BUSH CARS

Have you ever done something so stupid that when you look back at it, you wonder how you survived. We did, where I grew up in Quebec. We had Bush cars. Not many of us , just the ones who liked to take some chances.

The whole idea of a bush car was to go as fast as you could on a old sand road that ran through the bush. Sometimes the road was just wide enough for the car to get through. You might have 6 inches on either side and you would be traveling sometimes 40 miles /hour. If you hit the tree, you stopped. IMMEDIATELY! If the car wouldn't run anymore, you would push it off to the side into the bush and go to the scrap yard to buy a new one.

This was the place all the cars came from. You could buy a scrap car that would run for $5-$10 . Maybe not well , but it would run and more than likely not for very long. When you got your car the first thing to do was to strip it down. All seats except for the drivers came out. Any glass-gone. Tires- hopefully held some air. If you needed to make your car lighter to go faster- simple. An old axe to the body and off it would come. For safety reasons, all gas tanks were removed and a 1 gallon plastic can was tied in to take it's place And then you were off through the bush.

If you met somebody coming the other way, one of you would have to yield the right of way. There were no hard and fast rules about who, so occasionally there were meetings at the junction. Sometimes there was room to pass if you both went right and no big trees were growing at that spot.

Because there were no seat belts, you could , if you wanted to, tie yourself in with a rope. Helmets were optional. As long as the car ran you could use the road. If a rad went but the car still ran, you were still good to go. In the years we did this, as far as I know only one person ever got seriously hurt. He got thrown from his car and landed on a tree stump. Actually speared would be a better word. He had to have his spleen removed. Other than that, I don't recall any other injuries. Would I let my kids do it. HELL NO!! when I think about, it's a miracle some of us are still alive.