So what was wrong with this driving?

[Nigel]

BHP sells cars torque wins races

It's the midrange torque which is what you're using for overtaking and turbo diesels usually have bags of it.

Twin turbo petrols are the most fun I've had but a turbo diesel is good enough these days.

Wrong, BHP used to sell cars, these days it is CO2 and MPG figures that sell cars, even if the official MPG is widely inaccurate

You only use midrange torque to overtake because your turbo diesel produces maximum power in the midrange and becomes highly inefficient at higher revs, same tends to be true for petrol turbos.

I don't have any turbo , so the engine is still producing maximum power, is still running efficiently and is still fun at 7000 rpm, long after your diesel has given up.

 

[SteveJ]

C'mon guys, why don't you just beg to differ.

 

[Keiman]

Must resist being drawn into this - Ex IMPREZA WRX driver running 2.5 bar boost on a 2.0l GC8 engine.

 

[Nigel]

Must resist being drawn into this - Ex IMPREZA WRX driver running 2.5 bar boost on a 2.0l GC8 engine.

Sometimes, even on a racetrack, you can have more fun with a relatively low power level! Of course if you like to scare yourself...

Maybe you swapped to your Kei Car for a good reason...

 

[Keiman]

Good reason for swapping was had to run on V-Power only and when pushed hard 15mpg
Kei Car is still a Subaru but std unleaded and 60mpg.
If you really want to scare yourself try one of these
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superkart used to race them until I had a big off and smashed both ankles

 

[kamkar]

Tough luck DJR96 here its pretty common to go +10 kmh, but luckely our undercover speed controls are not so undercover ( usioal Danish incompetence )

Its allways a van with tinted rear window exept the holes in the tint where tru speed is mesured and pic is taken, allso they cant just park some place and start mesuring, so its usioaly the same places you find them parked, and beeing a huge van they are easy to spot.

Allso ungentleman like pictures from behind dont work here,

My friend was fined 192.59 AUD ( 1000 DKkr ) he was mesured to 86 in a 80 zone, and then they have to deduct 5 kmh from the mesurement, so it was 192 AUD for +1 kmh that did not make my friend happy.

I too often go a little over the limit, but ( knock on wood ) i have never gotten a speeding ticket parking and wearing a seatbelt is a whole other matter

 

[Chode]

Some of our roads with 60mph limit are woefully inadequate to justify that kind of speed; on the other hand, 70mph on a clear dual carriage way or a motorway is a 50-yr old nonsense - even in my city car I can do 110mph safely ....

 

[sludgeguts]

Over here, there's guidelines from the police saying 10%+2mph.
But about 3 years ago, the wife was captured doing 32mph in a 30 zone. She opted to attend driver awareness - and many people were there for the same minor excess (mostly between 32 and 35 in a 30 zone.

 

[sludgeguts]

Some of our roads with 60mph limit are woefully inadequate to justify that kind of speed; on the other hand, 70mph on a clear dual carriage way or a motorway is a 50-yr old nonsense - even in my city car I can do 110mph safely ....

Most people can do high speeds safely - and if you were an F1 driver, a judge would let you off a ticket based on your occupation.
However, what the judge fails to consider is that an F1 driver is doing stupid mph on a track where everyone else is going in the same direction. Everyone else has had the same high standard of driving tuition. Everyone else is driving a state of the art car which is maintained at every opportunity.
Nobody is joining from a slip road. Nobody thinks they are there to police speed limits. Nobody has to worry about joining a queue of cars trying to get by the two lorries overtaking each other. Nobody has to worry about all the debris from badly maintained cars (not to mention the grease from split CV boots, the oil from gearboxes, sumps, diffs etc).
Nobody has to worry about the kid who has just passed his test or the granny who is blind as a bat or the driver who has just come here from abroad. nobody has to worry about the rep doing stupid mph whilst closing a deal on his phone & writing out an order - all whilst keeping his foot flat to the floor...
Nobody has to worry about the driver who can't see out of his window because the map is in the way.

With great freedom comes great responsibility - and sad to say, a great many drivers simply cannot handle responsibility - probably the main reason why speed limits have remained unchanged.
And whilst modern cars have far better braking systems, you are still talking about propelling well over a ton of metal along at stupid mph with no more than a couple of square inches of rubber in contact with the road. Even with ABS, assisted braking etc etc, laws of physics still cannot be ignored.

 

[kamkar]

laws of physics still cannot be ignored

Damm my wierd memory and attension span, i saw the formula for calculating inertia earlier in the day

And not to forget Murphy's law, witch rule supreme on Danish streets.

 

[Nigel]

Damm my wierd memory and attension span, i saw the formula for calculating inertia earlier in the day

And not to forget Murphy's law, witch rule supreme on Danish streets.

And don't forget that at 70mph you have far more chance of stopping before you need that rather worrying inertia formula than at 110!

Stopping distance from 70 mph = 96 meters.
Stopping distance from 110 mph = 217 meters.

As a result in a motorway accident at 70 mph most people walk away, at 110 most will be dead. Cars simply aren't built to survive 110 mph accidents which is why almost no countries allow people to drive that fast on public roads.

 

[DJR96]

Don't just complain, do something about it!

Things have been much better here since we last changed our government!

Alternatively change your country, for example the Isle of Man has no speed limit away from the towns/villages - freedom, as long as you drive safely. Mind you, it is well know as a place that motorcyclists die!

Trouble is each successive government, from both sides of politics, continue to screw motorists harder. They depend and budget on the revenue raised. It's easy money after all.
I had hoped it would have improved with the change to a liberal government here, but it has only gotten worse. In fact, they have reduced the tolerances for speeding further. And that was an order that came from the finance department. Not from police, roads, transport departments. So that really tells you the motivation.

Personally I'd like to see a 25% tolerance unless circumstances are not safe to do so. That would get people to actually think about the circumstances and conditions they're in. Instead of having to drive as though you're in a dodgy 40 year old clunker on bald tyres in the rain at night all the time!

 

[DJR96]

And don't forget that at 70mph you have far more chance of stopping before you need that rather worrying inertia formula than at 110!

Stopping distance from 70 mph = 96 meters.
Stopping distance from 110 mph = 217 meters.

As a result in a motorway accident at 70 mph most people walk away, at 110 most will be dead. Cars simply aren't built to survive 110 mph accidents which is why almost no countries allow people to drive that fast on public roads.

No one will argue with the physics Nigel. But you missed the point. You would only be doing the faster speeds when it is safe to do so.
That is a point that is completely and deliberately overlooked by all the "road safety" campaigns. It's part of the dumbing down of the driving public we're talking about.

Why do people "speed"? Not because they are deliberately doing something unsafe or dangerous. They're only doing it because they have perceived the circumstances safe enough for them to do it. There have been estimates that this is the case about 98% of the time. So only about 2% have been "speeding" in circumstances that were not safe to do so. It is only those that should be targeted by enforcement. Not the vast majority of drivers that are driving safely.

 

[jokiin]

Unfortunately the revenue potential is too large for any government of the day to allow any form of common sense policing to occur

 

[DJR96]

The anti-speeding campaigns here over time have actually caused driving standards to deteriorate.
Here's a clip from one of the best bits of road in the state (only 100kmh limit):-

There's a highway patrol car leading that line of tailgating traffic in the centre lane. So they would rather tailgate each other than run the risk of getting pinged for speeding. After all, the likelihood of getting pinged for tailgating is far lower than for speeding.

 

[Dashmellow]

That's the right side of the road

Mirror world?

 

[kamkar]

haha a car roadtrain

I have notised ppl will not overtake the police, not even if they are below the posted limit.
I have often overtaken them with no problem, and once i was even speeding and i still got away with it.

On the other hand, once i had been out fishing and was driving home on the motorway, witch back then had a max speed of 110 kmh.
And guess who overtook me while i was dooing 130 kmh,,,,, HM the queen of Denmark in her nice Bentley with her and her husband on the back seat, and a ford with security ppl behind.

I do belive our speed limits allso apply for the royal family, both princes have been busted for speeding as i recall, but a estimated 150 kmh is okay for the queen.

 

[DJR96]

Unfortunately the revenue potential is too large for any government of the day to allow any form of common sense policing to occur

Too true!

I don't have a problem with them raising some revenue from drivers. So long as it is drivers that are doing genuinely dangerous things. By that just about every other road rule should be enforced long before low range "speeding".
But of course the occurrence of "speeding" is far more common and there is equipment that automates the enforcement of it. That makes them an easy cash cow of course. Doesn't do anything for improving driver behaviour or anything that actually matters.

It wouldn't be that difficult to develop automated systems to enforce other road rules if they want to maintain a revenue stream. Keeping left unless overtaking on multi-lane roads and failing to indicate lane changes in particular.

 

[reverend]

Drivers who don't keep left are supposed to be a fine over here in the UK now but to be honest I see as many people as every just sitting there, even though they get a reminder every few miles on the electronic signs on the motorways!

Speed wise I use cruise most of the time and set it slightly above the limits to compensate for the fact the car speedos are always optimistic.

I usually just keep it simple and go with 32mph in a 30, 43 in a 40, 54 in a 50, 65 in a 60 and to keep things easy 75 in a 70 and even at those speeds you get people flying past (like the dick in the Kia doing 70 which was 30mph over the limit recently). The GPS shows the above as being accurate with the limit though, at least in my car - your milage may vary depending on tyre size etc.

Do you guys have the average speed cameras on motorways nowadays? They started off on roadworks but they're slowly making some of them permanent fixtures - it does seem to work to keep flow going and also keeps emissions down as a result as there's less stop / start traffic.

 

[jokiin]

Do you guys have the average speed cameras on motorways nowadays? They started off on roadworks but they're slowly making some of them permanent fixtures - it does seem to work to keep flow going and also keeps emissions down as a result as there's less stop / start traffic.

they do have some of those here I believe, we also have the same function on some toll roads where you're timed between entry and exit as well