Ferris Wheel? OK. Merry-Go-Round? Sure. Throw-the-ball-and-dunk-the-lady? Well, I suppose. But bumper cars as early driver training for your young and impressionable kids, or mine? I don’t think so. Uh-uh! Absolutely not! No way and never!

When I was 7, or thereabouts, my father took me along from Pennsylvania, where we were living at the time, to visit his brother in Brooklyn, just across the river from the real New York and while my memories are somewhat faded now, some 80 years later, the worst memory of mine was that first ride in a bumper car at the Coney Island amusement park, the biggest attraction a young boy could ever imagine.

A circular corral with metal plates for a floor and a metal ceiling which was reached by a tall pole rising up from the rear of each car completed the electric circuit that powered what we might nowadays call doughnut-shaped golf carts without a roof and painted a dirty barn red. The smell of the ozone emitted from showers of sparks as the bumper cars raced in all directions at once. Pure excitement for anyone.

There was a seatbelt for the driver, not for protection, but to keep seasoned drivers from driving standing up on the seat. No clutch or brake, just one accelerator pedal for go and go faster. But my first excitement at the joy and feeling of flying around the corral lasted just about as long as it took you to read this sentence, when BANG! Another car hit mine right in the side with a huge jolt.

I said, “Hey, why’d you do that” and looked around to make out the grinning face of Bozo, the 9-year-old bully you can find at any elementary school playground (that has 7-year-olds) and he said, “Haw! Screw you, farmer boy, and welcome to the big time” and “Why do you think they’re called bumper cars you dummy.”

All I am questioning here is the advisability of giving even short-course training in vehicular violence to the future drivers on America’s roads and highways. The argument that, “bumper cars lets them work it out with someone else’s car in a protective environment while they’re still too young to drive” doesn’t hold water for me. I’m pretty sure I see Bozo driving a big black pickup truck almost every time I take my own car out running some errands.

There may be some good that comes from letting adult drivers work out their frustrations via bumper cars and doing vehicular violence in a safe environment. Maybe.

Perhaps staying at home on weekends and just eating peeled, raw garlic buds might do it just as well.

Orrin Frink is a Kennebunkport resident. He can be reached at ofrink@gmail.com.