11.01.09
Perhaps because it is personal, but this weekend’s fatal crash involving four Amherst teenagers has received a heavy amount of attention from the local media, especially the Buffalo News.
The driver, Viktor Shapiro, was my girlfriend’s cousin who I met a couple of times. He was a good kid but there were qualities he had that could only come with being a teenager. He had the kind of obsession with cars many young guys have and the over-confidence that comes with it.
For the record, he purchased his own car, so assuming the parents were naive or lacked authority over him is unfounded. To blame it on America’s “increasing liberalism” at home is also unfounded. He comes from a traditional Russian family-its hard to be more overprotective than that.
The immediate assumption that he was drunk is insulting. People who have that kind of passion for cars and racing don’t do it drunk. They go fast because thats what they get a rush out of.
No one in their right mind would knowingly risk his friends’ lives. No 18 year old who lives for his car has the sense of mortality to be safer because he doesn’t understand how possible it is for it all to come to an end in a second.
Country roads in Clarence are raced on for a reason, and the main one is that there is no traffic, and few cops to ever be found. The fact that there have been five accidents at that intersection in recent years is enough cause for concern for everyone-not just fast drivers.
And lastly, for those of you who sit around, detached, commenting about his death in a poor impression of Ayn Rand or Charles Darwin-I wish you could see his parents shoveling dirt onto his grave in front of over 100 people who loved and cared about him. If your child had a love for speed and it led to his death, you would not be commenting on different news forums saying how “the kid got what was coming to him”. There is blame to go around but there is also reflection and mourning as well for someone whose life was more than just a kid driving too fast for his own good. These things will always happen because there are psychological elements of people that age that no legislation or “scared straight”-esque video can ever deter… sometimes you just have to hope that after all their mistakes, they make it to the next part of their lives okay with lessons learned.
So kudos to all of you who are so much better than him and prove it through your comments and writings. Thank you for the false allegations, and posting less-than-flattering photos of him. Thank you for your sense of relief that such a bad person is no longer around to harm everyone. You stay classy, Buffalo.
13 Comments
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I read peoples comments and thought the very same thing you have sir! What a world we live in. Thoughts and prayers for the people involved with this accident!
Take care!
Bill
One of the most powerful messages you have ever written. Thank you and my condolences to Marina for her and her family’s loss.
Mark,
Right on man…I can’t believe the shit I’ve read, seen or heard about all of this…the local news has been bad…the talk shows…comments on local new sites…awful.
My prayers to everyone involved in this tragedy…
I don’t know anything about this story and I have nothing to say about this person (or others like him) other than it is not just about them. It is about the risk they put all of us at. I believe that is why you are seeing the reaction you are seeing. Irresponsibility and selfish acts that endanger others deserve no sympathy. IMO
People in this world are cruel. My sympathies to all families involved. I think that you really hit the head on the nail with what you’ve said!
You make excuses for this “driver”, as if dying somehow makes him less of a killer. Fact is, if he had survived, there would be no question of his being considered an utter scumbag, facing proscecution and years in prison.
Mark, excellent post from personal perspective. But Steel brings back the memories for me that hit home. My adolesence was spent in rural New York State and I rode the bus with a kid like this growing up, liked to drive excessively fast, and at times a bit recklessly. He also wound up dead in a car accident on a rural road by the time he was 21, but not before being involved in an ATC(yep, they were stll legal at that time) accident that put his passenger in a coma for week and left him with permanent hearing loss and other complications. He also took me for a ride on that ATC that I’ll never forget and not for good reasons, most importantly being genuinely fearful for my life. And those are just the incidents involving him that I am aware of. Fortunately, Chris(the person in question) only took his own life when the fatal accident occured as the passenger in the car survived. i still remember thinking two things when it happened(circa 1990) 1. Sadness over losing a longtime pal. 2. I wasn’t surprised it happened. He was the first person I could see this happening to of all the people that I knew.
Hello Mark. Like you i also had a connection to Viktor he was one of my good friends and when i read all these negative comments about him i try not to take them personal but people dont realize that he would not have ever wished for such a thing to happen. He had a passion for life and the excitment that came along with it. No, he was not perfect, none of us are. but for people to sink as low as to blame his parents is niave. His parents are in the worst condition and nobody is human enough to realize that Viktor is all they had.. they didnt have another son or daughter. he was it! and yes it was horrible having to shovel that dirt into his grave ultimately knowing that you are burrying the one person you cared so much for. that funeral was by far the hardest i have been to and i still have trouble in the morning trying not to think about it, and trying to hold back the tears from the lose of my friend. i just cant help to say thank you enough for what you have written about him because what people dont realize is that he was a great person he just didnt always make the best decisions. you and marina are in my prayers as is his family and the rest of our friends. please keep up the positivity we need more of it in this case!
I understand what you mean, but still I can’t help but feel relieved this maniac is off the streets and no longer selfishly risking the lives of MY loved ones just for a cheap thrill. That may sound like a selfish statement in itself, but he was FAR more selfish than I could ever be. I feel for all families involved, don’t get me wrong, but my family comes first. My family is now a bit safer and in that I feel a small sense of relief.
I feel sick when I read that people say they are “relieved” my cousin is dead. I would love to see if you were on the other end, and someone you knew and loved you’re whole life died in a tragic crash, and everyone was “relieved.” Just because he made a mistake does not make him an awful human being who deserved death. He was 18 years old! Anyone says they have never sped, especially as a teenager is most likely lying. Viktor just never had the chance to grow up, and learn to not do these things anymore. His family is devastated, his parents are a complete wreck. For anyone that says his car should have been taken away- he worked all summer to be able to afford the car, and paid for it himself. He never asked his parents for a thing. This was a tragic accident, but Viktor would never deliberately but the lives of his friends in danger. I have been in the car with him before, and I never felt unsafe. I agree that a lesson should be learned from this, but he is already dead- there is no greater punishment. No matter what is said about him, he was a good boy at heart, and his friends and family will never forget him or stop loving him. Before posting how glad you are he’s gone- please think about if it was you, or your child, that was the driver.
I am not glad he is gone. I am not glad the the others he killed are gone either. You say that he would have never have deliberately put the lives of his friends in danger – except that he allegedly did do that on a routine basis along with endangering everyone else sharing the road with him. Please do not excuse this type of selfishness as a quaint adolescent quirk that he would have out grown. There are many who will never get the chance to grow up because of him and others like him.
And please if you are going to ask sympathy for the driver at least have the courtesy to say something on behalf of his victims.
I’m sorry – but I totally disagree. If you have a son living in your house and he has such a dangerous driving record as Viktor had then you are responsible if you have not shown the tough love of taking his keys away. Even his friends all knew how dangerous he was, they should have acted as parents and said sorry. I don’t care if he bought it himself or whatever, he lived in their house they should have eliminated the danger. No excuses.
First off to Jay- Viktor was 18, and his car and insurance was under his own name. If his parents took his keys from him that would be considered theft.
Steel- There is no way you can tell me that at the age of 18 you didnt speed, or that you never sped in your entire life. I’m sorry but have you even been to that intersection? There have been FIVE ACCIDENTS there, and more that were unreported. So that could have happened to anyone, going any speed, with any amount of people in the car. What would you like me to say on behalf of his victims? It’s an awful thing, for everyone involved. This article however was in response to the things being said about the driver. Four people died in that accident, four teenagers will never come home to their families again; I have so much sympathy for their families. My family has in fact, publicly apologized to the other families involved.Viktor was more than just a driver, he was a son, a grandson, a nephew, a friend, and a lot more. All of his friends only have good memories of him, and I will never forget his smile, or how he came to visit our grandmother who loved seeing him, or him calling me after I had surgery to see how I was feeling. I will never forget the stories his friends told me about how if they needed anything he would be the first person to call, and how they’ll never forget him or stop loving him. I will also never forget hearing the news that my baby cousin died in a tragic accident, or that he took three lives with his own. I will never forget seeing his mothers face at the funeral as she kept crying for her son, and I will never forget watching his teenage friends helping bury him at the cemetery as they cried. If you’re that heartless that you can’t have sympathy for an 18 year old boy that died then not much can be done for you.