Jump to content

My eye! Sweet Jesus, Ouch!


Sledge

Recommended Posts

From a policing point of view, some of the RTC's i've been to have been caused by a mixture of speed and awful driving. Whilst YOU as a driver may well drive within your comfort zone whilst speeding, as you know your own and your vehicles limits. Everyone is expecting you to be doing the speed limit, so inevitably someone will pull out in front of you, slam on for no reason or generally do something moronic. Now looking at some of the jobs i've been to, the crash has occurred because of the bad driving AND speed. In several cases, vehicles have been doing no more than 5-10mph over the speed limit on 40-50mph roads, but because of that extra speed, they have ended up rear-ending or t-boning the vehicle that has braked, or pulled out.

 

Now whilst you might be confident in your skills and abilities whilst driving at speed, not everyone will be and whilst it is unfortunate, all it takes is one planks bad driving to land you in a world of hurt, both physically and legally.

 

Edit: Spelling :/

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Replies 24.2k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Hedge, going faster makes you more likely to have an accident due to decreased reaction time, increased braking distance and reduced control.

 

If you increase your distance then that compensates for the first two negating them, and reduced control is down to the vehicle and driver not the speed.

There are people out there who have reduced control when doing 40mph compared to 30mph (normally driving cars with a viking ship in the logo or a fish on their boot), yet there are plenty of people who have just as much control at 40mph that they have at 30mph.

Link to post
Share on other sites

From a policing point of view, some of the RTC's i've been to have been caused by a mixture of speed and awful driving. Whilst YOU as a driver may well drive within your comfort zone whilst speeding, as you know your own and your vehicles limits. Everyone is expecting you to be doing the speed limit, so inevitably someone will pull out in front of you, slam on for no reason or generally do something moronic. Now looking at some of the jobs i've been to, the crash has occurred because of the bad driving AND speed. In several cases, vehicles have been doing no more than 5-10mph over the speed limit on 40-50mph roads, but because of that extra speed, they have ended up rear-ending or t-boning the vehicle that has braked, or pulled out.

 

Now whilst you might be confident in your skills and abilities whilst driving at speed, not everyone will be and whilst it is unfortunate, all it takes is one planks bad driving to land you in a world of hurt, both physically and legally.

 

Edit: Spelling :/

 

Shirley a more accurate observation would be that the accidents have occured due to bad driving (being too close, inappropriate speed for conditions) and the seriousness of the accident is due to the speed?

 

For instance, take one of the rear-ending accidents you had the misfortune to attend, had the rear vehicle been travelling a safe distance behind they would have stopped in time.

 

I just want to make it clear, and I believe Hedge feels the same, we are not saying that someone who thinks they're skilled enough should be OK doing 40mph in a 30 zone, or even 31mph in some 30 zones, we're saying that speed itself is not the issue, it's the inappropriate application of speed that causes accidents.

For instance, in built up residential areas I'll pootle along at 20mph because I know a kid could run out between some cars, I'm always looking for that, not just the cars around me but at the people around the road. If some pratt behind has a problem with that, well it's their tough luck, it won't take long to get through to a more open area.

 

 

Wai... wait... wWHAT??? :wide-eyed:

 

there are cars that run on vegetable oil?:blink:

 

Holy crapola i'm behind in the times

 

Used to be able to, fewer and fewer cars can now.

Link to post
Share on other sites

As I said, bad driving plays just as big a part. But from what I've seen on a regular basis is speed being the cause of that bad driving. Whilst I'm sure there are plenty of drivers who change their entire driving attitude due to them feeling comfortable driving faster, making them safer, there are just as many who only increase speed without improving any of the other aspects of their driving. Would I say all speeders are bad drivers? Hell no. Speeding is just one characteristic of a bad driver though.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The problem is electric cars are expensive and impractical, and until hydrogen cells, or some other quick recharge/long range technology becomes mainstream, we're stuck with internal combustion engines, and fudging the type of pollution it spews out.

 

The other problem we have in tackling the energy issue is that people like a nice neat single solution, so they complain about wind farms because you'd have to cover the nation in them to power our needs and therefore we should have none, or complain about nuclear because it's not good at coping with surges so lets have none. People seem to have a hard time realising that we actually need a mix of whatever works. Nuclear as you say, for the bulk of the constant requirement, hydro/wind/solar/clean coal for the rest and to cope with surges/drops in demand.

 

iirc, an average house's mains electricity supply cannot currently supply enough power to charge an electric car over night if it was capable of driving at 70mph with about a 300 mile range.

 

People complaining about wind farms annoys me. There were plans to have one very close to where I live which I was happy about, but the people who would've been able to see it stopped it happening because it would've spoiled their view. That strikes me as rather selfish and petty.

Link to post
Share on other sites

NIMBY - Not In My Back Yard

 

People who want wind farms, sewage treatment plants, power stations, reservoirs, etc, etc, etc... as long as they're somewhere else.

 

Of course, in our so-called democracy these type of people are the only ones who make a fuss, so they tend to get their way. <_<

Link to post
Share on other sites

One thing that makes me laugh is when someone says 'wind / water / solar only generates 15-25% of the amount of power fossil fuel burning does'.

 

So why not combine them to make the bloody 100% that we require then?

 

Always these so called land conservationists go on about wind turbines spoiling the view, when it comes to crunch time and fossil fuel runs out i suggest we but up the wind farms and any that complain about it get used as a fuel source themselves as we can do without their selfish attitude when it actually is helping the planet compared to knocking out hours of fumes and harmful gasses.

 

Oh and while we are at it, someone invent a car that runs on some non-fossil fuel power that at least works and doesn't take a day to charge and hurry up about it as we all know fossil fuel is going to not last, especially with BP and others losing bits of it to the *fruitcage* sea.

 

'FireKnife'

Link to post
Share on other sites

But from what I've seen on a regular basis is speed being the cause of that bad driving.

 

 

I think we are getting into semantics here.

 

I would agree with your post 100% if you put "inappropriate speed (as a symptom of bad driving) causes accidents"

(Mostly) same words, slightly different order.

 

Furthermore if somebody pulls out on you causing an accident, that is their fault. I know the courts will blame you if you were speeding but pulling out into the path of a vehicle is idiotic.

 

The police are taught that in the right circumstances it is OK to exceed the speed limit.

I have a lot of respect for the police but they are not supermen, they just have a little additional training.

I drive in a similar way, speed limit in 30 and 40, caution around schools and narrow residential roads. In NSA areas I drive to the road conditions, if that means spray then slower, if that means good sight lines, dry roads and good weather then I go faster.

 

People are morons and constantly brake for no reason, weave around in their lane and pull out in front of me but I have never hit any one of them because I am driving to the conditions and expecting them to do it.

 

The worst one is a roundabout right next to my house.

I come down the dual carriageway, indicate right, enter the roundabout at a reasonable speed and then some *Ubar* coming up the other dual carriageway tries to kill me.

Every day.

 

There is a filter lane to turn left from my direction THAT MEANS IF I GET ON THE ROUNDABOUT I HAVE TO GO PAST YOU!

 

Some days I have to brake hard to avoid collision. They never, ever apologise. It's blinkers on, don't make eye contact, just cut me up and hope I'll stop.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Oh and while we are at it, someone invent a car that runs on some non-fossil fuel power that at least works and doesn't take a day to charge and hurry up about it as we all know fossil fuel is going to not last, especially with BP and others losing bits of it to the *fruitcage* sea.

 

'FireKnife'

 

I own two. I can get 500-600 miles on a tank, practically CO2 neutral running on renewable fuel.

They've been around for years, but just over 10 years ago the EU killed them off.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Roundabout - give way to traffic already on the roundabout or entering from the right.

 

It's not complicated - why do people struggle to get it right?

 

EDIT:

 

Fireknife - as I mentioned a few posts a go, the first ever internal combustion engines ran on grain alcohol. The first compression-ignition (diesel) engines ran on peanut oil, and other vegetable oils.

 

Neither of those are fossil-fuels.

 

But, of course, when people start turning to biofuels, some other would-be "do-gooders" start whining on about people growing crops to make into fuel rather than growing food.

 

Er - hello??? Farmers will grow whatever makes them the most money, if they've got any sense. However, if not enough people grow food (Bearing in mind there is a pretty large food surplus in Europe) then the price of food will rise and growing food will be more profitable again. These things will eventually equalise out.

Link to post
Share on other sites

True but as always you will get the kind of people that put a stop to it either as they blindly think they are doing good or they are selfish.

 

Don't worry when push comes to shove they will soon change their tune, to bad we can't do much about it.

 

'FireKnife'

Link to post
Share on other sites

This is another one we can attribute to the inhabitants of the middle bit of America.

 

YOU CAN'T USE BIOFUEL. IT'S MADE OUT OF FOOD, WE EAT THAT. WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE, THINK OF THE CHILDREN.

 

Er, you've got too much food already.

Also, you can make perfectly good alcohol out of rubbish, which you also have too much of.

 

All the people with a brain in their heads took that day off.

Link to post
Share on other sites

If you increase your distance then that compensates for the first two negating them, and reduced control is down to the vehicle and driver not the speed.

There are people out there who have reduced control when doing 40mph compared to 30mph (normally driving cars with a viking ship in the logo or a fish on their boot), yet there are plenty of people who have just as much control at 40mph that they have at 30mph.

 

 

I'm sorry, what? how the *fruitcage* does somebodies faith/religion affect their driving abilities?

 

 

also i cannot believe the stupidity of of some people in this thread. Actively admitting, and in some cases advocating BREAKING THE *fruitcage* LAW!? Are you complete and utter mental cases?

 

While i understand some of the logic behind some of the reasons, simply saying "its ok becuase i'm better/more considerate than everyone else on the road" is just plain ridiculous.

 

 

On the other hand, knowing what stunt's done to his car, i'd be hard pushed to find a more suitable higher-speed driver ;)

Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm sorry, what? how the *fruitcage* does somebodies faith/religion affect their driving abilities?

 

God knows (no pun intended) but it's an observation, along the lines of the Rover remark you've ignored, or BMWs never having working indicators.

 

In actuallity it comes down to having something noticable about a certain driver, fish, BMW badge, car colour when you see them driving badly.

You remember an aspect of the vehicle and you associate that with bad driving, so if you spot that aspect on another car, you expect to witness bad driving and therefore normally will see it.

All the well driven fish/Rover/BMWs etc go unnoticed because you don't need to notice them, they're being driven properly so aren't a threat.

Link to post
Share on other sites

You know what conclusion I have come to regarding stereotyping vehicles? It doesn't matter what car it is, what logo or sticker's they have, bad drivers exist in all makes and shapes. The sooner you believe this, the better you will be, when reacting to bad driving. Bad drivers exist, not because of the vehicle they drive, but because of thier approach to driving.

 

I've had a bus driver try to ram my Dad off the road at a train station, a fiesta try to jump the lights and t-bone the taxi I was in, police car near miss during a chase (He dived back into the flow of traffic, luckily there was space, at knowsley village about ten years ago), a lorry decide to go around the round about again (thank god my wife had given him tones of room due to having lorries cut her up in the past on roundabouts) thus nearly running us off the road and the list goes on.

 

I agree with Jackie Stewart to an extent, the more safe a person feels, the more likely they are to drive like an idiot.

Link to post
Share on other sites

This is another one we can attribute to the inhabitants of the middle bit of America.

 

YOU CAN'T USE BIOFUEL. IT'S MADE OUT OF FOOD, WE EAT THAT. WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE, THINK OF THE CHILDREN.

 

Er, you've got too much food already.

Also, you can make perfectly good alcohol out of rubbish, which you also have too much of.

 

All the people with a brain in their heads took that day off.

 

I was listening to an analysis of the civil unrest in Egypt, yesterday, on NPR. The analyst said that it was likely due, in large part, to the increasing price of food, worldwide... some of those prices have jumped 50% over the past year. This same analyst linked this increase in price to droughts in Russia and the United States, combined with the shear amount of American crops that go into biofuels (those are among other reasons, but those are the three I remember). Apparently something like half (45-55%, I don't remember the exact number) of all the food that the US produces ends up being converted into biofuels. Of course, if you could go after the sacred cow of farm subsidies in the US, you'd likely solve a significant part of the issue. Unfortunately, the US pays its agricultural sector to grow and then destroy their crops... and the farmers who do it are all too happy to do so.

 

In any case, it's not the food that Americans are getting that people are worried about. It's the people in Third World Countries, where a small jump in the price of grain makes a huge difference in the price of food. (In the Western world, we buy marketed, packaged food, so the actual price of the food is typically so minute that price increases for food are insignificant compared to the money spent on marketing and packaging, refrigeration, &c. In the Third World, the cost of food pretty much only effected by two things: The availability of that food and the price to transport it.)

 

This is pretty much a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. On the one hand, we could keep going to Third World countries to get our oil and destabilize the planet with climate change and dictators fighting over increasingly limited natural resources. On the other hand, we could keep pouring our food into making biofuels and destabilize the planet with high food prices and dictators killing their own people to stay in power. There's also the third option, drop biofuels and adopt fuel-cell-powered cars (along with shutting down coal-fired plants and opening up more nuclear plants and wind farms). Then we can still feed the world and not have to buy oil from dictators.

 

As for wind farms being NIMBY. Give me a giant backyard. You can put a whole bunch in there. I'd love to have a few ginormous wind mills to watch over breakfast. I remember at St Olaf College in Minnesota, there were wind mills all over the campus, and they were nice to have around, cool to watch. Although they did tend to make creepy noises in Spring and Fall (and even creepier noises in Summer, when they were the only noises to be heard).

Link to post
Share on other sites

We have a helical turbine on our college roof. It's awesome.

 

I honestly cannot fathom why people think they are a bad idea.

 

Free energy, less pollution and IMO, aesthetically pleasing.

 

 

And not really that permanent either. If a better solution comes along in the future, they can be taken down without leaving a massive footprint behind.

Link to post
Share on other sites

 

While i understand some of the logic behind some of the reasons, simply saying "its ok becuase i'm better/more considerate than everyone else on the road" is just plain ridiculous.

 

when has nayone said they are better?? although i do agree, people with a sense of "over confidence" are the biggest danger, thinking they can drive at silly speed and not compensate because "they know how to control a car" are morons

 

But those that know they are just as good as the next guy, still drive at silly speeds (such as myself) but leave that extra 3 car gap, dont go howling past two lanes of the traffic on a motorway where someone could pull out randomly,

 

i never speed on anything other than dual carriage ways or motorways, smaller roads are just to damn un-predicatble, cameras round every corner, its not worht someons life and its not worth points on my license

 

but on a motorway as far as im concerned if i put others safety first by ensuring ive kept a decent gap should anything happen i can stop in time and "pre-empt" the guy that pulls out into the 3rd lane randomly then speed limits are fair game

 

Int he first few years of my driving i wrote off 3 cars, and ironically i wasnt speeding............but driving like a douche, we live and learn

 

my mantra is "so long as the only person i hurt is myself, then im cool with that", if i ended up hurting smeone else or worst case killing someone, i dont think i could live with that

Link to post
Share on other sites

Tinkerbell - Personally, I don't recall suggesting illegal speeding. I remember saying that speed doesn't cause accidents. If you choose to assume I'm referring to driving over the speed limit - that's up to you. I'm not responsible for your assumptions.

 

There are plenty of times when driving at the arbitrary speed limit would be downright suicidal. Most country roads in the UK, for example, have a speed limit of 60mph for cars, but given that many are also unlit, narrow, twisty, undulating and feature high hedges on both sides ensuring next-to-zero visibility, you'd be mental to try to drive at 60 on them.

Link to post
Share on other sites

True.

 

I know people who have killed themselves on country roads doing less than 60 because they weren't driving to the conditions.

 

When I was a kid a friend was killed while stopped at a light allowing alternating use of a single lane hump-back bridge. A car coming the other way saw his light go amber, floored it, took off over the bridge and landed on my friend's windscreen.

 

My wife did 300 pounds worth of damage to my car because she was driving too close behind a lorry that shed its load and went right over the top of it.

 

 

 

Using the road in any way can kill you without warning but we all do it with scarcely a thought.

The only accident you can prevent from happening is the one that you cause.

By leaving decent spaces and driving to the conditions you can do that.

 

What I am saying is this:

 

The current 70mph speed limit was set in 65 and made permanent in 67, a time when cars were capable of 180mph but most couldn't do more than 70.

 

Since then there have been simply epic improvements in all the technology that causes a car to stop.

Tyres, brakes and suspension have all come on massively. I know people always dig out the McMerc SLR stat that it can stop from 120mph in the same distance as the highway code states for 60mph but that is a hypercar.

Even normal modern cars make an absolute mockery of those distances.

 

My old Skoda could produce 1.2g of braking force, 60mph is about 27m/s which means I stopped from 60 in 2.25 seconds covering approximately 30 meters.

That's what the highway code says for about 45mph

 

I also ran R888s which are very soft grippy tyres that are ###### in the rain.

I used to drive with extreme caution in the rain knowing that my brakes were poo. I was shocked when I found out that what I though was terrible wet weather braking was producing a stopping distance exactly what the highway code says is the dry stopping distance.

 

The highway code says the wet stopping distance is 108m which is just nuts.

 

 

I guess the crux of it is this:

Sometimes, driving to the conditions means you can go over 70, the German government trust me to do that so what is the UK waiting for? Time to move with the times.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Ahmen to that, brother...

 

As I said before - arbitrary speed limits are pointless. They're too slow for a decent driver in a modern car in good conditions, they're too fast for poor drivers and/or poor conditions.

 

 

EDIT:

 

In a new rant - or perhaps a follow up to one from before (I may have mentioned it) - my brother-in-law asked me to help him out with a amateur film he was in, and I lent a bunch of RIFs and kit to him and his friends and collegues.

 

The kit came back damaged, in ways that the people using it couldn't have failed to notice, but they didn't mention it or offer to make amends.

 

They have since ignored my attempts to recover my costs... Which amount to £410.

 

Are there any friendly airsofting solicitors in the audience who wouldn't mind writing a stiff letter to these clowns on my behalf?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Stuntman

i totally agree but dont forget our technoloy may have moved forward but our driving test is rubbish and 99% of the drivers in this country cant handlr medium speed let alone the stupid sppeds we can do nowadays,

 

I would call myself semi competatnt because ive done many trck days and extra driving courses, but i still eouldnt drive like alot of people do on public roads

 

Hedganian

Sue their asses!!!!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and the use of session cookies.