The Accord, a favourite of street racers, had illegal blue tail lights and the front tires had been spun so much in the past that they were bald.

Race on QEW ends in death
3 cars travelling 200 km/h, police say

Victim, 22, thrown 15 metres in air


ANDREW MILLS
STAFF REPORTER

A 22-year-old Seneca College student was killed early yesterday in a 200 km/h street race involving three cars on the QEW in Oakville.

Saleem Scott was one of five people in a Honda Accord that spun out of control, flipped over several times and landed 80 metres away from the highway around 4:45 a.m. Scott, who was in the backseat and was not wearing a seatbelt, was catapulted about 15 metres through the air. He was pronounced dead in hospital.

The two other racing cars continued eastbound on the QEW without stopping.

The three other passengers in the Honda received minor injuries and the driver was not hurt. The driver and front-seat passenger were the only ones wearing seatbelts.

The crash was the second fatal street-racing accident in the Toronto area in a week.

In all, three lives have been lost.

"It was absolutely wild and reckless driving," said Sergeant Cam Woolley of the Ontario Provincial Police. "There were vehicles all over the road, cutting each other off, slaloming all across the road."

The three cars had been racing eastbound on the Queen Elizabeth Way from at least Burlington when the 23-year-old male driver lost control of the silver, four-door Honda, witnesses told police. The car landed in a ditch at the Trafalgar Rd. exit, rolled over the on-ramp and into another deep ditch, coming to a stop in the long reeds in the middle of the cloverleaf, Woolley said.

Scott was taken to Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Charges have not yet been laid.

Yesterday afternoon, Scott's family and friends quietly gathered in the garden of the Downsview housing complex on Driftwood Ave. where he lived with his aunt, Rose Duncan, since moving from Jamaica four years ago.

"Five in the car and everybody else walked out, except for Saleem," said Michelle Young, Scott's 32-year-old cousin. "We're so stunned."

Scott had graduated from Downsview High School and wastraining at Seneca College to be a flight attendant.

He also worked as a salesperson at a Stitches clothing outlet in the nearby Jane Finch Mall, where he was very well liked.

"He was a friend to everybody," said Grace Longo who works at Cucina Bella, across from Stitches. "The guy was smiling 24/7."

Upon hearing of her son's death, Scott's mother, Carol Foster, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., had a seizure and was admitted to hospital, family members said. She is expected to travel to Toronto for her son's funeral, which has not yet been arranged.

Scott's father, Gregory, who said he spoke to the driver yesterday morning at the hospital, believes that the car lost control because of a swerving trailer driving beside it and that the crash was purely an accident.

"My son is not stupid to be in a vehicle that is going that fast," he said. "I know he doesn't like speeding, straight up."

But Woolley said police were certain the crash was the result of a race. "We don't think about this as an accident. It's predictable and it's preventable," Woolley said. "This was like the poster car for street racing."

The Accord, a favourite of street racers, had illegal blue tail lights and the front tires had been spun so much in the past that they were bald.

Yesterday's crash comes a week after two young men were killed when a Honda Civic hit a tree at the corner of Parliament and Adelaide Sts. The car, in which the two were passengers, had been racing at speeds of approximately 100 km/h, police said.

Street racing in and around Toronto has been a summer problem for decades, Woolley said. While some races — especially short drag races — are organized in advance using cell phones and Internet message boards, others, like perhaps the highway race early yesterday, are more impromptu.

Since June, 2001, more than 25 people have been killed in street races in Ontario. "It's that old problem of trying to convince young people that bad things can happen to them," Woolley said.

"Enforcement isn't going to solve this. The police can't be at every place all the time."

On Thursday, nine Toronto-area police forces launched "Operation ERASE," a program aimed at street racing across the region.

"We're trying to influence people to make street racing socially unacceptable," Woolley said.

Police estimate that there are more than 20,000 street racers in the Toronto area alone.