I’m spending s lot of time on a street with a speed check sign on it at the moment. It’s a 30mph limit but it’s a residential street that’s shown on London cycle maps as a “quiet alternative to main roads”. It’s crossed by LCN 25 – the main south London east west cycle route. (Cyclists are turning right across the majority of traffic due to a one way section). It’s crossed by large numbers of primary school kids on their way from an estate to a school. There’s a youth club on it.

Most traffic travels at over 30mph. Many at 35-45. A fair number at >45 (sign stops measuring). “high performance” vehicles are over represented in the very high speed group. (As are black Vauxhall Astras for some reason – must now be the 20 something male tosser car of choice).

My take from this is that high performance vehicles encourage high speed and the drivers fail to adjust for road conditions.

I have been involved in the development of vehicle telematics products for over 4 years and have benefit of millions of miles of UK driver data. One of the earliest pieces of information to come from that data was that drivers who regularly exceed the average speed of other motorists or regularly generate above average braking, cornering or acceleration forces are far more likely to be involved in incidents than those who drive more smoothly.

For most people driving is about getting safely from a to b for others its a fun sporting activity which I can understand driving fast is fun! But you shouldn’t be under any illusion that it’s not dangerous for either yourself or other road users.

All Autocar or Auto Express data performed in the UK on a dry surface. This is a single stop only from cold. If there was any residual heat in the brakes from previous use (as per normal road driving) then it’s likely that the results would show a greater variation with the braking distances of the higher performing cars remaining fairly stable, but the lower performing cars braking distances increasing as their braking systems are more prone to fade with as they can’t dissipate heat as effectively.

With cold brakes the mundane cars will be much closer to their optimum braking capabilities than the “sports” cars. These will have brakes that function best at higher temperatures than shopping cars.Their performance cold in no way represents their true capabilities.
Perhaps this is why Edukator believes a Mondeo can outbrake “just about every Lotus ever built” weighing half a Mondeo or less. Cold,the Lotus’s brakes will be merely adequate. WArm, they will improve while the Mondeo’s will worsen.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USr-sUzdChY[/video]

So much for the Mini’s sporting pretensions.

The limiting factor in all things automotive is the driver these days. Under optimum conditions, most cars stop in a very similar distance, basic physics sees to that. However, most drivers on the road have no idea of the performance of their car or brake system. Most fail to brake soon or hard enough in emergencies, lots completely fail to even get the ABS activating etc!

Remember, at high speed, the reaction thinking distance starts to get big. At 70mph, you are travelling at 33m every second. Considering your car can probably stop in around 60m, just delaying for a single second your full brake application will make your “stopping distance” 1/3 as long again!! And 1 second is nothing. I regularly see people fail to look up the road, and not brake for 5 or 10 sec, then have a panic brake at the last moment, when they could have just lifted the throttle or braked lightly initally and avoided the accident.

So, what car you drive makes no difference in the real world (until you get to a heavily aero assisted car obviously, like an F1 car etc!)

Mintex 1144s with drilled grooved discs here. Stop very well.

Mintex? I lol at your poverty brakes. Brembo HCs here

😉

Uh, yeah. Sure.

I wonder if Moshinonster’s Qashqai stops as well as his 911.

Well the 911 certainly has more tyre grip in most situations (except aquaplaning resistance), it has the braking power to go with the grip and with a rearward biased weight distribution it will have a more even front/rear dynamic weight distribution under braking. So it would be a massive surprise to find that none of this made any difference to the braking distance. Maybe I’ll test it and see with a gopro on board.

Reading this thread has reminded me how lucky we all are to have hobbies like cycling and running.

They let us prove our alpha male/female-ness by entering races and beating people in actual competitions, rather than being a “driving enthusiast” who has to rely on spending more money and having less imagination for consequences than other people.

Agree Finbar, its rare for any driving thread to end without a degree of handbaggery / cockwombleness….

I don’t even look at speeding, winter tyre or similar threads …

I only enjoy the nostalgia old car stuff …

Agree Finbar, its rare for any driving thread to end without a degree of handbaggery / cockwombleness….

FTFY

just spotted this: http://sniffpetrol.com/2014/11/20/golf-r-estate-kills-off-all-other-cars/#.VHOVbIusUYk

(apologies if already posted)

Finbar + 1

having read all the stuff through the 8 pages I think I can sum it up with a few Pro Fast diving points
You need fast cars to get round other slower people safely -these cars come with a telepathic interface to read the minds of the other people round you but just in case you can just boot it.
Overly powerful cars are dull, it’s more fun to be driving something to it’s limits – on public roads, with other people around.

Most fun car I drove recently was a ridiculously slow 3cyl Clio. Good handling and ride, naff all power meant on country roads I thrashed its nuts off (it was hired) to barely break 50mph. I’d have had to back off completely in the Passat.

Most fun car I drove recently was a ridiculously slow 3cyl Clio. Good handling and ride, naff all power meant on country roads I thrashed its nuts off (it was hired) to barely break 50mph. I’d have had to back off completely in the Passat.

Did you manage to pull of an overtake in it?

Not a chance, it was properly slow 🙂

Cars have got so fast lately. I bet this’d be great, but you’d struggle to feel like you were actually going that fast / stretching the cars ability. That’d put you in license losing territory all the time, or bore you silly. Probably both.

Stuff that feels fast is great – tinny/old cars win at that. I’ve got a 22 year old Fiat Panda and a 23 year old Saab 900 (well, sort of – see other thread – sad times). The Saab is running low boost atm which makes it ~diesel generic levels of quickness, but it feels much quicker for some reason.

The Panda is ridiculous, though. It’s one of the slowest and definitely least powerful cars I’ve ever driven, but it’s comedy gold. 35mph in a car never felt so fast.

You’d probably have to be going 3x as fast on the same road in the Golf to match the feeling of speed (and mild panic) that doing stuff in the Panda instills in your passengers. So yeah – I’m sure this Golf is an amazing piece of kit, but I bet my commute in the Panda is more fun than it would be in this. And even without hearing the Golf, I know the 900 makes a better noise, and that’s without it having to play extra noise through the speakers 😉

8 pages, I assume this has gone from a car thread to a driving thread? Anything new, or standard stuff? And is molly involved?

*waves*

Hi! What do you think, is it worth a read?

No. Same old thing really. Fast car, someone points out it’s a bit daft because you can’t drive it properly and still be safe, petrol heads come out saying you can drive as fast as you want because we’re all driving gods. Or they should be allowed to drive as fast as they want, because they’re great. Or anyone who thinks they are great should be allowed to drive fast and overtake queues of 5 cars.

I shan’t bother then, they never listen to me when I tell them how it should really be done 🙄

Think a STW go karting league/champs would settle all driving god claims, whose in? 😉

Me 🙂

molgrips – Member
Me

Who’ll come last because he doesn’t overtake whilst waiting for the driving Gods to crash and die in a flaming ball of Castrol R……

I bet I wouldn’t come last 🙂

The idea of a Kart race is to go fast, come first and have fun Molgrips, not to draft a fat guy to get the best mpg over the course of the day whilst lecturing everyone on how much better you are than them.

jimjam – Member
The idea of a Kart race is to go fast, come first and have fun Molgrips, not to draft a fat guy to get the best mpg over the course of the day whilst lecturing everyone on how much better you are than them.

You could at least add a smiley unless you really want to come across as miserable….

Driving fast on a track great idea, best place to do it.

EDIT I don’t want to get drawn into a personal nastiness match. If someone’s arranging some karting then I’m in 🙂

Most fun car I drove recently was a ridiculously slow 3cyl Clio. Good handling and ride, naff all power meant on country roads I thrashed its nuts off (it was hired) to barely break 50mph. I’d have had to back off completely in the Passat.

Had a similar experience in a Ford Ka (the old shape one) courtesy car. It had no power, the brakes absolutely sucked but it went round corners like its tyres were made of glue, plus no power steering so you felt everything going on through the steering wheel.

Still I was glad to get my proper car back. “Fun” is great for a while but getting from A to B quickly and safely is better

molgrips +- james may or smurfhat 😀

Somewhere Bristol area in New Year?

Suits me 🙂

Well we need some more, 2 passat drivers trying not to overtake each other is not going to be much of a race 😉

Reckon it should be down to individual fastest lap overall too.

Sure, I’ve no idea how these things go.

Perhaps also an uplift day to find out if the fast drivers are also fast riders…

Somewhere Bristol area in New Year?

I’d be up for this, but I’d have to drive like a maniac to get there on time from Glasgow 🙂

Perhaps also an uplift day to find out if the fast drivers are also fast riders…

This sounds like a receipe for some very large crashes 😉

That’ll prove my point then 😉