Q&A: How 'jackrabbit' driving ruins a car

Q: You - and everyone else - advise against "jackrabbit" driving. And I agree. It's easy to understand and explain why it's dangerous and also why it uses a lot more gas. But I have a 19-year-old son who responds to specifics much more than to advice that, as he says, "has the ring of sensible but may not be based in fact," and I can't really find anything that explains the third piece of the anti-jackrabbit-driving lecture - that it ruins the car. Can you help?

A: Sure can. Most cars built for consumers (unlike race cars) were not constructed to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds and then fall back to 20 then rev up to 70 over and over and over again. Which, let's face it, is how some people drive. Decades ago this was called "hard driving" and drivers of those cars learned that they disintegrated real fast.

The pistons, connecting rods, crankshaft, transmission and axles were built to move more or less gently against each other. Flooring it once or twice isn't going to break down the whole system into instant collapse. But if you are constantly mashing pieces against other pieces harshly instead of allowing them to move against each other in the more restrained way intended, you'll wear down, wear out, and ruin stuff at a much quicker pace.

Think of it this way: you're using a crowbar to pry a steel post out of the ground. It's a tool built for exactly that kind of job and you can, if you use it in the way it is intended, dislodge hundreds or thousands of steel posts over many years. Let's now assume that instead of using it to move against the post in the normal way, you start slamming it repeatedly against the post. Hour after hour, day after day it's repetitively slammed. That abused crowbar won't hold up forever, or for as long as would have been the case if it had been used properly, even though it's a tough and hard little item. That's a truth that also applies to car parts: repetitive pounding reduces life expectancy. Think about knees that carry too much weight. Same principal. Early breakdown.

I hope that helps. He's by no means the first kid, nor is he from the first generation that drives cars too hard. The only thing I've seen that really works is giving them a list of repair costs for each of the soon-to-be-ruined components and assuring them that the cost will be on their shoulders.

Q: What do you think about that controversial, very bloody public service announcement from Great Britain about texting while driving that's been causing such a stir? And can you envision it being broadcast in this country?

A: I agree with the vast majority of the people who commented online when the Daily Telegraph ran a story about it (including a link to the video) and opened it to reader comments: It's so graphic it's hard to watch, but if it convinces even one person to give up that deadly practice, it's worth publicizing.

For those of you who haven't seen it (and you can by going to YouTube and typing "texting while driving PSA" into the search function) it's a 4-1/2 minute PSA (the length alone will mean that no network in this country will air it) that's take-your-breath-away unconventional.

The brainchild of the Gwent Police Department in the UK, it shows teenage girls driving a country road while texting. They cross the dividing line, slam into a car, cause a chain reaction of several other vehicles, and as they careen to a stop, they are hit on the passenger side, and we bear witness to the stomach-churning impact. The next four minutes are filled with jaws-of-life extractions, emergency personnel, blood splatter and accident-scene sounds, all through the eyes of the driver who has been badly injured, and is trapped next to her obviously dead friend. She will soon discover she has also killed the parents of kids who survived in the back of the car she hit.

Graphic. But there's no gratuitous moment, as far as I'm concerned. It is merely a feasible eventuality, a virtual reenactment of what happens every day in this country. I'd make it required viewing for every driver in this country if there were a way to do so.