On Their Worst Days

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

Some old-car enthusiasts dig old car wreck photos. I don’t. It’s not that I’m psychologically scarred by an old crash; it’s not that I don’t want to see imperfect representations of the cars we normally enjoy seeing in pristine condition. It’s not that I have a weak constitution and am morally outraged at the Ballardian aspect of it. It’s not that I’m denying my mortality. It’s probably more because I see it as a voyeuristic exercise, one step removed from rubbernecking on the highway, taking grotesque pleasure from somebody else’s misfortune, even if blood and guts aren’t in the picture. Morbid curiosity, to me, seems something you grow out of after adolescence.

So why link to the Salem, Massachusetts, police department’s collection of old crash photos? (Thanks, by the way, go to diskojoe for pointing these out, along with the story behind them.)

Though I thoroughly condemned the practice of viewing such photos above, I can also see their attraction. If we’re to be honest about the way things really were in past decades, then such photos are the natural counterpart to the normally bright and pasteurized picture we paint of old cars. And if you look past the destruction, you see that these aren’t apocalyptic photos – they’re simply scenes of everyday life interrupted by misfortune. Continue reading at Hemmings