Top speed

Well said DS.
Tom are you saying "slow speed" is dangerous?
Fastest I have been driven is 170 at Daytona in a 2 seat NASCAR.
IMO the only place high speeds should be seen is the race track or Germany (max 155).

Let's see. Four accidents, two in a car, two on a bike, all 20+ years ago. Both car ones were doing >30 mph round bends in the wet. One bike was laning for some traffic lights and a Peugeot 504 driven by a midget pulled across my lane totalling my bike and my knees, the other bike I dumped on the road avoiding a child that some idiot father dragged out into the road. Only person hurt was myself and the vehicles. Both the bike accidents I was probably doing less than 25 mph.

Tom

Actively enjoying it all

quote:

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Originally posted by Steven Toy:
"Anti-car" and "liberal" do not belong in the same sentence. Cars epitomise liberty.

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Yup the freedom to sit in a traffic jam. Great. We should use taxis more and have them subsidised as public transport.

Tom

Actively enjoying it all

1) 220Kph
2) Autobahn nr Stuttgart
3) Nearly new Volkswagen VR1Turbo AVIS rental
4) Nope, cause it was legal in those days

Reason: Trying to keep up with all the mad Germans doing the same speed.

quote:

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Originally posted by BigH47:
Well said DS.
Tom are you saying "slow speed" is dangerous?
Fastest I have been driven is 170 at Daytona in a 2 seat NASCAR.
IMO the only place high speeds should be seen is the race track or Germany (max 155).

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No but accidents aren't necessarily speed related. Admittedly if I crashed at greater speeds the consequences might have been more serious but the blanket "driving fast is dangerous" approach is simplistic. In my case two were my fault because I couldn't pull the car out of a skid in wet conditions, the other two were the direct result of other road users changing course without checking for other road users. None were speed limit related.

Tom

Actively enjoying it all

David

You're right to be angry, road accidents aren't at all funny.

I trust nobody would be encouraged to drive dangerously by reading this thread.

Steve B

Speeds never killed anyone, the missuse of it - yes. We "allow" hundreds of people a week to die through smoking. In relation to some of the comments so far, its a joke we allow fags if we're talking cost to the tax payer.
Martin

oops

[This message was edited by Gizmogirl on Sun 09 May 2004 at 11:25.]

(apologies, I forgot who was logged in on this pc, hence the oops msg above)

quote:

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Originally posted by David Slater:
I know let's ask

1. How much friends / relatives have been injured /killed by speeding motorists ?
2. How long they were in hospital for ?
3. Cost to the country of the lost contribution of those people?

That'll be a laugh won't it!

DS

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1) none.
2) sorry, can't help there
3) nope. not there either.

Sorry DS but rather than just sticking your head in where it's not particularly wanted and chanting government propaganda maybe you should do some research first. Then you might find out that officially speed is the cause of around 7.5% of accidents and even some of those are dubiously accounted for.
So how about rephrasing (1) as
1) how many killed by drunks/people on mobiles or otherwise distracted/people falling asleep and (the real #1) people just not looking at the road ahead (just watch any of those motorway video type tv shows to see how many people manage to drive into parked cars in clear conditions)
which can all be further summed up by
1) how many people have been killed because we'd rather have a few thousand deaths each year and keep the economy chugging away nicely with all those motorists on the roads than properly training them and maybe having to kick half of them off the road because they're just not competent? And before you reply, think of this. Would you get on a plane if you knew that the pilot had been trained and tested in the same way that we train and test motorists?

1) 150-155mph (Italian speedo - so who knows?)
2) M3 J1/2 (c1985)
3) Ferrari 308GT4
4) No - but I don't do that sort of thing any more.

I've also done 150kts in a Hughes 500 and 170kts in a Gazelle more recently, and I would like to do that sort of thing much more.

PS. My grandfather was killed, and my grandmother badly injured, in a car crash about 40 years ago, but I don't think speed was really an issue.

A heli-pilot, Mr Dixon?

Best for me is a massive, supersonic, amazing.....

92kts in a R22 (with a tailwind so it probably equated to something like 125mph over land).

Regards,

JonR

1)..140mph. Hit the cruise controll but the gutless lump couldnt hold it.
2)..A1 nr. Peterbourgh
3)..Audi A6 Avant TDi
4)..No thank god as it was my boss's car

Paul.

I won't comment as I am happy with my penis.

JonR

For the benefit of the rest of us, what is an R22?

Steve B

quote:

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For the benefit of the rest of us, what is an R22?

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A Robinson R22 is a small, two seat, two blade, piston engined helicopter. 92kts airspeed, must be pretty close to the maximum speed allowable for an R22! I have flown one, although don't have a rating on the R22; I prefer the Hughes 300, one extra blade and a bit more stable.

quote:

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I won't comment as I am happy with my penis.

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Yes, but is your wife?

quote:

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Originally posted by Steve B:
JonR

For the benefit of the rest of us, what is an R22?

Steve B

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Steve,

I was referring to the Robinson R22 helicopter - a small US-manufactured 2-seater which is very popular with flying schools in this country. I happened to mention it in response to Patrick Dixon's tales of derring-do in the probably more well-known Gazelle and perhaps less well-known Hughes.

Regards,

Jon

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Speeds never killed anyone, the missuse of it, yes

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Therefore, Martin, I guess you are blessed with a god-sent sixth sense that allows you to press the gas pedal as much as you like without ever causing any danger ??

I have had two accidents in my time and both were more than seven years ago.

The first one someone ran into me from behind. I was stationary at the time so my speed was 0 mph.

The other was my fault. I worked a triple shift (I have never worked more than 12 hours without then having 12 hours rest since.) I dozed off at the wheel for a few seconds and ran into the back of a lorry in traffic. My speed was about 5mph.


Accidents involving excessive speed that don't involve other factors like drink or drugs are extremely rare.



Regards,

Steve.

I did kill a baby deer in Austria last week (howls of "Bastard" from the opposition back benches). Was I going too fast ?

Yeah, probably.

Sorry,

Brian (meat is murder)

Bambi !

Tom

Meat is delicious

quote:

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Originally posted by Brian OReilly:
I did kill a baby deer

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Who killed Bambi?

I hope you ate it. Waste not, want no...

When I lived in Munich I remember confusing one of my visitors. They noticed a speed limit saying 130 and that my car was reading the same speed. They worked out what that was in real money (mph) and commented that it had seemed faster.

They hadn't made the connection that the speed limit was in kmph but my car was a right hand drive UK model with a mph speedo...

The local deer population is 2 down due to their heroic totalling of two of my neighbours rental cars recently, fortunately the drivers were unharmed.

The deer ran off

Deer are quite a road hazard in the Hampshire country side

Derek

<< >>

No, I didn't eat him/her/"Bambi". I love eating deer when it's on the menu, but I have a little "rule" about eating anything cute that makes eye contact with me, half a second before it's killed.......

Yeah, I know, hypocritical, moi ?

Brian(hardenned killer)