You kids don't know how to drive! Back in my day...

[Pirate]

This was going to go in the i confess thread but I could see it going off topic. Also this is not saying this was the cause of the weekend accident, I wasn’t there so I dunno.. but I wanna add my own 33 cents worth to what I see is a bad thing waiting to happen.

Many years ago I was a hoon, but not in the modern rice boy way but more in the steel and massive v8's. Sure we had accidents (I've been driving for 12 years now and I have only ever had one at fault accident and that was just a fender bender) but no one was ever hurt, my old group used to have some pretty trick rides and mine was the smallest with a 351 and the largest being a big block 460. We used to cruise as much as all these people and probably more so living out in the sticks. But I am not a good driver, I never say I am but I did take my car to the Hornsby gravel pits and thrash the shit out of it to see what could and can’t be done in it in relatively safe environment… then run away from the security.

Why I reckon everyone is crashing so much these days is they simply don't know how to control their cars because they don't know what they can do. For example in our old tanks we knew it practically took a mile to stop the beasts, we knew that when we hit 200+ that the car became highly unstable so we would be jack asses around corners and only put the power in the straights, basically we knew our cars. But today’s modern rice boy thinks their car is mated to the road and all their performance parts will stop their car on a dime. Also the driving style of tail gating, drifting etc that is promoted by shows like Initial D that they imitate don't really translate well into real driving conditions. Only one dude I know actually takes his car to a race track to play and discover his and his cars limits yet he also has prangs. But still people don’t look at what’s happening.

Now, not point fingers or anything else. But seriously ever person I know around me currently that owns a high performance "rice" car has been in an accident bar one (possibly just because he got it)... seriously. every. single. one.

What pisses me off most is that I hear "oh it was the road conditions" or " there was blah blah blah"... it doesn't change the fact that cars are being bent because people are basically not paying attention to their limits and trying to imitate a stupid cartoon. I really don't think its going to be long before one of my ricer friends ends up dead and I really don't want to deal with that.

(ps pardon me calling you ricers.. no offence intended I just don't know a word to group you all as you arn't good enough to be called hoons) :D

[tikdoph]

Werd. :D

So what happened on the weekend anyway? Anyone who was there wanna fill us in?

[Cassa]

Pirate you are absolutely right. There are too many little boys and people my age who have no idea how to drive properly, yet they're out there in highly modified cars (200+kw at the wheels) thrashing their cars around because they've seen it in Fast and the Furious, and they just think they're hot shit because they've got 20 inch chromies on the car their parents paid for.

Everyone thinks they're indestructable and nobody thinks it will happen to them. Well it's happened to nearly everyone I know who drives a fast car, and you increase the chances exponentially when you drive at your limit with no room to compensate if something unexpected happens. That's what happened on the weekend. And even then, when people fuck up they're not prepared to admit it, and nobody learns from their mistakes.

It saddens me that the culture (I guess you could call it that) of serious driving enthusiasts is being killed in this way, because a lot of these idiots aren't going to realise the error of their ways until they or one of their mates ends up dead. And by then it's a tad too late

[LisaJ]

Your totally right!! these days some people just dont know how to drive and in my opinion the worst offenders are the ones in their little hotted up aluminimum cans...(If Ive spelt that wrong, Im sorry), time and again I see cars scream past me on Parramatta Rd, swerving in and out of traffic, in peak time, cutting in when they feel like it and having no thought about anyone else but themselves and wanting to get to their destination as soon as possible.

Im sorry but I would rather drive a real car than one of these little tin cans that get stopped by the cops every week because they are either, too low, stereo blasting the ears of everyone around them, or because they are morons who just cant drive!!!

[Maestro]

A couple of years ago I had quite a serious crash while driving someone else's car overseas. He hardly knew me, but gave me the keys to his car after talking at a party, sat next to me (after I'd had 2 beers, no less) and told me to thrash his car. Which I did, and it went pretty well. Then I got cocky and had the accident that wrote the car off.

Strange car, foreign roads, slightly wet, night, no internal lights (so we don't know what speed I was doing when we came out of the bend... roughly 120km in a 30km zone), and no windscreen wipers. Stupidest thing I've ever done in my life, and I don't shy away from admitting that it was totally my own fault. It was lucky that my stupidity kept us on the inside of the curve, because the outside of the curve would have probably killed all three of us.

The point is that it was a humbling experience, and I haven't driven a car like that since. Nowadays I drive like a grandma on Valium and weed. But it seems to me that lots of people who have accidents because of that kind of driving simply don't get the message - sometimes only once it's far too late.

I know a guy who flipped a customer's Ferrari (he's a mechanic) three times on Parramatta Road and was in a coma for two weeks. He learnt his lesson much harder than I learnt mine - talk about the school of hard knocks, eh?

[DumHed]

basically there's a massive number of people these days who get into the modified car scene because it's popular (to a certain degree), but don't have the driving experience, or even enough interest in driving to build up the skills necessary.
A major part of it is that it's not the car that makes the skill, it's the driver, but most people are into the cars for the image, and not for the actual enjoyment of driving.
People who are truly in it for the driving focus on the skills rather than the car, or the speed of people in front.

I've owned 7 cars in recent years, and every one has different characteristics, different limits, and different skills required to drive safely - knowing where the limits are.

People go out on cruises, and immediately fall into a follow-the-leader mode, and don't actually do any thinking for themselves.
They follow too close, and drive beyond the limits of their own skill.

I've done a huge number of late night cruises (usually leading) over the last few years, and this one was the first to have a problem. (there was another one, but I was a passenger that
time)
The one on the weekend was by far the slowest one we have ever done. I mean the lead car was a dead stock 87 corolla with a dead carby!
For some reason there were still people who were being lost behind, who then sped up to catch the lead bunch.

Because they were all going too fast, and too close together they didn't have time, or the experience to react when they came over a hill to find cars stopped beside the road.
If they had reacted like: "oh, cars stopped, I'm going too fast so I'll keep going past and then pull over further down the road" it would have been fine.
Because they're all trying to follow though, they pulled in behind the stopped cars before thinking about the fact that they have a very short distance to stop and are travelling way too fast.

I consider myself to be a reasonable driver, at least from the point of view of knowing where my limits and the car's limits are.
There have been many times when I've been driving along very comfortably and people behind have been having great trouble keeping up, and have had several near loses, even when they're in faster cars than mine.
I've had 3 accidents though, all while going slow and being careful, and only one while going out specifically for a drive (which was really caused by some shocking tyres and a whole lot of rotten timber on the road - resulting in very minor damage)

Actually knowing the car makes a big difference too.
I was faster in my old car than I am in my current car, because I knew the old one very well - even though I now have double the power. I'm still developing the current one, so every time I drive it there are minor changes, so it's not possible to know exactly how it will respond. That means going a little bit slower and keeping just that little bit more of a safety margin.

I'd drive purely on the track if I could (I'm yet to even spin out on a track, despite quite a lot of driving), but it's just not feasable to do it all the time.
Driving on the road is something that I'd find very boring unless I had some aspect of driving to think about / improve.

On the road though I stick to the speed limit during all day to day driving, and I only corner quickly in areas that I know, which are generally far off, very low traffic roads.

What happened on the weekend was purely misjudgement. Too many people thinking about following the car in front, and not actually driving their own car or thinking about the distances / speeds they need to handle possible situations.

[The Avatar]

I have always been responosble when i drive, after my accident i've gotten to be more alert of other drivers.

It the other cars on the road you have to worry about, not your own driving.

Anyway, my Pintara can thrash the shit out of those little shitboxes at the lights, and I love that so much!

[DrDivad]

It's all about common sense, and communication.

My two accidents I can pinpoint exactly what happened, and I guess yeah, they were both my fault.

First was in my mum's Daewod, following prong around in his old Subaru Wagon, turning left down Park Rd. Baulkham Hills, following too close behind him, lights were yellow, I completely expected him to continue through, which he started to do, then he changed his mind and stopped, he stopped rather quickly, I didn't. In retrospect if i had left another 1/2 second gap i'd have stopped in time, and even if he ahd run the yellow i bet i still could have made that too,. Learned my lesson though :P But i still find myself tailgating a lot and i'm all "eek don't wanna stack again" and back off.

Second time was on Galston Gorge, pouring rain, one guy had already written off a 180sx earlier by hyrdoplaning. Anyway, on the hornsby side there is a bend that tightens in the middle, i ALWAYS forget about that bit and of course you end up goign too fast in the middle section, not that fast mind, maybe 50-60, no problem for dry but given the fact i was following someone and in the wet my common sense said,...slow down. the rest of my brain forgot to tell me that tapping brakes on the apex of a corner through which you are understeering in slippery conditions is quite likely to flip the car 180degrees, thats exactly what happened. I narrowly avoided oncoming traffic and no one ran into my from behind.

From then on i was mega mega mega cautious, absolutley crawling down and people were getting annoyed, but screw them!, plus my tyres where pretty shitty, then coming up on the other side, a 90degree right hander, goign through abotu 25-30kph, understeer, jam brakes on reflex, starts to come back then hits something slippery and spears the wall. luckily only cost $150 for a new front bar and fender.

The lesson learned was never think you're half fucked tyres *aren't that bad!"

[SamBo]

Well, I learned my lesson when I killed my skyline. Sure, at the time I wasn't really hooning it, but, i could have taken that corner much more safely. In a way it was a good thing I crashed that car like that, otherwise I may have crashed it much worse later on (I was getting cocky in that car) and hurt or killed myself (or heaven forbid, someone else!).
These days I drive much more sensibly. Sure, I like to drive fast at times, but I very rarely do and I put safety first.
Sure, now I am stuck driving the slow pulsar again so I don't have the option of driving fast... but still :)
Hopefully the Silvia will be back on the road soon as I miss it already (for those who don't know, I did NOT crash it as I am sure you're thinking!) :p

[kyuss]

Originally posted by The Avatar

It the other cars on the road you have to worry about, not your own driving.


That's incorrect, if everyone was worrying about everyone else, well fuck, no one would know how to drive!

The person you really have to keep your eye on is the person to the left of the person on the right, the person to the right of the person to the left, the person in front of the person behind and the person behind the person in front.

If everyone one was to do that, theyre would be no accidents.

[kyuss]

Originally posted by Pirate

What pisses me off most is that I hear "oh it was the road conditions" or " there was blah blah blah"... it doesn't change the fact that cars are being bent because people are basically not paying attention to their limits and trying to imitate a stupid cartoon.


I have noticed lots of people have given a "oh it was the road conditions" or " there was blah blah blah" reasoning to their crashes. :p

But as a responsible driver you should be aware of the road conditions and the state of your tyres, and when in doubt drive cautiously.

[tikdoph]

Originally posted by DumHed
basically... what happened on the weekend was...
Basically it sounds like it was a comedy of errors.

Luckily no-one was seriously hurt.

[DumHed]

Originally posted by kyuss
when in doubt drive cautiously.

this is a good idea, but there are many cases when it's simply not possible to see the actual conditions.
Basically to be 100% safe you have to always be in doubt, and so does everyone else.

When I got t-boned I was turning right out of a street, waited for most traffic to clear, and then there were two 4wds coming from the right turning into the street I was on.

I looked behind them, under them, beside, etc, saw no other cars (I'd watched them come from a couple of hundred metres away with their indicators on, but didn't trust them to turn till they actually turned) and decided that since the first one had turned, the second one was halfway through turning, and there were no other cars visible that is was safe to pull out.

As I pulled out, and was most of the way into the opposite side of the road a car (which must have been tailgating the second 4wd very close) crossed the line to go past the slow turning 4wd, and ran into the rear quarter of my car.

If I'd been in a hooning mood I would have pulled out in front of the approaching 4wds and everything would have been fine, but I decided to be cautious and wait. I checked and double checked for other cars and didn't see any, so I thought it was 100% safe.

The fact is that every time you drive you're taking (somewhat) calculated risks all the time. Every time you think you know what the conditions are like, or that other traffic is doing one particular thing theres always a chance that you're wrong.

[durus]

One thing is that there is really nowhere you can go (without paying) to really fang your car and stuff around without breaking the law.
If the cops were more lenient or there were open days at certain carparks or something, i think people would understand their cars and their skills a lot better and we'd all be better off.
As it is, you have to pay money to do this and not many people are prepared to do that.
We live in a country where they'll give a drivers license to anyone who can park a car.

I know I'm not the greatest driver. I know there are aspects of my driving that need work. And I know that many other drivers don't know this much about their driving.

I think I'm invincible but I don't think my friends are. So as far as risk taking goes, I tend to be more carefull with passengers in the car.

[TK-421]

i am a strong believer in getting to know the limits of your car by pushing it a little more than you normally would, but only on open roads, when you can see what is happening. I learnt to drive in a pajero and a commodore wagon, so i had 2 fairly powerful cars for a 16 year old. when i got my licence, i did the usual for a 17 year old and threw the tail of the commodore, but only when i felt it was safe, not because my mates wanted to, so i never got myself into trouble, which is why my dad was happy for me to get a commodore for my second car.
I have a mate who stacked his parents land cruiser, rolled it 3 times, cutting a corner, at night, it was well over a 90 degree corner. Simply thought he could take anything but fucked up and put 3 other mates in hospital for a day or two each.
The worst part is the fuck wit still hasnt learnt from it. He now drives a suzuki swift, a car which i rekon attracts fuckwit drivers, and tail gates, swerves in and out of traffic and nearly rear ends other cars every time he comes up to traffic lights.
But every other road user can have the last laugh, cos he just had his licence suspended or somthing for doing 78 in a 50 zone. I could go on about how bad he is, but it would take too long.

[Blunt]

Originally posted by Pirate
Also the driving style of tail gating, drifting etc that is promoted by shows like Initial D that they imitate don't really translate well into real driving conditions.


*Takes 'Night Kids' sticker off car and slinks away into the dark* :D

[still life]

I confess that I recently broke my lovely motor vehicle, through no fault of it's own... the fault was purely mine for not being skillful / lucky / prepared / ready enough to prevent it.

I endangered my own life and that of my passenger... and I've learned something from it which I'm not going to post here.

I was at fault and I have no problem admitting that. The car will be fixed, I'm glad I don't have to try and fix a friend as well.

That said I was responsible enough to have proper insurance cover etc, fortunate enough to have friends to help and I was a milllion miles from anywhere / anyone else driving.

I have learned from the experience... but I'm not going to give up doing the things I love because of this bad experience.

I am going to go to wakefield park and practice.... so that the next time this happens I will be better prepared.

[DumHed]

one thing I've thought about a bit is that a lot of people say "we were hoons back in the day, and we knew our cars, and were much safer about it than people today".
The thing is that the older cars are inherently less safe, have poor brakes for their power level (mainly the hoon cars with V8s, or the quicker sixes like the Charger).
Also, the tyres available even a fairly short time ago were not rated for the speeds these cars are / were capable of, and there were no requirements for the appropriate speed rating being used.
These days cars either come with very high speed rated tyres, or the cars are speed limited to a speed the supplied tyres can handle. (eg 200SX had a 235km/h limiter)
Anyone driving the older vehicles with older designed tyres at high speed runs a pretty major risk of tyres failing, and then have very little in the way of safety features to protect them.

In part I think it's actually a good thing that at least people out hooning today are doing it in cars that have properly designed crumple zones, airbags, seatbelts, good brakes, and generally pretty good quality tyres.

My first car was a 1977 Datsun 260Z. It was a fairly well designed car, with good high speed stability and decent brakes, etc for its time. I still never went over 140 in it though, because I didn't trust things like wheel bearings, suspension links / ball joints, or the condition of the shocks.
My next car didn't have great tyres, and also had some questionable suspension components.

It wasn't till I got the Silvia that I actually went fast, and I took it on the track fairly regularly to do so.
I took it over 200km/h, and it tracks straight, responds normally, and doesn't even have any different noises or vibrations compared to 100k's. It also still turns, and stops, from that speed.
I don't feel the need to travel that fast normally, but it's good to know that the car is set up well enough that it still drives properly at high speeds.

A lot of the problem is that people just have no idea where the limits are, so they'll go right past them before they realise it. It actually takes a lot of self control to carefully find the limit, and automatically stay below it.
Most people don't realise that the limits of the car are generally higher than that of the driver, and also that the car's limits are variable depending on the driving style. In effect, bad driving lowers the car's limits because the driver is working against the car from a handling point of view.
Most cars will corner at a similar speed, but the difference is really in how well the driver needs to control the car to keep it at the limit without overstepping it.
There are plenty of corners that I can go around in the corolla at almost the speed of the silvia, but the corolla needs to be very smoothly eased into the corner on exactly the right line, gradually loading up the tyres and suspension, and then balancing the car using the throttle through the corner.
In the Silvia you can pretty much chuck the car into the corner, and it hangs on very well. You can also change lines mid corner in the silvia with no problem.
Obviously with the same driving style as the corolla the silvia could be driven faster, but in my opinion that puts things too close to the limits of what you can change if there's an unexpected situation, and also changes small road undulations into bumps that can take you from plenty of grip to zero grip in a split second - and it's just not worth the risk.

[Pirate]

Originally posted by DumHed
one thing I've thought about a bit is that a lot of people say "we were hoons back in the day, and we knew our cars, and were much safer about it than people today".
The thing is that the older cars are inherently less safe, have poor brakes for their power level (mainly the hoon cars with V8s, or the quicker sixes like the Charger).
Also, the tyres available even a fairly short time ago were not rated for the speeds these cars are / were capable of, and there were no requirements for the appropriate speed rating being used.
These days cars either come with very high speed rated tyres, or the cars are speed limited to a speed the supplied tyres can handle. (eg 200SX had a 235km/h limiter)
Anyone driving the older vehicles with older designed tyres at high speed runs a pretty major risk of tyres failing, and then have very little in the way of safety features to protect them. Whats worse is we used to drive with retreads. In my experience "back in the day" speed wasn't what we where after although our cars were fast we where more interested in burn outs so we consentrated on that. I remember one particualary bad set of retreads I had on my xb had the rear left wheel bouncing off the ground around 100.. I dunno if it did, but my mates told me it did and the car shook so much. I took my xb up 200 once and the thing nearly shook itself apart (but its was fun).

But like you say, todays cars have all these new safety features and higher rated tires... this is part of the problem, people thinking "oh yeah, my car is built to do this," and "my wheels are rated for this" etc so they go nuts... but they forget, they are not build or trained to do those things... its like putting a P plater in an f1 car.

[KoinBahd]

DumHed I am very impressed with your knowledge and attitudes towards driving. I say this not only as a friend but also as a driver. Everytime you go out on the road you are taking a risk, no matter how careful or confident you are.
Message for the kiddies: Listen to this man, he knows what he's talking about!
On a related topic, listen to the Radiohead song "Killer Cars" - it's from their early days off a Japanese EP called "Itch". Enjoy!

[kyuss]

Originally posted by KoinBahd
Everytime you go out on the road you are taking a risk, no matter how careful or confident you are.
Message for the kiddies: Listen to this man, he knows what he's talking about!


Confidence when driving isn't a good thing, confidence can lead to the driver thinking they are better than they really are, which results in crashes.

That's not to say everyone should go around driving like a grandma at 20kmph under the speed limit, cause that would frustrate me and result in me being pissed of and being very vulnerable to crashing. :p

[scathing]

Don't give me that "oh, drifting is modern day hoon shit". Its been around for practically as long as there have been motor vehicles.

People have been drifting for far longer than before it hit the Japanese mainstream. I remember growing up in the 80's watching Hollywood movies where they'd kick the tail out of cars when driving them. That is where I picked it up from, and its not as if people with cars at the time weren't doing it (since RWD cars were much easier to come by back then).

The issue with modern cars have much higher limits, nominally to make them safer under "normal use". With my first car, if I had an accident it could only ever be low speed. Of course, at speeds at which my car would spin off the road, my current one would stay planted. So if you do exceed the limits of your car, you're going a lot faster. What's safer is a matter of perspective. Is it safer to not have an accident at all, or have more low speed accidents?

Its not that, back in the day you were a better driver. Its just that, back in the day, your car couldn't go as fast as easily. I hit 195km/hr that night taking it relatively easy, but unlike Pirate's old beast my car wasn't about to shake itself apart, or wallow around on soft suspension, have the tyres disintegrate because they weren't designed to handle that speed, or take anywhere near as long to stop. However, if I was to get as close to the handling limit as he did at 200km/hrin mine, you'd need an orienteering merit badge and a GPS unit to find the remains of my car if I did have an off.

(to be continued)

[scathing]

The "oh, we knew our cars" is another rose tinted look at the as the "we were better drivers back then". That's just a matter of experience; people born in the 60's and 70's weren't inherently born knowing how to drive a car well. If you think otherwise, you're either be right (and the automotive equivalent idiot savant), naive, or a liar. I'll let you pick if you're an idiot, clueless, or a bullshit artist.

However, finding out how your car behaves up and around the limits means you have to go faster (as I said above). In my first car, sitting at 130km/hr on the 2 lane each way divided freeway was a near white-knuckle affair, and with the wind noise and light steering it felt fast.

When I went up to the NT and sat on the open speed limit Stuart Highway (which is one lane each way, undivided with almost no shoulder, and land trains going in both directions) in a modern Euro sedan, I cruised at 170km/hr comfortably (with 4 people and luggage), but mind you it did require a lot of concentration when I took it up to 185km/hr for short bursts.

On the weekend, doing 195km/hr on a back road in the middle of nowhere was almost boring. Aside from the undulations in the road, it didn't feel anywhere near as fast (or pants wetting) as my first car at 130km/hr.

I knew my first car very well. I used to drift it a fair amount, and hoon around like your typical P plater. I'd hazard to say that I was worse than most modern ricers, since I didn't spend any money hotting it up, and its easier to feel invulnerable in an old Volvo. Do I know my current car as well? Not at the limit, no. I haven't found the car's limits yet. Nor am I going to, because I don't have the ability to bring it back if I exceed them in a big way.

[scathing]

Of course, this doesn't absolve the driver. What I'm saying is that idiocy of young 'uns behind the wheel hasn't really gotten worse. It still just as bad. I see a lot of young drivers who think they're king shit, and when weaving through traffic at 50km/hr maybe they are.

Take them out onto a style of road they're not used to driving on, and any experience our dear P platers have amassed doesn't mean too much (aside from how the pedals and round thing in front of them mechanically functions).

When I first started learning to drive like that, I did it in groups of twos and threes at most (of people who had similar experience), and quite a lot of it alone. Alone means you set your own pace, without needing to prove your machismo. In small groups means you've got someone watching you in case you fuck up while not so fast as to disappear on you, and you can always talk about it.

These people, hot from cruising down Church St in Parramatta at 30km/hr to get seen by the bitches, are now thrown in with people who drive out on some twisty back road in the country on a weekly basis, and usually maintain 130km/hr+.

I am tempted to suggest to the car club that we have a "noob driver training day" style of event. Take a couple of them and drive down one of the more forgiving roads at a slow rate during the day. Get them used to the kind of roads, and keep an eye on them.

They're not going to "know their cars" by trying to learn to run before they walk.

[Cassa]

Originally posted by kyuss
Confidence when driving isn't a good thing, confidence can lead to the driver thinking they are better than they really are, which results in crashes.

That's when it's misplaced confidence. There is a HUGE difference between thinking you're good and actually being that good. I believe that's the point that some others in the discussion have raised, that merely driving a good car does not make you a good driver. I think that also might be what Pirate is driving (hehe) at with his comparisons to the 'old days'..back then when you got in one of those death traps, you knew it was a death trap, but that same sense of danger is somewhat less pervading these days.

[scathing]

Originally posted by Cassa
And even then, when people fuck up they're not prepared to admit it, and nobody learns from their mistakes.

Just like in motorsport there are "racing incidents", where something happens but its not really anyone's fault, I'd say what happened on the weekend was a "cruising incident".

The drivers got put into an awkward situation. Saying they shouldn't have been in it at all means saying that they shouldn't have been out on the road. We were going just as fast, and I know that if it was me in their position in the convoy (rather than further up), there is a good chance I would have ended up the same way. They weren't going any faster than we were, and nor was the stretch we were on any more inherently dangerous. The last guy (the only one who did stop) said that he only backed off because he saw all the tyre smoke, not because he was any "safer". The others didn't have that warning.

I'm not going to go into any more detail, but it wasn't just the guys with bent cars that were at fault. Given the pace set by the convoy leader, if each driver was to allow enough room to brake to a complete halt (and thus guarantee no collision) there would still be people leaving our stopping point at the place where it occurred. I have yet to meet anyone who, on a cruise, has left enough room behind me to make a complete stop in case I've fucked up.

Should they have allowed a bit more room between cars? Absolutely. Would the accidents have been completely avoided if they'd done that? Possibly, but probably not.

[hazza]

Originally posted by Cassa
That's when it's misplaced confidence. There is a HUGE difference between thinking you're good and actually being that good. I believe that's the point that some others in the discussion have raised, that merely driving a good car does not make you a good driver. I think that also might be what Pirate is driving (hehe) at with his comparisons to the 'old days'..back then when you got in one of those death traps, you knew it was a death trap, but that same sense of danger is somewhat less pervading these days.


but how do u rate a good driver? someone who hasnt had a crash ever? someone who can drive a powerful car?

there are more crashes with the rice boy cars in my opinion cos 1) people buy them today 2nd hand with mods done to them when the cars where built in the 80s, 2) kids with p plates buying cars that they dont know how to handle in bad situations and 3) just stupid driving to show off to friends and trying to look cool.

but hell, sometimes crashes are just bad luck and a bad situation.

[Pirate]

I never said I was a better driver back then, I am a better driver now than I was then but thats because of age and maturity.

The fact was we knew our cars had huge stopping distances and couldn't corner so we didn't push them so hard. Shit, my old cressida could have out performed them. What I am trying to say is you all feel so comfortable and sure of yourselves in your high performance cars and when you guys do have a prang I hear excuses that blame something on the road, or the conditions or something else but never the admission of the driver being at fault which I'm sure it comes down too. And I am pretty sure of this because most of the accidents I have seen have occured on roads like the old road or some back way which I know isn't a shortcut and the only reason the road is driven is because of how hard you can push it... I know, i do it myself.

Dude, in my first post I said there is only one guy I know out of the zgeekers around that hasn't smashed.. thats you cause I can't remember you pranging. :)

But its good to finally see so many people say "yeah I fucked up and was stoopid".. hopefully this will equate to keeping you guys alive a bit longer.

[Pirate]

Originally posted by hazza
but how do u rate a good driver? someone who hasnt had a crash ever? someone who can drive a powerful car?

there are more crashes with the rice boy cars in my opinion cos 1) people buy them today 2nd hand with mods done to them when the cars where built in the 80s, 2) kids with p plates buying cars that they dont know how to handle in bad situations and 3) just stupid driving to show off to friends and trying to look cool.

but hell, sometimes crashes are just bad luck and a bad situation. Werd. One thing I reckon should change is to stop p-platers driving hotted up cars... just like motorcyclists are limited to what engine size they can have until their skills improve.

[hazza]

Originally posted by Pirate
Werd. One thing I reckon should change is to stop p-platers driving hotted up cars... just like motorcyclists are limited to what engine size they can have until their skills improve.


maybe even special licences for higher powered vehicles, including v8's for all licence clases even u in your silvers and golds. a gold licence holder and a p-plater could drive the same car and the gold licence driver could have a higher chance of crashing if he/she didnt know the car.

[scathing]

Originally posted by kyuss
Confidence when driving isn't a good thing, confidence can lead to the driver thinking they are better than they really are, which results in crashes.

There's a difference between confidence and hubris. Confidence behind the wheel is good. Hubris anywhere is never good.

[kyuss]

Originally posted by Pirate
Werd. One thing I reckon should change is to stop p-platers driving hotted up cars... just like motorcyclists are limited to what engine size they can have until their skills improve.

Discrimination sucks.

[scathing]

Originally posted by kyuss
The person you really have to keep your eye on is the person to the left of the person on the right, the person to the right of the person to the left, the person in front of the person behind and the person behind the person in front.

I fucking hate driving near people whose sphere of awareness radiates only as far as the sheet metal of the vehicle they're in.

You should be keeping an eye on everyone. Just because you're a great driver and you're behaving yourself doesn't mean diddly squat when you're surrounded by other people.

In a perfect world maybe it'd work, but in the land outside your own skull things don't work that way.

Try riding a motorcyle for any length of time, and come back to us if you still believe this shit.

[scathing]

Originally posted by durus
One thing is that there is really nowhere you can go (without paying) to really fang your car and stuff around without breaking the law.

If you can't afford all the associated costs with having a car, you shouldn't fucking have one. Driver training should definitely be one of those costs, as should regular maintenance and ensuring your car will stay together (all of which are sadly neglected).

Most people would reply with "take it out on the track if you want to explore its limits", but that doesn't improve the way you drive on the road. I read a lot of letters in car mags about how people should push it on the track to improve their skills, but the car behaves completely differently there, and so anything they do learn doesn't mean too much on public roads. Maybe they should try it first, before shooting their mouths off.

What I'd like to see is them blocking off roads and teaching people advanced roadcraft on them. They block off roads for some rallies or targas; maybe do it about those times. Of course, that would involve blocking the roads for longer and inconveniencing people. People are all for getting young people to learn how to drive better, until it inconveniences them personally.

[polite]

Originally posted by scathing
Hubris anywhere is never good.

Ask Icarus.

[Cassa]

Originally posted by hazza
but how do u rate a good driver? someone who hasnt had a crash ever? someone who can drive a powerful car?


Yeah..the criteria for a good driver is pretty hard to define, but obviously some people are going to be better than others, for a whole lot of different reasons. The thing that scares me on this is apparently most road users, when surveyed, will report they have above average driving skills, and I can certainly see that belief in a lot of the ricers out there.

[kyuss]

I don't think you grasped the idea of the concept correctly scathing.

As far as im concerned if you keep an eye on your driving you should be in tune with whats going on also with the vehichles surrounding you.

If you drive around thinking your driving is superior and the only one who is going to cause trouble around you is the vehicles surrounding you, i think we all know where you will end up.

The point of the matter being, if you are incontrol of your vehicle and not driving like a imbecile, crashes you are involved in will NEVER be your fault.

[scathing]

Originally posted by Pirate
Dude, in my first post I said there is only one guy I know out of the zgeekers around that hasn't smashed.. thats you cause I can't remember you pranging. :)

Actually, I have. A few times. (I'm counting me at fault as a prang, people hitting me aren't really in context).

[Cassa]

Originally posted by kyuss

The point of the matter being, if you are incontrol of your vehicle and not driving like a imbecile, crashes you are involved in will NEVER be your fault.

Unfortunately insurance companies don't always see it that way.

[scathing]

Originally posted by kyuss
The point of the matter being, if you are incontrol of your vehicle and not driving like a imbecile, crashes you are involved in will NEVER be your fault.

I'd rather be aware of other the imbecility of other drivers and not get into any accidents, my fault or otherwise. Just a personal preference, of course.

If you're driving blissfully unaware of the environment but behaving yourself, and then some fucker cuts in to your lane (there would definitely be enough room, since a conscientious driver leaves a 2-3 second gap from the car in front) and then jumps on the brakes, its an uphill battle for you to prove that you're crashing into the back of him wasn't your fault. Not impossible, but the odds are stacked against you.

When it comes to accidents, it doesn't matter what happened. Only what you can prove, and what the insurance companies / courts are willing to accept. At which point for that (unfortunately) common situation, my personal preference seems a much better choice.

[polite]

Originally posted by kyuss

The point of the matter being, if you are incontrol of your vehicle and not driving like a imbecile, crashes you are involved in will NEVER be your fault.

I think you'll find that crashes that aren't your fault will still kill you.I suppose knowing that for a millisecond will be of some comfort.
There is a lot of it going round, maybe just relax a little.
An unstressed driver is a good thing.

:cool:

[scathing]

Originally posted by kyuss
I don't think you grasped the idea of the concept correctly scathing.

I grasp your concept. I just prefer to work in reality, rather than some idealised world.

As my father puts it, "There are a lot of dickheads on the road. Just remember that you're one of them."

[kyuss]

Originally posted by Cassa
Unfortunately insurance companies don't always see it that way.

I'm not talking about "the road was wet", "my tyres were a little iffy" etc.

I'm saying the only time you will ever be involved in a crash is when another vehichle runs into you, another vehicle forces you of the road etc.

[scathing]

Originally posted by polite
I think you'll find that crashes that aren't your fault will still kill you.I suppose knowing that for a millisecond will be of some comfort.
There is a lot of it going round, maybe just relax a little.
An unstressed driver is a good thing.

:cool:

To Kyuss (and the other blissfully ignorant, mind your own business types) that's a good thing.

If you're going to die anyway, knowing it for only milliseconds is better than knowing about it for longer. There's less stress on you because you're not worried about it.

[Cassa]

Originally posted by kyuss
I'm not talking about "the road was wet", "my tyres were a little iffy" etc.

I'm saying the only time you will ever be involved in a crash is when another vehichle runs into you, another vehicle forces you of the road etc.

Or an animal runs under your car, someone screeches to a halt several cars in front of you in heavy traffic, you sneeze, a child runs on to the road, someone throws a rock off an overpass that hits your car, etc etc ad nauseum.

It's exactly that kind of blinkered two dimensional view that is responsible for the problems we're discussing here :mad:

[Al]

Being a bike rider, I'd have to say most people in cars don't pay enough attention to the vehicles around them. That would have to be the biggest cause of accident (fuck blaming speed).

I pay more attention coz I'm on a bike and there's no point in saying the accident wasn't my fault. Having said that, I'm not perfect and my concentration's not always 100%.

Perfect example: Some old woman pulled out in front of me the other day, and I mean RIGHT in front of me. So I swerve around her and turn back to give her a mouthful. Then when I look in front of me the cars had stopped. Luckily there was nobody in the lane I went into...

Point being it only takes a second of lapsed concentration to end yourself.

[DumHed]

really any accident can be avoided by the driver when you come down to it.

I could have prevented my t-bone accident by waiting longer, till there were no cars visible anywhere around, or I could have avoided it by taking off straight away instead of waiting till I was sure it was safe.
The minor ding in the silvia could have been avoided by going even slower (I was going at less than the speed limit at the time), or also could have been avoided if I'd been going faster.
Going slow meant that I was just cruising along, but if I'd been pushing it I would have been concentrating harder, and the car would have been in the right rev range to have the power available to use the throttle to change angle mid corner.
I know, because I've done it before, and had no problem.

The biggest problem is driving slightly out of "the zone", where you think you're safe because you are being cautious, but in effect you're less safe because you're not ready to make instinctive reactions.

On the weekend the accident could have been avoided if we'd not been there in the first place, were going faster so that we'd not have even tried to stop till later, or if the people in convoy were actually driving, rather than just following.
We were not going fast (on the speed limit when we decided to stop), and we took about a km to slow down.
People came up from behind at much higher speed, and rather than going past and stopping in front of the line (which is what I've done in the past) they jumped on the brakes and stopped in the middle of the road.

The place we stopped at wasn't ideal, but some throught did go into the safety of the spot, and we were stopping to help someone, which was an unforseen change of plans.

The fact that most people were mindlessly following was the main problem. In a convoy every person needs to drive as if they are leading the convoy.
The only space you have control over when you're on the road is the gap between you and the car in front.
If someone wants to follow you too closely (which they invaribly do), you can't really do anything about it. If you have to stop quickly they'll run into you.
The only thing you can do is make sure that you have enough space in front so that if something happens to the car in front you can stop slow enough that the car behind has time to stop as well.

Even if everyone was in one line on the weekend it would have been ok, because we stopped very gradually from a moderate speed.
The first bunch stopped ok, then the faster people came from behind, and didn't see what was going on.
If they'd come over the hill and continued past it would have been fine, or if they'd been listening to CBs and slowed down earlier they also would have been fine. Even noticing the people frantically waving from beside the road would have helped!

[kyuss]

Originally posted by Cassa
Or an animal runs under your car, someone screeches to a halt several cars in front of you in heavy traffic, you sneeze, a child runs on to the road, someone throws a rock off an overpass that hits your car, etc etc ad nauseum.

It's exactly that kind of blinkered two dimensional view that is responsible for the problems we're discussing here :mad:

OK, let's get something straight here, we are talking about ppl thrashing their cars to the maximum and crashing are we not?

As for "It's exactly that kind of blinkered two dimensional view that is responsible for the problems we're discussing here :mad:", i don't drive a rice poof car, i don't drive fast, i drive to get from A to B (not to get my rocks off ????) and although i've only been driving 1.5 years, clocking up approx 50,000km (that's right VERY inexperienced), i have managed not to crash.

So IF my view is causing the problems, why have i never crashed Cassa??????????

AND the only time's i have EVER came close to crashing is when i have tuned out and lost concentration, or have driven like a moron in a fit of frustration.

Cassa, you are displaying the exact ignorance that this thread was created to show.

[DumHed]

it's people pushing it while not leaving room for things like animals, etc to happen that often crash badly.

I did well over 100000km of driving before I had any sort of crash. My first one was on unfamiliar roads in normal traffic (in brisbane), when I came around a bend that turned into a crest on an overpass ramp with walls on the sides.
There was no visible traffic around, but right after the blind corner (which didn't look like a blind corner till half way round) there was stopped traffic. Right at this point there was also a large metal expansion join in the road, and ripples in the road surface caused by constand flexing of this part in the road.
None of this was visible till it was too late to slow down enough, even from normal traffic speeds.

Even with all those poor conditions I would have been able to stop, if it wasn't for having ABS brakes. Due to the ripples in the road the ABS couldn't react fast enough to the constantly changing grip levels, in effect keeping the brakes turned off.
Without ABS the wheels would have locked up, and bounced a bit, but easily stopped in time.

[Cassa]

Originally posted by kyuss
Cassa, you are displaying the exact ignorance that this thread was created to show.

Blanket simplistic logic aside, I was merely trying to point out that there's always going to be at least one more factor than you counted on in any accident, so to say that if you tick off all your safe driving items on a checklist, then you won't have an accident, is short sighted at best and potentially fatal at worst.

Furthermore, just because it hasn't happened to you yet does NOT mean it's not going to, no matter how safe you may proclaim you are. That is a golden truth for every road user.

[polite]

Originally posted by DumHed
really any accident can be avoided by the driver when you come down to it.



There were lots of coulds and ifs in what I deleted but the key word is "accident"....... by chance, a mishap.
You could be Ayrton Senna and it wouldn't be good enough.
I suppose, like everything it is percentages and statistics.
Good luck.





:)

[DumHed]

one thing that a lot of people say is that young people shouldn't be allowed to drive powerful cars.
This sounds good in theory, but when you look at what it really implies it doesn't work out so well.

I agree that it's a problem now that inexperienced people are able to get into high performance modified cars these days for not a lot of money, and a lot of these cars are modified from more of a racing perspective, which makes them somewhat dangerous in unskilled hands. Some of the progressiveness and safety is usually compromised in order to raise the performance.

Most of the inexperienced drivers with these cars just cruise around the city to show off though, and can't get into major trouble (except being defected for noise, etc)

Where a lot of younger drivers come unstuck is while driving standard small cars at high speed, and not knowing how to handle situations like suddenly finding that they're going too fast into a corner.
Most of the cheaper small cars don't have the safety features of the performance cars, or the kind of natural responses that inspire the driver to learn the limits.
Most young people's crashes occur in cars like Excels, Barinas, etc, and older small cars like Geminis, Bettles, old Dattos, etc.
All of those cars will break any speed limit you can find, but none of them can stop quickly from that speed, have much in the way of safety, or are likely to have been pushed to the limits in a controlled environment for the purposes of learning.

If you're going to limit the power of cars people can drive where do you draw the line?
Today's bog standard family cars (Camry, Magna, Commodore, Falcon) have far more power than sports / sporty cars of a few years ago.
People called me a hoon for owning my 260Z, and thought it was too dangerous for a P plater, then called me a hoon in my non turbo silvia, but both of those cars were slower in a straight line than a well driven commodore.
How would the public react if kinds could no longer learn to drive in their parents' massive performance machines?

What needs to happen is that somehow during the process of learning to drive people are shown how easy it is to exceed the limits in some situations.
Even just telling people to drive around a car park at 20km/h, but having a patch of oil on one corner will quickly demonstrate that a super safe low speed one minute can turn into way too much speed the next.
Or demonstrating how your average passenger car behaves when asked to do a quick swerve while travelling at 60+km/h (usually involves a lot more body roll than direction change)

I did a safe driver course (note: not advanced driver training) paid for by AAMI insurance, which was quite good at showing how hard it is to stop or avoid unexpected obstacles even at low speed.
I did offend the instructor though when instead of understeering off the high speed 180° turn test like everyone else I used a bit of the old power oversteer to keep the front wheels tracking, and came out of the 45km/h corner at 60+ while sideways :)
They made me do it twice again at super low speed :P

[scathing]

Originally posted by kyuss
OK, let's get something straight here, we are talking about ppl thrashing their cars to the maximum and crashing are we not?

We are talking about people driving in general (not just hooning), their behaviour, and their driving practices.

So you've driven a fair bit and never crashed. Big whoop. I regularly drive on the high side of 150km/hr in a 70km/hr tourist scenic drive (with all the twisty bends in the middle of a national park that this name implies), and I've never crashed on it. I've fallen asleep while doing 130km/hr coming up the Hume Highway. I didn't crash. Maybe its safe for everyone to do, then.

I know some people who regularly drive while on LSD, and they've never crashed. I would love to hear your argument, based on your principle of "if its never happened to someone yet, it must be safe", on how its OK to drive while under the influence of an illegal hallucinogen. Let me pull up a chair and some nibblies; this promises to be quite entertaining.

Cassa's advocating that we'd all be better off if people drove with some kind of environmental awareness. If you're the only road user, then minding your own business is fine.

Otherwise, a fair amount of your attention should be spent on what's happening around you. When I weave through traffic like the ricers that Pirate was complaining about, I am paying plenty of attention to what I do. They are too. The problem is, they're only paying attention to what they do. Its perfectly safe for us to do that, as long as everyone else leaves those gaps there or stays the fuck out of our way. If they don't (maybe they're accelerating to match speed, or just because its impossible to maintain a constant speed in traffic so distances between cars will always change), because they're too busy doing their own thing and not seeing some guy carving up traffic about to drop into their lane and giving the idiot room.....that's when problems occur.

Both people, in that instance, are keeping an eye on themselves. And that's what causes problems, since there's more to the road than just themselves. If they were just weaving through parked cars or concrete blocks (or things that don't move of their own volition) its fine.

Only newly-minted L platers should be absorbed only with what they're doing, because they're still struggling with learning how to do it. If you're apparently good enough to drive unsupervised, your own actions should barely register in your mind.

Seriously, try riding a motorcycle. When you're not surrounded by metal and sound dampening, you'll see how suicidal that isolationist mentality is.

[DumHed]

Originally posted by polite
Good luck.


unfortunately it does come down to just that sometimes.
There are always factors you can't control. All you can do is minimise the possible effect they can have on you.
Sometimes that has to be balanced against all the other factors though.
You won't have much fun if you go mega slow everywhere in an effort to be safe, but if you go super slow you can create other problems - like the fast guy with dodgy brakes coming up behind who would have been fine if you weren't being an "idiot" for going so slow.

It's all a matter of balancing priorities.
I accept that when I drive there are many risks.
If I want to drive fast I do it somewhere where those risks really only involve me, the car, and the environment - not other cars / people.
In normal day to day driving I'm worried enough by the risk of getting fined that I stick to the speed limit, let alone running into someone who just pulled out of a side street not expecting some clown to be hooning towards them at way over the speed limit.

[kyuss]

Originally posted by Cassa
Blanket simplistic logic aside, I was merely trying to point out that there's always going to be at least one more factor than you counted on in any accident, so to say that if you tick off all your safe driving items on a checklist, then you won't have an accident, is short sighted at best and potentially fatal at worst.

Furthermore, just because it hasn't happened to you yet does NOT mean it's not going to, no matter how safe you may proclaim you are. That is a golden truth for every road user.

If you think i hold some humbling view that i will never crash is idiotic to say the least, cause as you clearly explained, every road user is at risk when it comes to crashing, and as i explained i am an inexperienced driver who is also human and looses concentration and gets fits of road rage(hey i live to the immediate north of surfers paradise!) you just failed to tell how this risk is much higher for some (especially those ones on the fast and furious boat trying to push their rice mobiles to the limits).

You cannot possibly deny that ricers (who generally give there cars stick at every chance) are at a higher risk of crashing than the every day joe blog who uses his car to get from A to B.

[scathing]

Originally posted by kyuss
Cassa, you are displaying the exact ignorance that this thread was created to show.

Actually, she's showing that she has a better understanding of roadcraft than most road users. Being concerned with yourself is something that only L platers do.

Its a known psychological tenet that an awareness of others is a sign of maturity. Children are concerned with themselves, but as they grow and mature their awareness of the rest of society increases. They stop being as selfish, and start contributing and being aware of the community (whether it be their own family, or their peers, or society in general).

Given that she's concerned about what other people are doing as well as herself, I won't have to worry about her changing lanes without checking her mirrors and blind spot. I won't be flashing my high beams at her in futility as she sits in the right lane not overtaking (and causing traffic to build up behind her). I won't be sitting in her car watching some in-a-hurry dickhead P plater in a VS SS Commodore in horror as he's slicing through traffic, because she's about to close a gap the baseball-cap wearing idiot is about to dive into because it'll get him 10m further up the road before he has to cut two lanes to the right again to find another gap.

[Cassa]

No of course I don't deny that, that would be stupid. I was just highlighting the fact that no-one should ever comfort themselves with the belief that they're safer on the road because of the way they drive, because death doesn't particularly care if you weren't speeding when someone unexpectedly cuts in front of you.

[Drakin]

I am a firm believer in the concept of power ratings for different licenses.

Personally i would take it even further, i would start people off (age irrelevant) in small engine cars (my car is a 3 cyl 1 ltr charade) I would make them drive auto's as well.

When they get used to driving inbetween lanes and taking corners and such not then they can take the next test for an extra cylinder and maybe some more cc's say about 1.3

Next when they are used to more power they can take the manual test.

From here they move onto 1.3-2.0l engines.
Here i think you can stay until you prove that you can drive this much power. theres plenty of cars in this range.

Moving onto the v6's and v8's you would require another test for these.

So your looking at a license with several limits on it, these are increased as you prove you are ready. To assist you in this there should be more areas with instructors that allow you to practice certain modes of driving.

Theres really nothing (apart from money) stopping the rta setting up several sites for the express purpose of training people in real life scenarios. Case in point being freeway merges. MERGE AT THE SAME SPEED PEOPLE! (*mutter*mutter*)

There is a new area at sydney park in newtown that appears to be a learners course with pretend traffic lights and roundabouts, this is great but its been there for the last year or so and no-ones taken the chain link fence down yet..

The new system of P's etc is okay but really all its doing is saying drive at 80 for 6months, 90 for a year and 100 for two years after that.

Personally i find people stuck at 90 in a 110km zone dangerously annoying (L plates i dont mind, i figure your probably stressed enough as it is) specially when they sit in the overtaking lane in a 90km zone overtaking people doing 90.

[scathing]

Originally posted by kyuss
You cannot possibly deny that ricers (who generally give there cars stick at every chance) are at a higher risk of crashing than the every day joe blog who uses his car to get from A to B.

Cassa and I have never denied that. She was quite criticical of the people that were on the cruise, far moreso than I was. And, being there first hand, she's far more qualified to express an opinion about those specific people.

What we take exception to is your justification, since its flawed. There are plenty of people who drive that way with who are never in accidents, but in my limited driving experience I find that its the head-up-the-ass drivers that tend to cause other people to be put in situations where they're going to have an accident.

If I cut some fucker of,f because I was too busy worrying about myself and not the people I am sharing the road with, and run him off the road, I'm not the one that had the accident. I'm accident free. Did I cause it? Of course.

[Pirate]

Please drop the name calling people... there is a good discussion happening here, lets not turn it in to a flame war. Also I am moving this to discussions as its not much of a rant.

[kyuss]

Originally posted by kyuss
As far as im concerned if you keep an eye on your driving you should be in tune with whats going on also with the vehichles surrounding you.


Just incase you guys never read that ;)

Driving isn't just, OK, i change the gears, accelerate and stear. Under the heading driving a broad spectrum of activities are located.

Staying in tune with your surroundings including other vehicles is a part of driving. Hence if you are keeping your thoughts on your driving you will be also be in tune with your surroundings including the vehicles around you.

Checking your blind spot when changing lanes is not something you do just for the courtesy of other drivers, it comes under the banner of driving, it is something you should always do!

I am constently looking around making note of that person sitting at the corner who's facial expression looks oblivious to the fact that i am coming through, the lights that just turned red 100 metres down the road, the person who is a car length or so ahead of me in another lane but looks like they are about to change lanes etc, do these activities i perform make me more than a driver? well no, because they are what makes a driver.

These things are all a part of driving, not some element of driving where only the best drivers even know about them, let alone take in as a factor of driving.

Sorry to babble.

[RASPUTIN]

:) I love talking about the good old days and hooning. *old voice* when I was a young wipper snapper I used to ........ hehe

You young blokes are so ripped off now days compared to 20yrs ago when I was in my hoon years. No RBT's, no 45k over instant disqualify etc etc. Back then I was an old school ricer that used to go up against the GTHO's and XC facons with my little ricey monster port rx4. ahh twaz a joy to behold. My mate worked at the airport as a aircraft tanker repair dude and used to get me 120-140 octane avgas for my car. Hehe much fun as when idling it shot out 6 inch flames and when backing off it was nothing to pump out a 3 to 6ft flame. The airport tunnel was one of my favorite places sceaming up to it in 4th gear at 200+ then back off and feather it until I was low enough to go back the 3rd at around 160k to get the best kaboom flame shooting out the back usually right next to another car then flatten it pissing my self laughing seeing the wee dribble out of the drivers door on the car we just flamed :). Shit those where the days. I have lost 24 points in one booking by a cop that chased me (I was not aware) through the Menia bends.

Yes I was a maniac. I had an engineer spec rx4 that was so highly modified nothing was standard. Even the chasis was double spot weilded with roll bars all though it to stiffen it up.

Funny thing I have consistently noted through this discussion is how people rate themselves as a driver. I have/had my cams license and used to race at Oran Park and do hill climbs down in Wollongong and stil thought I was only an ok driver. Face it people no matter how good you think you are you are only as good as the driver you are passing. The number of times I have been forced off the road due to some person not seeing me coming is scary. Once I nearly crashed due to it.

Now days you are a fuckwit if you drive like a maniac, then it was OKish, 20% less cars no-one on the roads after 1am (when I usually went out to street race) Oh well, one thing I have learnt being a Dad is that you cannot out an old head on young shoulders. So all I can really say is be careful. As I for one would hate not to see one of the rev heads here not be here anymore.

As for the people who bag them, umm fuckoff. I owned the roads back them. Well at least in my 17-20yr old head and nothing you can say will change that opinion as you are indestructable at that age.

Now I drive a 80 series Landcruiser with mutha bullbars and crash plates and roll overs weilded all underneath me. So to all the rev heads wave as you go under me as you are only a large speed hump to me.

[DumHed]

Originally posted by Drakin
I am a firm believer in the concept of power ratings for different licenses.

Think about how much of a pain it'd be to get a proper licence though when you are forced to buy a car for the purpose of learning. What if your parents have a car sitting there doing nothing because it's not used, and you can't drive it cos it has too many cylinders.

If there's a power limit it should be done on power to weight, like they do in SA I think (?)
Power isn't based on cylinders, or even engine capacity. An old Range Rover has a V8 engine, but they barely go up hills, whereas there are plenty of small light cars with small engines that go quite fast.
The problem with that, as I was saying earlier, is that in many ways most of the standard family cars you can buy now should be considered too powerful.

Even your 3 cylinder 1L hatchback can exceed any speed limit around, and it'll do it in a short enough time to get someone into trouble really quickly - but what it doesn't have is safety.
The fact is that if you hit another car, whichever is the lightest will absorb the most energy.

[DrDivad]

I think they should make those AAMI Defensive Driving Courses mandatory,

One trick i do that I learned from people who used to be instructors to police highway patrol is as follows. Every few seconds give yourself an oral run-down of the conditions, basically you explain exactly whats happening to yourself as though you were telling someone who wasn't there.

EG

I'm travelling 60kph on a sealed road, new asphalt, fairly rough and grippy, no potholes, no gutters on the edges several cars in front, not many gaps, blah blah oncomming traffic, side street 20m ahead, red light 200m ahead

and so forth, eventually it becomes habit and you'll just say it to yourself, this will make you a far better driver.

[DrDivad]

On the topic of smaller power calsses for early drivers and building up, personally i think it should almost be the opposite,

i.e. the first car i ever drove was my dad's VT SS Commodore, I learned very quickly the dynamics of hard aceleration, hadnling of a fat doom mobile and various things, having a car that had plenty of useable power available but was heavy and fat enough to show you body roll, handling characteristics, suspension changes, gearbox issues, braking complications, grip levels, and do all that without being too 'touchy'.

What i mean by that is the 230kw (flywheel) that car had would be far less sensitive to the 230kw that dumhed has in his current silvia. As a result it meant i understood a lot more about the physics of driving. I think this is what is important, this is exactly what the AAMI people do, they force you to do 180degree corners at 45, which isn't THAT fast, but ona tight bend you'll see how much lateral force there is, and dumhed even demonstrated other important factors, people tend to think that it's the steering wheels that controls your steering, the gears that control your speed and the accelerator that makes you go fast, they forget that brakes can make you go faster, gears are mostly for keeping the engine efficient but they also allow you to select a power band, thereby allowing you to go faster, or slower or even jsut to change the dynamics of the car by selecting a new gear, and thet power AND brakes can be use to steer the car.

I think this is something that motorcycle riders inherently know better, i mean, quick cornering on a bike actually requires you to counter steer, not exactly what you do in a car and very bike specific but the point is it's counter-intuitive also.


The whole point i'm raising is, if you're car is too piss weak you can't learn these things, if you car is too powerful it becomes touchy and you're tolerances are lower.

This is just what i was sayign to my dad, threes a corner on Pennant Hills road goign towards carlingford way thats like a big s bend, i was a passenger ina friends car, and it's not a very tight s bend, but she was commenting how "there must be a lto of accidents" and she was not turning enough and constantly having to turn more and then bakcing off and constantly changing speed. Now this isn't a 'bad driver' that's what a lot of people do because they are uneducated. I was saying how it would've been safer to do that corner 15-20 kph faster with a smooth turn and constant speed as the grip levels and the car's centre of gravity and other dynamics would remain unchanged.

I've found myself that you can go through bends faster the less brakes you use, seems obvious but generally if you're going too fast you're going to understeer and the solution is to slow down, but if you use engine braking much furhter in advance, you're actual speed is much the same but you've set the cars dynamics up much better and then smoothly into the apex and smoothly power out, safer cornering at higher speed, and the same even applies at low speed.

the difference there is again tolerance, the faster you go the tighter your tolerances, that is jerking the wheel and being inconsistent barely matters at low speed because you have more room for error, but at high speed it's much tighter


hopefully all that made sense

[hazza]

Originally posted by DrDivad
I think they should make those AAMI Defensive Driving Courses mandatory,




I have to disagree, this is one of the main reasons why i think these ricers get into crashes.

"hey guys its ok ive done a course i know what to do in the situation" this gets them into the situation many more times than normal because they think they know how to get out of it. the problem is, not every situation is in a controlled environment. practice is the key here and being aware that not everyone will be as good as a driver as you, or they might be better and get cocky...

[DrDivad]

Hrmm fair point, but that kinda thing happens anyway,
at least this way hopefully some of the people will get something out of it,

[thingy]

Divwad, that cornering technique isn't entirely accurate. For a smaller lighter less powerfull car (such as most road-going cars) it is the best way. Just watch MotoGP some time, pay attention to the different lines of the riders in different classes as well as to the commentators whose job it is to point these things out to the plebs. The smaller lighter bikes take a much smoother line and try to carry as much speed as possible. The 500cc+ bikes tend to go deeper into the corner turn harder and power their way out, it's what gets them through faster.

It all really depends on the type of corner, but for most people getting a set speed within your limits before the corner, entering it, letting the car settle into the lean, then accelerating out of the corner is the best way. Sure, it's not the fastest. Sure, you can accelerate earlier than what that technique allows you to, but it's the safest.

As for countersteering on a bike ... it is something intuitive, most just don't notice it until it's pointed out to them. Hell, I did it for 15+ years on my pushbike without knowing. It's just the logic is a tad confusing at first, but makes perfect sense.

[DrDivad]

Bah, you get the idea though :P

and well as you say, if counter steering is just somehting that happens without thinking about it, if you don't know to do it, and you're asked to think about it, it may not happen.... :P then you're flat on your arse,

the point is it's experience with various equipment that makes you better, i mean, it's not like you started on a low power push-bike and built up, the bike is only as powerful as you can pedal it, so you're in more control, it's that kind of environemtn that's going to make you best on your push bike, i got no idea if any of the principles are transferrable to a powered bike, but i'd imagine some of the real basic stuff is,

and as you say regarding 125's vs 500's, similar things with road going cars, a lighter car is going to try and glide through whereas a fatter car has to worry about slowing itself down and making up for it with power, but still the point stands that experience on decent equipment is going to teach these things,

if you spend your whole life ina light car where you get used to setting up the corner and gliding through, when you upgrade to that monaro (for example) you're going to find it very different.

[BlueBoy]

Pretty sure the power to weight ratio limit is still active for learners in Vic.
Used to be 125kw to the ton. Which isn't all that bad.

[brotherkrusty]

Driving is just another mechanism for natural selection.

The hoons that think less about others and care only for their 10 mins of fun on the road should have their genes taken out of the gene pool. In the long run a percentage of them successfully do this.

The track is the only place where the speed limits should be ignored. No ifs or buts.

Hooning and other rice boy behaviour should be strongly dealt with. I think community service in hospitals with crash victims is a good place to start. Let these people see what innocent victims look like.

Speed limits and road design are based on driver visibility, not reaction time, stopping ability, car specifications or technology levels. That is why road design has changed little in 30 years. Corners, hills and speed limits are decided by determining how far away or what obsticle is blocking a driver from seeing another car or road deviation.

Breaking the speed limit reduces the time you have to see a problem before you are on it. Nearly all drivers react within the same time frame once they see an issue. It is the distance you travel before you see the problem that is the where the danger lies.

It is also harder to see an issue the greater the difference in speed the two objects are moving.

The speed limit is there for a reason, not to be a pain in the arse.

You never do know what is around the next corner.

[DumHed]

Originally posted by hazza
I have to disagree, this is one of the main reasons why i think these ricers get into crashes.

"hey guys its ok ive done a course i know what to do in the situation" this gets them into the situation many more times than normal because they think they know how to get out of it. the problem is, not every situation is in a controlled environment. practice is the key here and being aware that not everyone will be as good as a driver as you, or they might be better and get cocky...


The AAMI course isn't like that, it's about how hard it actually is to deal with unexpected situations, and gives people a safe way to see what their car does.
It also gave the instructors a chance to tell a few people to get their cars checked out - who had totally dead shocks, bad tyres, worn brakes, etc.

The advanced driver courses (high speed training type stuff) have however been shown to increase the incidence and severity of accidents, due to the factors you mentioned.

[durus]

The people who scare me most on the roads are:
The old/crazy drivers I can't predict. That's the old fogies and the hoons. As both are prone to lane changes and breaking without warning.
The worst kind of hoons are not the ricers. They're the people in bombs who think they're in F1 Cars. I'm not talking about the ricers. I'm talking about people in bog standard excels, sprints, falcodores and barinas who drive 10K above the speed limit in heavy traffic weaving all over the place. They don't seem to realise that they don't really have the power to power out of a problem and they don't have the breaks to break in time. Not to mention their tires and suspension.
At least a ricer takes pride in their car. It will usually have decent tires & breaks. They can usually power out or break as appropriate and they leave gaps that they know their cars can handle. If i'm behind them I leave a bigger gap because I know my car just isn't up to that sort of braking. But the hoons in bombs will never bake in time and it's just a matter of time before their luck runs out.

[Drakin]

Originally posted by DumHed
Power isn't based on cylinders, or even engine capacity.

Ok so it could have been expressed better with the kw/weight ratio mentioned above...

But then again i wouldnt have a clue as to how many kw's my car has :)

2kw's maybe?

As for weight i believe its two paddlepop sticks..

[DumHed]

1kw per paddle pop stick!

That's an awsome powar machine! (I don't think you can legally drive it) :D

[frednurk]

The laws of physics have no respect for popular culture- and a good thing it is too.

[polite]

Originally posted by frednurk
The laws of physics have no respect for popular culture.
And visa versa.:(

[druid]

Originally posted by DumHed
The AAMI course isn't like that, it's about how hard it actually is to deal with unexpected situations, and gives people a safe way to see what their car does.

Agreed. Here a course you described is mandatory. Before you can get your license you have to have some track time to practise how to evade stuff and handle corners on icy roads, braking with and without ABS, correct light usage in the dark...

Then some time after that (I think it'd equate to your P plates) you do a short refresher course and economical driving (there's a gauge in the car that shows fuel consumption according to your driving style).

Also the driving school instructors paid a lot of attention to physics. That was pretty cool considering that most of the people in the class didn't know that doubling the speed quadruples the stopping distance etc.

I don't think those courses made anyone cocky, just cautious.

Originally posted by DumHed
It also gave the instructors a chance to tell a few people to get their cars checked out - who had totally dead shocks, bad tyres, worn brakes, etc.


What, no yearly inspections?


All that said, I think the solution is to ban Initial D. Or make the water cup mandatory in every car.