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It's no secret that I was never happy with this impoundment law, in that it's application is too black & white, as if politicians want people thinking that at 40.1km/h over any limit, anywhere in the province your car is going to spontaneously burst into flames.
There are situations & conditions which widely vary the level of risk both to the driver of the vehicle and the general public associated with speeding. You can't tell me that speeding on the highway somewhere in buttfuck nowhere BC is the same as speeding on Highway 1 through the construction zone.
And that's just it, the Highway 1 construction zone is an incredibly dangerous place to speed and the risk to the public is huge, so I am actually glad these guys were caught and the book thrown at them.
I'll never be happy about the civil forfeiture bullshit though.
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although I really hate this excessive speeding = vehicle impoundment law, I have to say that it is a successful deterrent, at least for me.
Last summer, I was driving through the tunnel on HWY1 towards north van, traffic was flowing around 90, and I gave it a little gas to hear my exhaust in the tunnel. Was doing around 120ish when I got pulled over by a speed trap. I guess it was a construction zone(though I don't remember seeing any construction there for months), so the speed limit at the time was 70km/hr. I got a $483 fine, impound, points, tow fee etc..the whole thing ended up costing me over $2000 when all said and done. Now, I still feel like I was driving in a safe manner (a little speed burst in a straight line that lasted a few seconds) but I'm definitely not going to risk getting a fine like that anymore. Ever since then I rarely speed(still speed up a bit to pass slow moving traffic and such). So, I guess the moral of the story is that the punishment is very harsh but it is effective!
To add to those who suggested building a race track: IMO just having a race track will not help (ie. Mission). If they were going to make one (chances approach 0%) to reduce street racing, it would have to be close AND inexpensive in order to be effective. And with land in the GVRD costing so much, having something close would not be cheap...and something "cheap" would be far (ie. Mission, although it's not cheap). However, I'm sure most of us wouldn't mind driving out to Mission if the track were "better". Also, they'd have to do some good advertising/marketing to make it work.
However, another option would be to make a drag strip close by which should cost less than a road course. I think this would be an awesome idea since it could be closer in proximity and cost less. And most of these "street races" are just kids doing pulls on each other.
With regards to the harsh punishment, I agree with what Redlines_Daily said. It's harsh but I'm sure it's effective. However, I also agree that accelerating to ~120-140 in the tunnel <<<<<<<<<<<<< driving at 120 in the construction zone. Now if only policy makers/enforcers would smarten the fuck up.
Building a race track would be pointless. You think these type of people are going to invest the time to go to a track? Plus it costs money. Why pay to speed if you can do it for free on the streets or highway.
These people just want to go fast when they see the opportunity, or go spirit driving/cruising.
It would seem excessive to go to a track just to do that, especially when trying to get fast lap times isn't the priority.
Am I the only one who would go track with fun and not lap time as priority? I suppose you could argue that we see different target markets for this hypothetical road course...but still, if there were a one closer and much cheaper than Mission I'm sure many more people would go more often since it would actually be conveniently accessible & financially viable.
The reason why I don't is because of the high cost associated with it. Over on the east, track days are like $100 per as opposed to the $200+ here.
didn't seem like much of a street race.... The 4 were definitely going fast and the road conditions may not have been suitable for it...but civil forfeiture seems a bit extreme for what they were doing...
I can see civil forfeiture in this "street race" seem more legit
didn't seem like much of a street race.... The 4 were definitely going fast and the road conditions may not have been suitable for it...but civil forfeiture seems a bit extreme for what they were doing...
I can see civil forfeiture in this "street race" seem more legit
Building a race track would be pointless. You think these type of people are going to invest the time to go to a track? Plus it costs money. Why pay to speed if you can do it for free on the streets or highway.
When you're driving a $60,000+ car, citing cost as an excuse NOT to use the track is fucking weak... especially considering the cost of a day at the track is roughly the same as the CHEAPEST speeding ticket you could get on the street.
Unfortunately, building tracks won't overcome the real problem: these idiots are just plain lazy, selfish, and/or ignorant.
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Originally Posted by Godzira
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Originally Posted by Brianrietta
Not a sebberry post goes by where I don't frown and think to myself "so..?"
Nobody will use a track. Just come out to any track day or autocross and watch the guys in their 911's show up all cocky and proceed to get beat by some guy in a Miata or Mustang because they don't know how to drive. It happens all the time - they show up once to try things out and never come back.
At the track the social pecking order is defined by how good you can drive. On the street it's defined by the value of your car. This is why building a track will do nothing - the people driving high-end cars won't get the attention they think they deserve at the track.
Well, most of them. Believe it or not, there are people who drive 911's and M3's who actually know how to drive. But they are a very small minority.
No other way to say it, but you didn't think this through or you're the one who missed the physics classes. I've done both, and let me tell you, the 7 is WAY better at maneuvering than a whale of a car with a much higher centre of gravity and much shittier brakes. Have you even *tried* panic braking a Chevy Van from 120, and a 7-series from 160? Could be just perception, but I felt way more in control in the 7.
Sigh. We go through this discussion every time this topic comes up.
I don't have time to go through everything again as it just doesn't seem to sink in with anybody. But here's a quick one for you:
This vehicle pictured below is a 2003 Utilimaster Food Truck. Did you know this vehicle can stop shorter from 60mph than a 750i or Porsche GT3 can from only 80mph?
Imagine that - a high performance car like the GT3 (which is well known for its superior braking abilitiy) can't even drive 20mph faster than this POS truck and stop in as short a distance. Oh, the GT3 will sure "feel" a lot better doing it, but when you're in a panic situation (avoiding an accident) people aren't thinking about how "good" their car feels.
And if you're interested in the actual test results, here they are:
Nobody will use a track. Just come out to any track day or autocross and watch the guys in their 911's show up all cocky and proceed to get beat by some guy in a Miata or Mustang because they don't know how to drive. It happens all the time - they show up once to try things out and never come back.
At the track the social pecking order is defined by how good you can drive. On the street it's defined by the value of your car. This is why building a track will do nothing - the people driving high-end cars won't get the attention they think they deserve at the track.
To summarize: lazy, selfish, and/or ignorant.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Godzira
Does anyone know how many to a signature?
..
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brianrietta
Not a sebberry post goes by where I don't frown and think to myself "so..?"
Sigh. We go through this discussion every time this topic comes up.
I don't have time to go through everything again as it just doesn't seem to sink in with anybody. But here's a quick one for you:
This vehicle pictured below is a 2003 Utilimaster Food Truck. Did you know this vehicle can stop shorter from 60mph than a 750i or Porsche GT3 can from only 80mph?
Imagine that - a high performance car like the GT3 (which is well known for its superior braking abilitiy) can't even drive 20mph faster than this POS truck and stop in as short a distance. Oh, the GT3 will sure "feel" a lot better doing it, but when you're in a panic situation (avoiding an accident) people aren't thinking about how "good" their car feels.
And if you're interested in the actual test results, here they are:
Imagine that - a high performance car like the GT3 (which is well known for its superior braking abilitiy) can't even drive 20mph faster than this POS truck and stop in as short a distance. Oh, the GT3 will sure "feel" a lot better doing it, but when you're in a panic situation (avoiding an accident) people aren't thinking about how "good" their car feels.
Simple physics: momentum (aka mass * velocity), vs. friction of the tires on the road. Physics don't care how much you spent on the car or how "cool" the body style is or what badge is on it.
The one thing that will adversely affect stopping is if your tires lose friction with the road... the ONLY thing the fancy car offers you over the van is the possibility to maintain friction under harsher conditions, through ABS, and possibly a better-designed suspension. But give the van ABS, and give both of them equally-skilled drivers, and mass and velocity being equal, the sports car has practically ZERO advantage.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Godzira
Does anyone know how many to a signature?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Brianrietta
Not a sebberry post goes by where I don't frown and think to myself "so..?"
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physics > perception, I think everyone should agree on that. However, I just can't get behind the argument stated in the last few posts; here's why:
1) I also read that Road&Track article where they tested the food truck and I remember that the thing was so slow that they couldn't get it past 37mph on their test track, so the 164ft 60-0 braking distance was merely an estimation. Now, I'm assuming the actual distance would change under real load and friction..maybe the estimation is accurate maybe it's not, I really don't know.
2) I suppose my first point isn't all that important as I'm sure someone will find another test of a minivan braking from 60 with similar results or something. Anyway, in all my years of driving I have seen many highway accidents in person and of course watched my fair share of horrible crashes on youtube. In all those crashes there are very few(if any?) crashes where I saw a driver emergency brake to a full stop from a highway speed to prevent an accident. In almost every case the driver will brake hard to a reasonable speed (say 50ish km/hr?) then slowly pull over to the side or maneuver around the crash. I would say the distance/time taken to go from (X)km/hr-50 would be a better test of a vehicles ability to avoid a crash, and I'm willing to bet these high-end sports cars would demolish their ordinary counterparts as friction/skidding wouldn't come into play as much.
and the logic behind that is...? if they are all going 160 and not weaving in/out of traffic I don't see how it's more dangerous than one car doing it...
Just to help refresh your memory, but the driver was drunk which was a major contributor to the accident, not the excessive speeding though it was the high rate of speed and rapid deceleration that killed the 3 people.
physics > perception, I think everyone should agree on that. However, I just can't get behind the argument stated in the last few posts; here's why:
1) I also read that Road&Track article where they tested the food truck and I remember that the thing was so slow that they couldn't get it past 37mph on their test track, so the 164ft 60-0 braking distance was merely an estimation. Now, I'm assuming the actual distance would change under real load and friction..maybe the estimation is accurate maybe it's not, I really don't know.
If you have the coefficient of friction of the tire and the asphalt, and know the mass of the vehicle, you can calculate the stopping distance from any given velocity. Naturally this can't take into account things like locking up the brakes, such as a panic stop without ABS, or wheel bounce caused by a poor suspension... but it's very easy to extrapolate a stopping distance in this way.
Quote:
2) I suppose my first point isn't all that important as I'm sure someone will find another test of a minivan braking from 60 with similar results or something. Anyway, in all my years of driving I have seen many highway accidents in person and of course watched my fair share of horrible crashes on youtube. In all those crashes there are very few(if any?) crashes where I saw a driver emergency brake to a full stop from a highway speed to prevent an accident. In almost every case the driver will brake hard to a reasonable speed (say 50ish km/hr?) then slowly pull over to the side or maneuver around the crash. I would say the distance/time taken to go from (X)km/hr-50 would be a better test of a vehicles ability to avoid a crash, and I'm willing to bet these high-end sports cars would demolish their ordinary counterparts as friction/skidding wouldn't come into play as much.
I'm certainly no expert, just my $.02
*FRICTION* is a constant. You can take the same tires, with the same rubber compound, put one set on a van and one on an R8, and as long as you don't lock up the brakes, both will stop in the same distance from the same speed. *SKIDDING* will increase the distance, because it's caused by a loss of fiction... which is what things like ABS and a properly designed suspension will help reduce. It's really only an aid to the unskilled driver, though - the professional driver should never feel his ABS activate.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Godzira
Does anyone know how many to a signature?
..
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brianrietta
Not a sebberry post goes by where I don't frown and think to myself "so..?"
physics > perception, I think everyone should agree on that. However, I just can't get behind the argument stated in the last few posts; here's why:
1) I also read that Road&Track article where they tested the food truck and I remember that the thing was so slow that they couldn't get it past 37mph on their test track, so the 164ft 60-0 braking distance was merely an estimation. Now, I'm assuming the actual distance would change under real load and friction..maybe the estimation is accurate maybe it's not, I really don't know.
2) I suppose my first point isn't all that important as I'm sure someone will find another test of a minivan braking from 60 with similar results or something. Anyway, in all my years of driving I have seen many highway accidents in person and of course watched my fair share of horrible crashes on youtube. In all those crashes there are very few(if any?) crashes where I saw a driver emergency brake to a full stop from a highway speed to prevent an accident. In almost every case the driver will brake hard to a reasonable speed (say 50ish km/hr?) then slowly pull over to the side or maneuver around the crash. I would say the distance/time taken to go from (X)km/hr-50 would be a better test of a vehicles ability to avoid a crash, and I'm willing to bet these high-end sports cars would demolish their ordinary counterparts as friction/skidding wouldn't come into play as much.
I'm certainly no expert, just my $.02
Here's another truck for you - a 15,400lb dump truck that takes 160 feet to go from 60-0. Surprisingly, it's shorter than the Food Truck I previously used as an example.
An easy way to understand this without doing all the math is to look at some Nurburgring lap times. Cars like the Lexus LFA, Corvette ZR1, Dodge Viper ACR and similar are all hovering around 7:20 give or take a couple seconds for an average lap speed of 105.0mph.
Then you have cars like the VW Lupo GTI, Suzuki Swift and a host of other "slow ass 4 bangers" that run right around 9:00 for an average speed of 85.0mph.
Corvertte ZR1: 105 mph
Suzuki Swift: 85 mph
Think about this for a second. A ZR1 being driven at its limits is only able to drive 20mph faster than a shitty Suzuki Swift also driven at the limits. You know, the same type of thing a person avoiding an accident would do - drive the car at its limits.
When you're driving a $60,000+ car, citing cost as an excuse NOT to use the track is fucking weak... especially considering the cost of a day at the track is roughly the same as the CHEAPEST speeding ticket you could get on the street.
Unfortunately, building tracks won't overcome the real problem: these idiots are just plain lazy, selfish, and/or ignorant.
Autoplan also doesn't cover your car when it's on a track. Any mishap is going to be $$$. That said, I've taken my 911 on a track and it was a lot of fun.
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