CRASHCOURSE : THE WINNERS OF THE ANNUAL CAR CRASH AWARDS by Frank Roger

No doubt there will be cries of outrage once again. No doubt we will once again be accused of blatant sensationalism. No doubt what is left of the socalled "serious press" will rally against us and file a formal complaint, dismissing our awards presentation as a token of extreme bad taste, a total lack of social conscience and a pathological penchant for the morbid and the macabre. It has always been like this, and it isn't likely to change in the foreseeable future. As usual, we can only seek solace and comfort in the high printrun of our publications (dwarfing those of our esteemed "serious" competitors), our healthy cashflow situation (although we thoroughly despise material wealth and all the worldly benefits it entails), and the evergrowing interest the public at large is showing for our endeavors (needless to say, popular appeal leaves us totally indifferent). But seriously, we've put your patience to the test for too long already. Allow us to present this year's winners of the so highly coveted car crash awards. Here we go... It only took mr. Herv Beaugeste a short, if unplanned afternoon nap behind the wheel of his gigantic truck to capture the award for Most Dramatic Traffic Accident. The scene of this memorable event was the Paris Ring at the height of rush hour, packed with cars and trucks as usual. Lost in doubtlessly rosycolored dreams, mr. Beaugeste steered his truck at high speed into a sea of sluggishly moving vehicles, caught in a massive jam. The cars were crushed like tin cans, compressed until that particular stretch of road had been transformed into an inferno of battered and warped metal, larded with shredded human flesh, as if a seriously deranged architect had been commissioned to relandscape the road according to his boldest psychopathic visions. Only when Herv Beaugeste's truck had finally ground to a crunching halt, the results of its batteringramlike progress became clear. Conjure up before your mind's eye an aweinspiring battlefield, drenched in spilled coolant, steam spiralling up from it, a shroud of vapor smothering the agonized cries of the mortally injured embedded in the hodgepodge of metal and flesh. Back at the end of the carnage, a tanker had caught fire, rolling out a carpet of greedily licking flames across the wreckage, quickly turning the simmering stew of crumpled cars and squashed humans into a rare treat served flamb. Dozens of people lost their lives that day. Many more were seriously injured, among them, sadly, mr. Beaugeste, who will receive his award when he rises from his coma in the James Dean Hospital. The judges chose to give the award for Most Original Traffic Accident to mr. Rudolf Meine from Munich, Germany. While cruising through downtown Munich, mr. Meine drove his Mercedes 300SE straight into a large clothing store, in a desperate effort to avoid knocking over a few children crossing the street as he came along. Instead, mr. Meine knocked over about two dozen window dummies, some unclad, some sporting the shop's newest items. They were crushed under his wheels, torn to pieces or swept up and thrown aside brutally.

The result was a spectacle of rare beauty. The judges describe it as "a hauntingly accurate interpretation of mankind's current incarnation as an automobilecrazed species. The hapless mannequins, representing unsuspecting shoppers on the sidewalk or customers strolling inside the store, were scattered all over the place in various stages of dismemberment. Although some of the unfortunate girls had their plastic limbs or head ripped off, their torso crushed, or their entire body maimed beyond description, their eyes were still staring dispassionately into whatever direction their heads were turned, unmoved by the accident, resignedly accepting their dreadful fate as a normal part of life in today's trafficsaturated and accidentprone society." The judges unanymously decided mr. Meine fully deserved the award for thus exemplifying, however unwittingly, a key element of today's world. The award for the traffic accident in the special category of Highest Artistic Merit went to the heirs of mr. Manuel Herrera Calvino, the unfortunate truck driver who did not survive the very accident that immortalized his name by adding it to the pantheon of Crashcourse winners. Consider the eloquence of the judges deliberating on this special category: "That day the weather was exceptionally bad in Northern California, which had already led to a series of comparatively insignificant traffic accidents. Mr. Herrera Calvino, however, managed to turn what might otherwise have been simply another bad day for traffic into a truly memorable event. While trying to avoid a cluster of cars and vans pressed into each other after a sequence of pileups on the Golden Gate Bridge, mr. Herrera Calvino achieved the impossible: he rammed a number of cars, broke through the Bridge's railing and dove into the raging waters of the Bay. "The splashdown of the already battered truck was so vehement that its entire cargo (a chemical product whose exact nature cannot be disclosed on request of its manufacturers, who copyrighted the incident) fell prey to the waves. The exceptionally strong surge and the fierce gale winds quickly whipped up the mysterious substance into towering castles of white foam, parts of which were torn off and subsequently blown away in the direction of the city. Soon the Golden Gate and parts of San Francisco were covered under a decorative shroud of whitish fluff, as if the city had been selected by a megalomaniac artist endeavoring to turn San Francisco into a stunning work of art. As a matter of fact, we do consider this Architecture of Foam to be a convincing new art form. For this remarkable innovation, the artist's heirs are fully entitled to this special award." This year's special Cold Blood Award was once again sponsored by Sprizzle, the softdrinksanddrugs company whose recent line of energizing, assertivenessstimulating cocktails, ("only slightly illegal", as their advertising campaign had it) especially popular with young drivers facing long stints behind the wheel in the wee hours of morning (some of whom may well end up among the award winners in the years to come) proved to be such a runaway succes. The award, often labeled the most desirable and aimedfor of the Crashcourse trophies, went to miss Jennifer Jobson, who performed a daredevil stunt with her spankingnew jetblack Porsche in the outskirts of Birmingham on a peaceful summer afternoon. At one point, she must have spotted a group of punks, off in the distance, sitting, lying or otherwise hanging around

on the sidewalk in front of The Bull's Eye, their favorite pub. The exact nature of what followed isn't quite clear, and miss Jobson herself is, of course, unable to elucidate the matter due to her critical condition. "Could it perhaps have been a suicide attempt?" the judges wondered. "Or was this foolhardy action spurred by a traumatizing incident, an episode in miss Jobson's youth somehow involving punks, a mental scar she wanted to exorcize from her mind? Or was miss Jobson perhaps, unlikely as this may seem, a mentally imbalanced person, giving in to an uncontrollable urge, suddenly surfacing in her mind and obliterating all rational thought?" Whatever the case might have been, the results were impressive. Miss Jobson put the pedal to the metal and sped off towards the unsuspecting punk gang. When it finally dawned on their alcoholclouded minds what was in store for them, it was too late to escape their nemesisonwheels. Its engine revved up beyond the danger level, the Porsche came bursting forth and bit into their leathercovered flesh, squashed it into pulp and spread it all over The Bull's Eye's facade. In the process, the Porsche itself was blown to smithereens, as was part of the gang's hangout. A shower of twisted metal, shattered bricks and shreds of human (or punk) flesh descended all over the area. Some fragments were found as far away as a hundred meters from the focus of this kamikaze mission, this epic battle between punk and Porsche, the clash of angry lowlife and spoiledbratcrusade. Unlike the punks, miss Jobson miraculously survived the battle if only by a very narrow margin. She was thrown out of the car, and rushed to the hospital in serious but not hopeless condition. The most telling reminder of that eventful day, however, is what was left of the Porsche : a pitiful carcass, stripped down to its barest essentials, like a discarded weapon left to rust on the battlefield, its original shape barely recognizable, a tool that had served its purpose and had lost all its value, except perhaps its power as a symbol of the hatred fuelling merciless acts of violence perpetrated by irreconcilable martyrs against their sworn enemies. The special Cold Blood award has rarely ever been given to a more appropriate contender.

Now that the judges have decided which names to add to the Crashcourse Hall of Fame, they are relieved of their duties and can take a muchdeserved rest. A new panel of judges will soon be appointed for next year's Crashcourse Awards Ceremony, scrutinizing TV and printed media coverage of traffic accidents, studying them from all possible angles, weighing their faults against their merits, separating the merely interesting cases from the truly outstanding candidates. Are you by any chance interested in who will win the awards next year? Just be there! And drive carefully... unless you cherish ambitions towards being nominated yourself.