Author Topic: An impacting read  (Read 10096 times)

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Offline chr1S

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An impacting read
« on: Oct 21, 2008, 07:25PM »
This is in response to noss' comments in a thread going by "cooling ideas?!", I knew about this story for a while but never got around to posting it and noss' reply reminded me.

Original thread, http://pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=141&t=442266&i=40

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I caused an accident after losing control of my car. It was sideways straddling both sides of a B road, a motorcyclist coming the other way came around a blind bend to be confronted with a car blocking the road. The impact launched him over my (destroyed) car and dumped him on the middle of the road, unconcious. His bike had been thrown some 14 metres back the way it came. My car dangled precariously over the edge of a drop past the verge.

After about a minute or so of getting my breath back following the airbag deploying, I realised I'd caused a very serious accident. I'd seen the motorcyclist only for a split second before the impact imploded against the B piller behind my head and shattered every window on the car. My sunglasses had disappeared from my face, glass from the door window was mingled with blood dripping from my face.

There was no way of opening the drivers door, I clambered over the passenger seat and observed one of the worst sights of my life.

For about 50 metres down the direction I'd come from, were the tell tale black lines of a skidding car. These were only interrupted by gouge marks on the road surface where car had met bike. In the middle of this lay the biker, motionless, unconscious, a mess. Onlookers, other motorists, were out of their cars but nothing more than background fuzz.

By the time I got out of the car, some other bikers had begun trying to help the badly injured guy laying on the centreline of the road. For a long minute, he didn't move, he didn't seem to breath. I'd just killed a man. Then some movement, some spluttering. Blind panic from someone who's just woken up to wish that he hadn't. His girlfriend, who had been a few minutes further behind on her own bike, arrived. Screaming and wailing, wondering how this has come to happen. No doubt a million thoughts all arriving at once. Most of them fearing the worst.

First aiders helped on the scene, I didn't know how to help medically. I was guilty, impotent and wondering how I'd gone from an enthusiastic drive to a potential killer in the space of 50 metres. It only took 3 or 4 minutes for the Police to arrive, I volunteered myself immediately as the guilty party. I was breath tested and questioned on-scene, sat in a Volvo, bleeding on the back seats whilst in full view of the prone motorcyclist, by this time being worked on by the paramedics who'd arrived, hoping the patient could last long enough for the air ambulance to arrive.

I'll never forget that poor man, lying there screaming for his helmet to be taken off, his girlfriend in tears and despair and me, not badly injured, no reason to have caused this, other than wanting to enjoy the road.

The motorcyclist spent days in intensive care, being treated for most of his right arm being smashed to pieces, his collarbone wrecked, serious head injuries, damaged eye socket, chipped bones on his ankle and a massive nerve injury. A year later and even after a number of operations, he still has many to go to correct his broken body and his impaired eyesight. The nerve damage to his dominant right arm means he'll never regain full use of it. He can no longer support his children by working on the rigs as he did beforehand.

My car was impounded by the Police and kept from the day of the accident, 30th April 2006 until the July. I was first formally interviewed in June 2006, then again in September. I was charged via postal summons in November last year. Magistrates passed the case to Crown Court on 13/12/06, as their sentencing powers were not sufficient and at that point I knew I was going to prison.

10 days short of a year after my accident, I pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment and banned from driving for 3 years, for dangerous driving. Aside from the odd speeding conviction (I was driving 65,000 miles a year for the previous 10 years), I had never been in trouble with the Police before.

There was no feeling, no shock, no crying or anger when I was sent down from that court room. Just numbness. As the judge finished his sentencing, I had just one opportunity of shouting to my other half how much I loved her, before being lead into the downstairs of the court. The guard, a nice guy in his late 50s, explained that he had to handcuff me to himself, and down I went. Immediately down, through a number of locked, barred gates, to a booking in counter. All my possessions, and my belt, taken. My height measured. All my details recorded. Then 4 hours in a windowless cell with nothing but a wooden bench and contemplation for company.

4.30pm on a sunny Friday afternoon, leaving a happy looking Carlisle, but for me, in the back of a paddywagon. Watching people leaving school and work with a smile on their faces, looking forward to a weekend of choices. I was heading to HMP Durham.

You can say what you like about prison, and how easy it is, how great you think the facilities are, how prison is like a holiday camp. It's none of those things. It's a demeaning, soul-less place full of sad and sometimes evil people who have lives none of us would ever want or even imagine. All the freedoms you take for granted are removed in the name of control and security to the point that you're constantly reminded how little value society as a whole places on your miserable little existence.

I could write reams and reams about the prison system and the feelings being in it evoke, but I fear to do so would be heavy reading for the casual PHer. I would be happy to answer any questions people have about prison or my ordeal, though
« Last Edit: Oct 21, 2008, 07:47PM by chr1S »
Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand.

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to be fair, it wouldn't be ANTRX if we stayed on topic.

and if someone wasn't cranky at Chr1s for something he said...

Offline chr1S

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #1 on: Oct 21, 2008, 07:25PM »
The drivers very own response

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To clarify a couple of points; the day of the accident I joined a group of cars who were meeting close to my home. It was mainly a group of 30 or so Clio owners from the owners club, but of more interest were a small group of Honda owners who'd arranged to tag along on the back of that meeting.

On the morning of the accident, I met the group in Kendal and we let the Clio owners head off towards Penrith where they were meeting another group. Everyone can probably now appreciate the irony when I say I and the other Honda owners let the Clios go before us so we could avoid getting involved in any p*ssing competitions and causing an accident.

Having witnessed the driving of the main group on the way to Penrith, and considering the size of the group (which was more than 40 cars I would have said at this point) and the route they intended to take into the Lake District, I made the decision when I reached Penrith that I didn't want any further part in the drive.

At this point I made the decision to head up the A686 to Hartside, which I discussed with the other Honda drivers. Four of them decided they'd come and have a look at the road. For anyone who knows the road or the area, it's very well renowned and usually features on any list of top ten driving roads in this country.

Five of us (three Civic Type Rs and two identical white Integras) set off towards Hartside. None of us were 'boy racers', none of us were in any competition, none of us had anything to prove. For 6 or 7 miles until we reached the village of Melmerby, where the road starts to climb up Hartside, we drove very steadily, encountered little traffic and nothing of any note took place.

As we came out of Melmerby village we caught up with a group of four cars travelling slowly, it's a scenic route and the people heading up the queue were not from the area and didn't know the road (which I later found from witness evidence). Unbeknown to me, a local young lad in a Corsa had spotted us and joined the queue at the back.

In the next 2.5 miles I overtook the four cars, one of whom overtook the others in the most dangerous way I've ever seen on that road (as in crawling past a car doing 40mph at 42mph whilst approaching a blind bend). Witness evidence from those four cars suggested that I'd passed them like a 'bat out of hell', 'engine screaming' and so on. The road itself is quite enclosed, full of hairpins and interspersed with short straights. As someone who knew the road extremely well I used those opportunities to pass the cars. To this day, presented with the same overtaking opportunities, I would still have no second thought in repeating them.

The cars behind me in our group did some overtaking, though to be honest the nature of the road means you can't see far back in your mirrors. I would imagine the people we were overtaking felt intimidated and it could be assumed that all those similar performance cars were trying to keep up with each other. Maybe they were, I was perhaps being naive in not thinking about how the others behind me would drive. For example, the Corsa I mentioned was singled out by witness evidence as having passed one car right around a blind blind and was reported individually to the Police.

The final straw in the witness evidence was from a man in a Mondeo, the final car I overtook before losing control, an elderly man and his wife who'd been driving for years and years with an unblemished record. He was the car I described earlier as overtaking insanely, which he did twice. He, and then corroborated by his wife, claimed I had overtaken him around a blind right hand bend and immediately lost control in front of him. It simply wasn't true. I'd overtaken him about 1/4 of a mile beforehand, on the exit of a left hand bend. Nobody actually witnessed me beginning to lose control because no cars were close enough to see me, as the bends behind me obscured vision.

I was given the opportunity under Police interview to watch a run done by a Police car up the same route, so I could point out exactly where I had overtaken the man in his Mondeo. On the first run of the video I did exactly that. It wass noted in the interview that I'd done that and that it matched my description from my first interview, done some 3 months earlier.

The reponse from the investigating officers was to sit on that information for 5 months, until I was comitted to Crown Court, then they took the video of the run to the old mans house and asked him and his wife to point out where I'd overtaken them, 10 months earlier. They did not share my viewpoint.

With regards to internet evidence. I've been a member of the Civic Type-R owners site for a long time. I got a reputation as a bit of a sarcastic git and I made a lot of daft comments which didn't often have a grounding in reality, more they were being daft or making stupid digs at people (I'm sure I'm not surprising some PHers with that).

When the accident happened, 4 of the first few cars on the scene happened to be high performance Hondas. A couple of the Civics had windows stickers with the club URL on them. It didn't take a rocket scientist to find out what my username was, and within a few hours of the accident the Police had downloaded the forum and printed out all of my comments. In the light of the events that day, some of the comments on the Civic forum turned out to be very damning. People who didn't know the context in which they were being said, or the character who was saying them would have to take the comments on face value, and face value said that I was a boy racing tw&t.

So now the Police had evidence from witnesses and they had evidence from an internet forum which proved I treated that road like a plaything and was predisposed to driving quickly.

Add to that the thorough investigation carried out by the Collision Investigation Unit. This concluded that the likely cause of the accident was any or a combination of excessive speed, coarse braking and or steering. In reality it was the former. It couldn't be estimated at any time what speed I was doing, as my wheels had continued to rotate through the entire skid and post impact with the bike. The radious of the corners means it would be very unlikely that I was travelling above the speed limit at the time of my accident. It was what you'd now call innapropriate speed.

As the back of the car began to slide, I'd turned into it and applied as much power as I could get, trying to bring the car back around. Despite the huge, almost 90 degree angle of slide, the car had slowed almost to a halt by the time of the impact. When the impact occured, I was still on the throttle pedal, the front wheels were lifted, spun, gained traction and spat me onto the nearside verge. Believe it or not, the investigation report very briefly mentioned this as evidence I may have been purposely 'power sliding' the car, which was ridiculous in the extreme and didn't feature in court.


Presented with those 3 pieces of strong evidence, I had to make a choice. I knew how I'd driven immediately before the accident, and although it was quickly it didn't match the witnesses versions of events. I knew how I'd written the internet evidence and what I'd meant at the time, could I possibly make a jury understand the comments in their proper context? It was unlikely on both counts.

A Newton Hearing may have been an idea, but my legal advice suggested that the judge had a dislike of Newton hearings and that the outcome wouldn't necessarily be improved just by discounting some smallish parts of the evidence.

So I had a clear choice- fight a full trial in front of a jury and try to argue that it was a moment of careless driving, that I'd gone into the corner too quickly and lost control, knowing that I would receive no discount on a sentence if I was found guilty and that the judge may be inclined to hand down the maximum two year sentence, OR plead guilty to the offences as charged, accept the prosecutions version of events and get the 30% discount as provided by law. It was a hugely difficult decision socially, morally, financially, on every level. I knew that by pleading guilty I would have little right to reply, little opportunity to set anything straight. The newspaper reporters in the court would pick out the juiciest prosecution quotes and print them, as they do all of the time.

In the end the prosecution version of events was the only one heard in court, so it was the only one reported in the paper. It wasn't a true representation of me or of the events, but it's one people would use to judge me. People who I've known for years read those reports in the loal papers, I still have to pass them in the street in this small town wondering if they believe mine or the paper version of what happened. Some people I used to say 'hello' to now try to avoid conversation and even eye contact.


As I've said before, when you're out driving, and particularly if you're making progress, keep thinking about your last 5 minutes of driving and how it would be described by a witness if you were to have an incident further on.



Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand.

Quote
to be fair, it wouldn't be ANTRX if we stayed on topic.

and if someone wasn't cranky at Chr1s for something he said...

Offline chr1S

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #2 on: Oct 21, 2008, 07:27PM »
Pictures of the vehicle (links so I dont cause a distraction when you read the above post)

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h11/10PenceShort/DSC00298.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h11/10PenceShort/DSC00297.jpg

They arn't heavy photo's, you can't see blood or anything so don't worry.
Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand.

Quote
to be fair, it wouldn't be ANTRX if we stayed on topic.

and if someone wasn't cranky at Chr1s for something he said...

Offline Kranzy

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #3 on: Oct 21, 2008, 07:37PM »
Article link doesnt work.
Quote from: noss
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Offline chr1S

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #4 on: Oct 21, 2008, 07:46PM »
Hmm,

Must be removed or archived somewhere else.
Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand.

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to be fair, it wouldn't be ANTRX if we stayed on topic.

and if someone wasn't cranky at Chr1s for something he said...

Offline Vithy

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #5 on: Oct 21, 2008, 08:27PM »
all the links worked for me
Very very interesting read
max kudos for sharing that :)
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Offline wombat

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #6 on: Oct 21, 2008, 09:29PM »
Wow. I'm speechless.
I'm so far behind at work, I'm almost retro!

Offline NANDOZ

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #7 on: Oct 21, 2008, 09:38PM »
WOW! That's just some crazy shit. Don't know what else to say really.

Offline Kranzy

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #8 on: Oct 21, 2008, 10:11PM »
This is why I cruise at the back of the pack and go at my pace.
Quote from: noss
learnt something new just then, dont eat baked bean sandwhiches while changing the paper in the copier


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Offline ashman01

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #9 on: Oct 21, 2008, 10:32PM »
bugger.

Thats all i can say.

Offline Leopard-Man

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #10 on: Oct 21, 2008, 11:04PM »
Read this a while ago on NS.com. Yeah this is exactly what i thought of when i read the cooling down thread, one of the reasons my response was a bit harsh and one of the things that keeps my well within my limit in the hills.
I am a man More sinn'd against than sinning.

Offline noss

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #11 on: Oct 22, 2008, 09:47AM »
thanks for posting that chris.. now i'm not the only one that sounds like a crotchety old man.. i'm suprised that the motorcyclist isnt dead after that impact.


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Offline evlknvl

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #12 on: Oct 22, 2008, 11:59AM »
I've lost 2 of my mates in near exactly the same circumstances. This is why I have the view I do, but at least it's good to see the sincerity in his remorse.

Offline cruizer

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #13 on: Oct 22, 2008, 12:35PM »
Yeh I read that on nissansilvia.com. As evlknvl said it is good to see some sincerity in his remorse.

I always prefer to stay at the back of the pack and now will only drive with mates. Used to drive with randoms all the time and it was bullshit.

This is one of the reasons I'm wanting to go to drift school and prac days to slide, so I'm not going way out of my comfort zone on the street.

Offline evlknvl

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #14 on: Oct 22, 2008, 12:47PM »
Another way to look at is why put all the $$$ into your ride and not be able to use it to its full capability on the roads. It is quite cheap these days to join a car club ($80 or so) and take part in club days, no cams license needed and you get to really push your vehicle.

Offline Colby

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #15 on: Oct 22, 2008, 01:08PM »
I think that is half the point... full capability should only be reached in controlled environment such as organised event with closed road.  This wouldnt have happened if it were the case.  Think his problem was he was driving a honda eh chris :P

Now I didnt read the thread, only the parts here.
Personally I think it was pretty harsh for him to go to prison.  Did he kill anyone?  not that I could figure.  Secondly the motorbike slammed into him.
Now maybe I missread it, but it seemed to me that the honda was stationary facing backwards near the edge of an embankment when the bike hit.  Would have thought a motorbike travelling at a reasonable speed would have been able to see the car and reasonably avoid it rather than slamming dead center into it?  We all know motobikes love to speed around those types of roads as much (or even more) as the rest of us 4 wheeled drivers.

I'm almost certain if the old couple, talked about, were to have been the ones who were hit while overtaking at stupid speeds or pulling out infront of the bike from a break spot, that they would have just copped a fine and had their licence taken.  The fact that this guy was young, and in a car club totally screwed him over IMO.
HARSH!
But then he could have actually been a total moron driving absoluetly crazy like... you just cant tell from this.  Makes you think twice about even gong on street cruises with a club.

Offline Leopard-Man

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #16 on: Oct 22, 2008, 04:32PM »
I think that is half the point... full capability should only be reached in controlled environment such as organised event with closed road.  This wouldnt have happened if it were the case.  Think his problem was he was driving a honda eh chris :P

Now I didnt read the thread, only the parts here.
Personally I think it was pretty harsh for him to go to prison.  Did he kill anyone?  not that I could figure.  Secondly the motorbike slammed into him.
Now maybe I missread it, but it seemed to me that the honda was stationary facing backwards near the edge of an embankment when the bike hit.  Would have thought a motorbike travelling at a reasonable speed would have been able to see the car and reasonably avoid it rather than slamming dead center into it?  We all know motobikes love to speed around those types of roads as much (or even more) as the rest of us 4 wheeled drivers.

I'm almost certain if the old couple, talked about, were to have been the ones who were hit while overtaking at stupid speeds or pulling out infront of the bike from a break spot, that they would have just copped a fine and had their licence taken.  The fact that this guy was young, and in a car club totally screwed him over IMO.
HARSH!
But then he could have actually been a total moron driving absoluetly crazy like... you just cant tell from this.  Makes you think twice about even gong on street cruises with a club.

Dude wtf... The motorbike slammed into him because he was SLIDING IN BOTH LANES.  The guy on the motorbike will never use one of his arms properly again and has brain damage. If i was the driver of the honda i would be begging for jail.  HE lost control of a car and changed someones life for the worse forever...theres no coming back from that.Dont pin this on the motorbike, he wasnt at fault at all. If this is the same thread as on ns.com, the guy drove like 60000kms a year for 10 yrs previous or something like that, so he was hardly inexperienced.  Dude reread it. Did you see the car pictures. i doubt he was stationary when he was hit.

2yrs im pretty sure he served about 3 months then got out on home detention.  NOT HARSH ENOUGH. HE practically ruined a guys life.  Feeling bad only goes so far. They have to set an example to deter ppl doing this kind of thing. I would feel so bad as well, but you cant say that 3 months prison time is equal to the yrs of rehabilitation that one guy has to do  because someone was doing the wrong thing.  END RANT
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Offline Budgie

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #17 on: Oct 22, 2008, 05:11PM »
Hands up if you've lost control of a car on the road?

I will be honest and put mine up first.  I have twice, both times I have spun my car 180 degrees while cornering.

Once when I was a lot younger and again quite recently.  Scared the shit out of me as I drive the same corner every day, just for some reason the car let go this time.

Could have been someone coming the other way, I'm damn lucky there wasn't.

I read a fair chunk of the thread.  I think its quite interesting as the guy that went to jail is obviously quite an intelligent guy with good morals, who basically made a gross error of judgement, resulting in another human being's life being altered forever.
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Offline noss

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #18 on: Oct 22, 2008, 05:57PM »
i'll also put my hand up.. i have lost control of my trx before, just the once. was heading to see my uncle in wagga, i missed the turn off to wagga and was on another b-highway heading towards the hume and i had no idea where i was going or that i had missed the turn off.

there was loose gravel on the road that must have been a half assed effort at filling a massive pothole, i dont know if there was signage to indicate a potentially dangerous situation (i.e. the slippery road sign) but i just saw the pothole and swerved to miss it, slid on the gravel, the car fishtailed spun probably 3 or 4 times and i ended up down an embankment stopped only by a barb wire fence.

my girlfriend and i were very, very lucky to have escaped without injury and my car lucky to escape with minimal damage (broken screw tabs on the bumper and a few scratches from the barb wire fence)

once side of the road was a cliff face, the other side which i ended up on, i narrowly missed a telegraph pole. also very lucky that there was no traffic in either direction.

the speed limit was 100, i might have been doing 110 max..


was the scariest thing that ever happened to me and i realised how very very lucky i was to come out of it unhurt. it certainly woke me up a little with my driving style/habits.. you can never be certain of things, and as budge has pointed out above, even on roads we know.

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Offline chr1S

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #19 on: Oct 22, 2008, 06:52PM »
I've spun out on the road. Hand up.

Being a cockhead on the road in my honda (irronically) just being real fucking stupid, way over the limit in a 50 zone on a cambered bend I always use to give a fang late at night, this time I OVERsteered and the car spun 180, I have never pushed my car hard enough to feel it understeer, weird.

Put it this way, I've never driven so hard on the road again lol. If a car was coming the otherway, I would be dead (side impact my head would break the window or i'd snap a neck), my passenger would be dead from impact on the door and i'd probably serverly injure the other driver too. But at the time, I thought I was a race driver y0.  ::)

Keep in mind, I have coilovers, semi slicks and some other suspension work in a light car, you can imagine the speed it takes to spin the car around.
« Last Edit: Oct 22, 2008, 06:55PM by chr1S »
Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand.

Quote
to be fair, it wouldn't be ANTRX if we stayed on topic.

and if someone wasn't cranky at Chr1s for something he said...

Offline JelloBello

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #20 on: Oct 22, 2008, 07:08PM »
Yeh, I have once. Was very scary. Going into a double lane roundabout too fast at night time in my stock attesa with sand on the road resulted in me fishtailing for a bit then doing a 180, jumping a median strip and landing on the other side of the road facing the right way. Did I mention when I went over the median strip I was a few meters away from a power pole?

Had my sister in the car as well. God knows what would've happened if a car was coming the other way or I hit the pole. Like chris since then (over a year ago now) I've been a much more sedate driver, despite the car it's self getting quite a bit quicker.
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Offline bogan_bob

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #21 on: Oct 22, 2008, 09:48PM »
Dont drive like a dick and you should avoid sticky situations

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Offline Leopard-Man

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #22 on: Oct 22, 2008, 10:09PM »
Yeah hand up also.  I know i was ranting earlier but i just dont think that the point of the story was "i got off harsh, damn legal system".  Although im the first to have a go at the system, he had to be made example of to try stop this kind of thing happening.
However, the system is partly to blame here.  Can you imagine how much hooning and young driver crashes would decrease if the governments would allow/sponsor more race tracks? with easy cheap entry?  drivers would be encouraged to test their limits and that of thier cars in a much safer area and as a result we would have a much higher class of drivers on the rd.  Even fund a driver course on the track with an instructer every young driver had to do before they got their p's. But alas this will never be a reality, because the government want their fine-money, and well they must just not give a shit lets be honest, about people who are interested in cars. Here in SA we have 1 track that you can go on once a month...

Both times i have spun out have been slow cnrs where i can see what was coming and went in with foot too flat to the floor its' never that safe though and i can now predict the car a fair bit better, which has been improved by track time.   

I can appreciate as much as anyone how fine the line is between crashing and coming out ok and it should be a learning experience, and this guy and everyone here with their hand up was lucky to be given a second chance - not everyone gets one.  I just wanted to make sure people werent taking this lightly.
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Offline getaroundcar

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #23 on: Oct 22, 2008, 10:51PM »
yer my hand is up. lost it on a freshly tarred road in a laser. spun the car 3x360 and then flipped it twice. pancaked the wheels under the car. looked like a space ship. had red paint in the back seat went all in my mates blond hair. thought i killed him, as it was ppg blood red.It was my first time i drove a fwd car an i swore for many years it would be the last. other than that no. learn't to drive on dirt so i know where my limits are.
i should also put in that the corner i lost control on was a 80 kmh corner and i was doing 83 km. it went to court and i  beat the police as they charged me with recless driving. as there was no signes informing of fresh tar or loss stones. i now approach a corner a little slower unless i know about the road and drive it regularly.
« Last Edit: Oct 22, 2008, 10:58PM by getaroundcar »

Offline chr1S

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #24 on: Oct 22, 2008, 11:01PM »
spun 3x360 and rolled twice, holy shit!
Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand.

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Offline ashman01

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #25 on: Oct 22, 2008, 11:22PM »
Hand up:

1st time: Didnt spin, handbrakied a roundabout at 70km and hit a square gutter side ways. Mates behind me said that i bounced about 1m in the air and the car landed about 1m back from the cerb. I was lucky it didnt fip.

2nd: With ex misses in the car (she was still the ex at the time) miss judged a hair pin corner at night (as it was at the top of an incline) and just went straight over a ditch (1.5m of air) and bottemed out the car twice in the field next to the road.

3rd time: Running an orange light at night with shit tires on the rear, no petrol and no stereo in the boot so back was light as. Took corner fast (which i did cuz there was no cars on the road) Back got loose. Drifted unintentionaly the whole corner perfectly and mis-judged the follow thru and ended up facing the other way. Workmates dad saw the whole thing and has never let me down.

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #26 on: Oct 22, 2008, 11:28PM »
I think the thing that has saved me and perhaps a few ppl here too, all these yrs is having a rare car.  For instance i know that if i crash even at a low speed my car is going to be written off. Even when i had the u13 i was scared to crash it, but now its much worse.  Plus i know how much work ive done and how much ive spent.  Its always made me drive a bit slower.   
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Offline xxxx

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #27 on: Oct 23, 2008, 12:00AM »
Hand up!

havent SERIOUSLY lost controll in the pinty before, but ive hit a few kerbs got some serious understeer happening.

the ke70 is a completely different story tho, now i wont go ahead and mention all the little bits of drift damage/spin outs that have occured on deserted country dirt rds but i will mention the fact i let a mate drive it and he somehow managed to roll it,

pretty scary shit being in a car roll especially when a stereo which hasnt been working since youve owned the car suddenly starts cranking enya as loud as it goes while u are upside down and totally dazzled from the accident!

this incedent alone has changed my driving style because i now realise how quickly a bit of stupid fun can go seriously wrong.
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Offline cruizer

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #28 on: Oct 23, 2008, 12:03AM »
I think the thing that has saved me and perhaps a few ppl here too, all these yrs is having a rare car.  For instance i know that if i crash even at a low speed my car is going to be written off. Even when i had the u13 i was scared to crash it, but now its much worse.  Plus i know how much work ive done and how much ive spent.  Its always made me drive a bit slower.   

Haha this isnt a problem for me  ::)

I admit I've done stupid shit too, I think we all have  :-\ I've learnt alot from pushing myself too far. The thing is some people's lessons are alot harsher.

Offline chr1S

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Re: An impacting read
« Reply #29 on: Oct 23, 2008, 12:17AM »
pretty scary shit being in a car roll especially when a stereo which hasnt been working since youve owned the car suddenly starts cranking enya as loud as it goes while u are upside down and totally dazzled from the accident!

lol that's quite funny!
Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand.

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to be fair, it wouldn't be ANTRX if we stayed on topic.

and if someone wasn't cranky at Chr1s for something he said...