Teen Joyrides Run Awry, Leaving Behind Community in Questions

Vigil in memory of four Indo-Caribbean teens held in Smokey Oval Park, south Richmond Hill in October 2012. (Photo Courtesy of Jeffrey Liu, Wheel and Torque.com)

TOGETHER Indo-Caribbean teens, parents, community leaders, car enthusiasts, elected officials, teachers, and principals stood on a brisk October evening in the Smokey Oval Park as they heard a neighborhood pandit offer a prayer in Hindi in memory of the tragic death of four teens.

At the end of the vigil, hundreds of teens holding candles dripping of wax and tears swayed to a Jamaican reggae song “Fallen Soldier” stating life on the battlefield is so real.

“That was the first time ever the community has seen such an outpouring of emotions,” said Dhanpaul Narine, a vigil organizer, community leader, and president of a Hindu temple in south Queens.

He mentioned that many family members and friends were in denial that such a tragedy could occur.

Last year on an October night, 17-year-old Joseph Beer took his new Subaru Impreza on a joyride on the 25 and a half-mile Southern State Parkway—a highway notorious for its sharp curves and unpredictable interchanges.

Beer’s parents did know where he was going but he took along four of his friends. They never returned. Later the next day, Beer was found wandering around the wreckage; a tree crushed the car. According to a Patch article, a Nassau County trooper noted that Beer was under the influence of marijuana that night and he was speeding at a rate of over 110 miles per hour.

The accident is just one of many in the Indo-Caribbean community, which have left families, friends, and relatives to mourn the death of such young men for, as local critics say, “reckless” and “stupid” behavior. In 2007 two Indo-Caribbean high school students died after speeding into a guardrail along the Van Wyck Expressway with a black Dodge Charger. And in 2011 Bishnu Dinanauth, a car enthusiast, raced another vehicle along the Southern State Parkway, that ultimately ended in his death.

A New York Times feature suggests that Indo-Caribbean immigrant parents of modest means should be more careful when giving their children an expensive, fast vehicle and many members of the community agree.

“Why is it we would give a 17 year old an expensive vehicle to go joyriding on a dangerous night in a dangerous city?” asked Narine later adding, “Children are having all this freedom and aren’t accountable to any.”

Bhopaul “B.P.” Singh, a parent and long-time owner of an auto repair shop in Ozone Park, Queens said that if parents give their teenage son or daughter a sports car, they should be able to monitor how and when they drive it. “If you give them a sports car you have to watch them,” he said noting that parents can also keep the keys of the car.

Though he also mentioned, “You have to know what kind of car you give them.” He pointed out that often parents are not aware that some cars are specifically made for performance value and racing.

Yet while giving a car to a teen may be a concern, the right group of friends is also an important factor to Singh and Narine.

Narine said it is almost like a rite of passage for young men to receive their learner’s permit at 16 years and then when they get a vehicle, the friends appear.

“Because he got wheels now everyone goes for the joyride,” he said.

“You got to know who your kids friends are,” said Singh.

But when friends are not the problem, the culture can be. To many teens and car enthusiasts, racing is often portrayed as glamorous and is a culture that they say will never end, even to those who oppose and have coped with the deadly consequences.

“There’s no stop to racing,” said Sateesh Parsotan, a twenty-six year old ‘low and slow’ car enthusiast. “You have movies like Fast and Furious, you have movies like Need for Speed, you have video games, you have things that come out every single day that causes racing to come out on top—when it comes to stance you only have me.”

He explained that after the death of Bishnu Dinanauth, his best friend, found racing his car on the Southern State, he no longer wanted to engage in the risky behavior.

“The consequences are not fun,” he said pointing out that “stance,” or lowering the coil springs of cars to ride slow with a “slammed, pretty” look is the new culture he is advocating with his network called Lowered Congress.

But he added that racing is a behavior that is not likely to be tamed anytime soon among not just Indo-Caribbeans, but a community of those who speed with beautiful cars throughout the city.

“You have no control over it, I have no control over it. Racing in itself is just something that people are just gonna do, because its just competitive and its just fun,” he said. “When they can’t do it on the track they do it on the street”

Unlike many other states like Florida, there is no racetrack in New York City designed for racing fast vehicles with a nearby emergency crew and no other vehicles on the road. Although, there are paved asphalt speedways for motorsport enthusiasts, many teens prefer longer strips of lonely highways for drag racing.

But some say that driving while under the influence of alcohol and marijuana are other factors in the issue of joyriding. “The problem is a combination of a lot of things,” said Narine who noted alcohol being an issue seen both back home and in the Indo-Caribbean immigrant enclave in south Queens.

With popular chutney songs, originating from Guyana and Trinidad, and broadcasted through the homeland and spreading to the Indo-Caribbean diaspora in the U.S., rum is often heard as an object of desire. “Ah drinka,” “Bring de Rum,” and “Where deh Puncheon deh?” are just some of the top hits within the past several years among Indo-Caribbean mainstream music.

Some Guyanese officials argue the glorifying of alcohol in music and lifestyle of Guyanese people are related.

According to a piece in TIME published in 2010, Evan Persaud, Guyana’s chairman of broadcasting advisory committee has said they are considering issuing a warning to television stations against airing chutney music videos that promote drinking after reports show Guyana drink nearly a gallon and a half of alcohol per capita.

Though despite the semblance of issues from fast cars, peer pressure, a dangerous culture, substance abuse, and bad music, schools continue to be the playing field where having a car means much more than being able to drive to the nearest grocery store or even to school.

“What does it mean to really have a nice car in high school? It means a lot. It means the world. It means you get to pick up girls and go someplace and then go back to school. You know, you’re one of those lucky kids,” said Parsotan who pointed out, “There’s a lot of kids that have to take the bus.”

He was gifted a “really fast car,” a RX 7 that he modified to make even faster at his father’s auto shop in Queens. Though he mentioned that although he did experiment with driving fast, he quickly graduated from the risky behavior.

Although many cite the issue of teens driving fast with cars gifted by their Indo-Caribbean parents, Parsotan said it is okay to give your child a sports car, as long as you teach them how to use it. After all, it’s not a bad thing to give your child what you never had in life.

“I wouldn’t call you lucky, I would call you fortunate—not wealthy but someone whose actually fortunate to have parents that worked in life,” he said.

Singh noted back home in Guyana, he was one of the very few who had the opportunity to drive a car. His father was a rice farmer and in addition to their tractor, their family also owned a car though most of his neighbors in the village used the bus, motorcycles, or simply bicycles to get from one part of the country to the next.

Though Beer was also gifted a fast car by his parents but after the death of four of his friends, he has been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Was it the right sentence?

“That’s a long time, and he was a teenager,” Narine said. “I don’t know if it’s too much or too less. It’s kinda hard to say because he’s a young man.”

Beer’s Facebook page, still open for comments, reflects a number of teens who support and miss him.

“It’s been almost a year bro. Hope your doing well,” said one family member. “The justice system of America is f*cked up. Keep your head up bruh.”