Any race encounters?

[Robbie]

Well whats your latest encounter?

Its a bit quiet on the forum so I'll paste an encounter I recently described on a mercedes forum. As some may know I run a stock slk 32 AMG with 354 bhp.

" SLK 32 V Corvette

Driving alone on the M25 London orbital motorway today, moderate traffic queue round me in all lanes, minding my own business, when this black corvette slams past on the inside lane before swinging into mine, there he sits on my front bumper, and he's got what looks like his son in the passenger seat.

Well this guy looks kinda intimidating in this Corvette with black quad exhausts and ferrari looking rear lights, I decide to ignore him till I get out of the camera stretch and when the traffic thins I decide to catch up. To be honest I don't see many American looking muscle cars here in the UK and I was curious to see just how fast this monster looker was.

OK, so I decide to have a little fun, but follow at a safe distance, predictably the Corvette floors it and I follow curiously. The guy then decides its time to dual and pulls over, then floors it at 80mph. I decide to follow suit and marvel as my little ol 32 effortly takes off, sailing past this Corvette. I ease up on the throttle, look back in the mirror and see him catching, another burst on my gas and he's resigned to a dot in the mirror, he pulls over, clearly giving up.

Then something strange happened, a small looking compact sort of Ford Focus (RS version I guess) seeing whats happened decides its his turn to race. I guess the Corvette was not far behind watching. Its a chinese guy, arm nonchanently hanging out the window. I sense he's feeling he's driving something a bit special. Surprisingly we're both neck and neck betwen 80 - 110 when the 32 pulls away and its all over, unfortunately I didn't see the guys face to register his look.

I ease back and pull over, returning to my normal driving speed. A couple of minutes later the Corvette comes up steady behind and draws level. I look over and as he's a left wheel drive we're only a coupe of inches apart. He smiles, gives me a thumbs up signal and slowly draws away.

I see why driving the slk 32 can be intoxicating, even more reason to be disciplined about when and where I open up the throttle.

The slk 32? Worth every penny. "


Robbie.

[Erm]

how many pennies is that exactly?

[Robbie]

how many pennies is that exactly?

Er... quite a bit of pocket money

[mrharrod]

This is exactly why so many people die every year on our roads.
"So, it's time to have a little fun" Wake up! Racing on public roads is stupid and totally irresponsible, dangerous and kills.

Even on a clear road, making a "disciplined" decision to open throttle is deadly. Keep it on a racetrack designed for that purpose. Both my parents where killed last year because somebody like you got "intimidated".

Buy a Nova if you can't keep to the limit! It's there for a F*** reason!
I have plenty more Gas of my own to argue if you want!

Chris.


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[britboy]

oh mr harrod chill out please :rolleyes:


The speed limits if you ask me are well too low. 30mph? Jees we're not driving blimin' 1950s Ford Anglias now!

It's mental -- we have the A3 near where I live .. I've lived here for 8 years -- and I have never *ever* seen a pedestrian on there. I constantly go above the mentally slow limit and you know how many people I have killed? A big fat zero. Yet I've saved myself and my clients thousands of pounds .. lets work it out using some maths -- at work going just 10mph above the limit I save myself 10 minutes every working day .. for 8 years (working 8 years) -- thats 13.3 DAYS OF MY LIFE I'VE SAVED BY SPEEDING A LITTLE! -- without costing anyone anything.

So -- let us also consider 85000 people(ish) drive the A3 every day .. If everyone drove just 10mph faster .. they would save themselves 1.66 DAYS each a year.

THIS WORKS OUT AS A SAVING TO THE COUNTRY OF 386.57 YEARS, of different peoples lives, PER YEAR. This is time those workers could be in the factory -- making your TVs cheaper, and your life BETTER. Time RUINED by having the speed limit at 50mph rather then 60 mph! Stupidity. Chances are it only saves about 1 life a year if that. Who thought of that one then? (Answer : No-one -- they just thought 'Oh we don't want a single person dying. Lets not event consider thousands of people lose masses of their time trawling along the roads). Simplistic, low-minded thinking -- that's all.

You know why we don't have to wear crash helmets when we're driving. Because we never have -- thats the only reason. But you can bet your life that if we DID have to put crash helmets on ... there would be people going MENTAL about anyone refusing to wear one .. saying 'My grandad died because he wasn't wearing a crash helmet whilst he was driving' and stuff like that. I can see it a mile off.

And another thing -- bloody speed ramps. What's that all about? EVERY SINGLE CAR has to have the suspension working over time, and EVERY SINGLE PASSANGER has to be bumped up and down just on the off-chance that 1 child, once ever, runs madly in front of a car and gets hit. Put it in some perspective please.

So this is MILLIONS of people every day that have to suffer, and god-knows what long-term damage to cars .. that again costs everyone in terms of time and everything .. that is all happening because of a couple of dimwits in the council think that the motorist is some big monster who is trying to run over school kids. Why they don't demand a bloke waving a red flag walks in front of every car is beyond me.

And about racing cars -- well I've never learnt as much about a car as during those HARMLESS races round tescos carparks etc. in the middle of the night (with no-one there). I would SERIOUSLY make taking a car to its capabilities a mandatory part of the dirving lessons if I could -- it teaches you more then all you other driving lessons put together. I tell you -- the other day I was going round this corner and there was some water on the road and the back-end slid a little. No problem .. minor correction I'm on my way.

I'm travelling with my girlfriend's aunt and the same thing happens to her -- what does she do? FULL LOCK the other way, over correction, over the pavement and lumps it into a wall. Afterwards she says 'Sorry nothing I could do, anyone would have made the same mistake - I've never experienced the car behaving like that before.' No, no-one would make that mistake if they had used their common sense and gone to a tesco carpark to pan their car a bit or race, BEST LESSON IN SAFETY AND CAR HANDLING I EVER HAD .. you learn so much how to correct if you started to lose it slightly.

I've seen a blimin' 20 MPH LIMIT now. Whats that all about? Trouble is they are setting the limits so low just so that the ultimate retardo-granny can drive whilst bearly able to see over the steering wheel, safely.

They should have the speed-signs directly connected to the DVLA -- so when some numpty drives past in a Ford Ka or some such cack it says '20' -- then when I come past the database immediately thinks 'He can do 50 no problem -- no danger to anyone'.

Sorry about your parents by the way.

[Sue&Steve]

My sympathies (in both senses) are with Mr Harrod on this one. Everything in life is a compromise, and we all make decisions (conscious or otherwise) about just how much fun we are prepared to trade-off against other peoples' safety. After all, society could make motoring 100% safe if we paid enough and drove slowly enough.

I speed, and I do like to go round corners quickly. And I'll out-accelerate the odd BMW driver for fun sometimes. But no racing, definitely not. Anything beyond a quarter of a mile, anything involving a red mist, is inexcusable.

(I've seen races through Leeds streets, and I tell you I honestly believe that those guys should be charged with attempted murder, rather than some piffling traffic offence. Bas****s)

So I'm no angel - it's just that in making my compromises my personal equation involves more restraint and care for others than some boy racers' more selfish calculations.

[Robbie]

Well thats got the forum going!

I'm 38, with a number of years experience as a met police officer having seen countless accidents.

My years of experience has taught me that its not just about speed but about general road sense. Someone can be driving dangerously at 70mph and another fairly sensibly at much higher speeds if the motorway ahead is clear.

I consider myself falling in the latter catagory.

[Derek]

boyracer robbie

[Robbie]

:rolleyes:

[stephen T]

Both my parents where killed last year because somebody like you got "intimidated".

[/url]

i think he is well within his right to be angry because of the situation he is in. but driving fast can also be safe. what robbie dod i dont really class as racing. racing is when u are in and out of corners, breaking etc.... and i am sure he has more sense than that as he is ex plod. i think he would of been quite safe and wouldnt of endangered any1 at all.

[Greenday]

At least on motorways your more likely to hurt themself than others e.g. people walking past, i find it funny people claiming that they can drive safely and fast on 30mph roads, Britboy says he can control the car at that speed and no one get hurt, so what happens when your doing 50mph and a crowd area (cos you can handle it) then you have a tire blow out and you spin into a the passers by killing 10+ of them when at a sensible speed this may have been 1 or 2 people at the very worst???????????

[samwise]

My sympathies to Mr Harrod.

My years of experience has taught me that its not just about speed but about general road sense. Someone can be driving dangerously at 70mph and another fairly sensibly at much higher speeds if the motorway ahead is clear.

I agree in principle with what you're saying but I wonder if your pride would have overwhelmed your idea of safety if the Corvette had kept up with you?

I of course break speed limits but if I do it's because I want to go faster, not because I want to go faster than someone else.

Britboy, you seem to be arguing that we need to all be be trained to your level. I'm not sure if Tesco's* would be willing to cooperate but making the driving test similar to an advance one (with retesting every five years) could, if nothing else, be one way of reducing the traffic on roads.

Personally I'd like to see the motorway limit raised to 80, much stiffer penalties for "reckless" driving but I don't have a problem with 20mph speed limits. If there's a chance someone might run into the road I'd rather give them a fighting chance of survival, even if it was their fault.

Jason

*Would be a great extension to the test don't you think. I can just hear the montone driving instructors voice now ... "I'd now like you drive round this superstore car park using 1st, and if you think it's safe to do so, reverse gears while giving it some. At some point during this maneuver I will pull up the handbreak like this (handbreak yank) and you must compensate accordingly".

[mrharrod]

First off, Apologies for making a bit of a jerk of myself on the forum.
With work and other stuff going on at the moment, I saw Robbie’s post as a threat which really shouldn’t have been.

Thank you for those that sympathised (if that’s the right spelling).

I’ll go back and hide in my corner now.

Chris.

[ICE DOCTOR]

No need to hide away now Chriss...i think we all see what happened here and ..ITS OK!!!

[col]

too right, found nothing wrong with you initial post mrharrold, don't think anyone was offended but unfortunately there are a lot of stupid drivers out there who put too much in the line. (And before you say i'm not referring to robbie) Just people who drive too fast in built up areas and generally not think before puting their foot down.