just within a little bit

[00:21:07.880] 
of being the one that was
in the car with me and got killed?

[00:21:10.680] 
And he was there, you see, but

[00:21:14.880] 
 he couldn't see that.

[00:21:16.800] 
When people can't see that they're, what
they're getting into, well, there's not a chance then.

[00:21:22.880] 
There is no way they can—

[00:21:24.480] 
they just got to realize
and see what could happen.

[00:21:28.720] 
Until they do, there's
no way that they can.

[00:21:31.160] 
[overlapping voices]

[00:21:32.440] 
You had a fatal accident
in this prearranged racing?

[00:21:35.720] 
Yes.

[00:21:36.614] 
Did you feel—

[00:21:40.390] 
how did you feel?

[00:21:41.240] 
I've never had one is the reason.
For my own curiosity

[00:21:43.720] 
how did you, I mean,

[00:21:46.840] 
 just for my curiosity.

[00:21:48.640] 
The boy that was riding with me,

[00:21:51.840] 
he was a friend.

[00:21:54.600] 
I'd went to school with him
all through school, you might say.

[00:21:57.786] 
In grammar grade, just one year, he moved to
another school and he came back and went with us.

[00:22:02.929] 
Went to school with me all in high school

[00:22:02.829] 
and me and him was real close friends.

[00:22:07.240] 
And it really hurt a lot

[00:22:10.480] 
that he was killed and me
driving the car that he was killed in.

[00:22:17.720] 
A lot of nights I can't sleep. I think about it.

[00:22:21.320] 
It's kind of like you say,

[00:22:21.840] 
it's hard to imagine that I was
driving the car when he was killed, but

[00:22:27.600] 
it's a fact I was. But,

[00:22:30.360] 
like you said, too,

[00:22:35.680] 
a lot of it was knocked out of my mind.
I don't remember a whole lot of it, 

[00:22:36.280] 
but I know that he was in the car with me.

[00:22:37.920] 
It just hurts.

[00:22:38.440] 
You didn't see him after he was dead?

[00:22:42.200] 
I got out of the car.

[00:22:45.040] 
I remember opening the door and
getting out of the car and I called him

[00:22:46.200] 
and I found him. He was
breathing then and just real faint.

[00:22:50.800] 
And I remember that.

[00:22:52.320] 
 I just heard him breathing

[00:22:54.760] 
I bent down, but I could just tell he was breathing.

[00:22:56.960] 
I run to the road and the guys that was
down at this other road watching the race,

[00:23:01.560] 
they had seen the headlights go over in the air
and they came down, and I flagged them down.

[00:23:06.680] 
And that's all I remember
until I was in the hospital.

[00:23:10.080] 
Well, after my wreck,
after I got out of hospital,

[00:23:13.200] 
well, I drove for six
months before I was tried.

[00:23:16.620] 
 And I drove this,
I drove real sensible,

[00:23:18.640] 
no speeding or anything like that
because I knew what I'd done.

[00:23:24.320] 
How do you think you could—

[00:23:25.240] 
you can't really tell people,

[00:23:26.750] 
cause just like you say, you'd never
think it's gonna happen to you.

[00:23:28.700] 
That's right.

[00:23:30.000] 
Why do you think people don't listen?

[00:23:34.480] 
For the thing they think,
"It couldn't happen to me."

[00:23:36.080] 
I think that's the main thing.

[00:23:37.710] 
People think, "Well
it just can't happen to me."

[00:23:40.360] 
Another reason

[00:23:42.080] 
 about a reason they might not listen,

[00:23:43.600] 
it goes back to this

[00:23:45.560] 
when you get behind the wheel
of a car you you're own boss business.

[00:23:48.960] 
When you're behind the
wheel of your own car, you're your own boss,

[00:23:51.400] 
you do what you want to do.

[00:23:53.360] 
That's another reason that it probably
wouldn't sink into them.

[00:23:58.000] 
These kind of guys, they just the ones
that I think that are causing a lot of other accidents.

[00:24:03.920] 
Were you like that?

[00:24:06.000] 
Yes, I was. I had people talk
to me and tell me about racing

[00:24:11.440] 
See but, no, I didn't listen to them.
I thought I knew.

[00:24:14.840] 
I thought I could drive.

[00:24:16.120] 
I thought I could handle a car real well.

[00:24:18.440] 
And probably, like I said,
at a reasonable speed,

[00:24:21.280] 
I was probably a pretty fair driver.
But out of the speed limit you're not.

[00:24:29.280] 
What about you?

[00:24:33.520] 
Well, I'd always had hate in
me and speed I felt bigger.

[00:24:38.760] 
I felt—

[00:24:40.760] 
 I've always—

[00:24:43.720] 
like he said while ago,
I don't feel at ease in certain

[00:24:48.640] 
surroundings, but I feel completely
at home behind the steering wheel of a car.

[00:24:53.320] 
But I always had
a resentment toward especially police.

[00:24:58.400] 
I saw too many crooked ones.

[00:25:00.000] 
I've paid off too many.

[00:25:01.240] 
And I would figure I had to pay

[00:25:03.760] 
that dirty so-and-so in hard earned money
that I had to get the hard way

[00:25:08.400] 
and he's getting it easy.

[00:25:09.680] 
I wish I had his racket
and things like that.

[00:25:13.040] 
I always—like the common enemy, is the
 patrolman.

[00:25:17.830] 
I don't see that patrolman as what he is,

[00:25:20.080] 
I see him as that one
that told a lie on me in court.

[00:25:23.520] 
How do you feel that you could

[00:25:25.600] 
 make an impression in people's minds
that this has happened,

[00:25:29.040] 
you know, like you all said,
this has happened to me,

[00:25:31.880] 
 an accident.
I've killed someone.

[00:25:34.040] 
How do you think you can do that?

[00:25:35.420] 
I've never killed anyone in a car.

[00:25:37.320] 
I don't know.

[00:25:38.840] 
I don't know how I would feel.

[00:25:41.040] 
That's why I asked those questions is to find
out how you would feel if you did that.

[00:25:48.360] 
But how can you make them feel that,

[00:25:50.760] 
I mean, other people
that are probably, you know,

[00:25:53.800] 
to stop the accidents,
just slow it down a little bit?

[00:25:59.880] 
More severe punishment
for their [?], bad driving.

[00:26:02.829] 
What do you think, Doug?

[00:26:04.857] 
That's the only way I can,

[00:26:07.800] 
I mean, you can't hardly think of no
other way because you ain't going to get out here

[00:26:12.120] 
and tell a man.

[00:26:14.800] 
Because they won't do it.

[00:26:15.929] 
[?] people told me.

[00:26:17.400] 
It'd go to my head just
like waterwheel through a pipe.

[00:26:23.240] 
My buddy had a wreck,

[00:26:25.160] 
it was maybe a year before I had mine,

[00:26:28.080] 
 and he killed two people.

[00:26:32.520] 
Well that wasn't over a mile,
mile and a half, from my house.

[00:26:35.320] 
Was bothering me for a little while,
not a long time, two or three weeks.

[00:26:42.480] 
But then it got over.

[00:26:46.440] 
Well, you take me.

[00:26:50.600] 
I've seen dogs and stuff get killed

[00:26:54.200] 
and I've just about cried over it.

[00:26:56.640] 
I've seen people that I know
that were drunks and stuff

[00:26:59.840] 
that didn't care a bit about their life

[00:27:01.720] 
and I felt like I thought
it happened some way or another.

[00:27:05.160] 
But I can also read in the newspaper
about people get killed in wrecks and stuff and

[00:27:12.760] 
it's just one of those things.

[00:27:13.500] 
[tires screeching and cars crashing]

[00:27:20.000] 
[music]