Is this driving ban too harsh?

[Dr Who]

Stock tyres on a brand new car - maybe..... fact is a lot of people cut corners with their tyres and buy cheap road-going ones with reasonable grip, not ones designed to be pushed at 147mph for long periods on rough tarmac being hit with constant debris.

yes of course, the average porsche driver will fit nankang ditchfinders with an H rating as soon as his tyres wear out...

Come on man, make a plausible argument rather than ridiculous assumptions..



He got the stiff sentence (curfew), i would imagine, as there was some suspiscion about WHY he evaded the police... he may have been a suspected drug dealer or something...


As the other guys said, more info needed..

 

[PiKe]

I dislike the concept of having a sentance based on "potential danger". What next? Serving time for a potential murder?

Have you watched Minority Report recently?

 

[Sonea Fifer]

Sounds a bit too harsh to me - though they probably just trying to make an example of him.

However if he needs anyone to "babysit" his Porsche Carrera - am the dude for the job

 

[Glaucus]

Doesn't sound harsh

1) out ran coppers chasing him
2)claiming someone else had been driving during the incident(even though it was him)

It's not as if he was going 147 minding his own business and got caught by a gatso.

 

[The_Dark_Side]

What's more dangerous, driving at 150MPH with no traffic, or driving at 70MPH in heavy traffic with a 10ft gap between you and the guy in front?

ok, question for you.
is 160mph on a single or dual carriageway safe?
170?
180?
200?
240?

where do you draw the line between still not being any danger and actually being an unguided missile?
how fast, in your opinion, do you need to be travelling on a quiet open road before it's no longer safe?

 

[PMKeates]

You could be doing 147mph in a brand new Porsche or in an old battered Jaguar, what does it matter? The car can only aide the driver so much and if the driver has no idea of how to control the car at those speeds, he is inevitably going to cause some damage, either to themselves and/or other people. .

Firstly, there is a big difference. Honestly. My car is 6 years old and is very stable at 150. So much so it will corner, when wet, slowly effectively skidding around a bend, still at 150mph, and still be stable. If I stamp the brake she'll slow down from 150 with all the driver aids going similarly as she will from 100, or 50. I can't imagine how capable something such as an RS4 must be at speed. Obviously it's going to be stabler at 50 than at 150, but keeping all things relevant a lot of cars are probably just as "unstable" at much slower speeds. I could drive down an empty road at 100+, swinging the car side to side across the road to the tune of "Mistletoe and Wine", and the scariest thing about that scenario would be Cliff Richard.

As has been mentioned, the tyres fitted to the cars capable of these speeds are very likely to be within the correct specification.

 

[The_Dark_Side]

Firstly, there is a big difference. Honestly. My car is 6 years old and is very stable at 150. So much so it will corner, when wet, slowly effectively skidding around a bend, still at 150mph, and still be stable. If I stamp the brake she'll slow down from 150 with all the driver aids going similarly as she will from 100, or 50. I can't imagine how capable something such as an RS4 must be at speed. Obviously it's going to be stabler at 50 than at 150, but keeping all things relevant a lot of cars are probably just as "unstable" at much slower speeds. I could drive down an empty road at 100+, swinging the car side to side across the road to the tune of "Mistletoe and Wine", and the scariest thing about that scenario would be Cliff Richard.

popular misconception:-
i'm safe because my car is stable at high speeds.

ever seen the effects of a tyre letting go at 147mph?
or a wheel bearing failure or any component for that matter.
see how stable you are then.

 

[PMKeates]

popular misconception:-
i'm safe because my car is stable at high speeds.

ever seen the effects of a tyre letting go at 147mph?
or a wheel bearing failure or any component for that matter.
see how stable you are then.

Have you seen the effects on a modern high performance car? (Wrecked exotics is not an answer). I'm half thinking it would be quite sedate, based on my experience of driving with 2 flat front tyres and 4 wheels hanging off in an 8 year old French hatch.

 

[The_Dark_Side]

Have you seen the effects on a modern high performance car? (Wrecked exotics is not an answer). I'm half thinking it would be quite sedate, based on my experience of driving with 2 flat front tyres and 4 wheels hanging off in an 8 year old French hatch.

take your car for example.
the 330 is a solid, well put together car using very good quality components.
yours is well maintained/serviced and generally looked after.
now this car is more than stable at speed, and so it should be as after all we know the german marques use the Autobahn's as unofficial test tracks.
so the car side of the equation is looking good.
that's not the end of the story though as we also have to factor in the most dangerous component of a car ie the nut behind the wheel, namely the driver.
you can take the most stable and suitable car in the world and install an inexperienced or just plain bad driver and the results can be horrific.
put said driver in your car, take it up to 130mph and give him a front wheel blowout for example.if he/she panics and hits the brakes (something that a lot of drivers do incidentally) then that car is going offroad, or at best it'll be uncrontrollable or beyond the abilities of the driver to salvage.
only the other week there was a thread in here regarding what you'd do if you saw an animal in the road at the last minute and more than a few drivers said they swerved.
i'm sure in the cold light of day they knew the best action would be to keep going and hit it but in the heat of battle they paniced and swerved.

when talking about driving on public roads at high speeds, all you can confidently say is the following.
a specific driver in a specific car may have been safe, but not that you'd be safe just because there was no other traffic around at the time.

 

[Rhyzz]

A 6 year old BMW is hardly old and rotting, especially when it's a 330i Sport with better suspension than your standard bmw and a bodykit designed to provide downforce for the autobahn/nurburgring. We have all seen old XK's with big V8 engines that could easily handle 150mph, but what happens when a tyre blows out or the engine goes pop, etc.

When you're pushing a cars engine past 5/6000rpm which undoubtedly most cars on the road would be at when doing 150mph, you're putting a massive strain on all of the components.


I'm sure there are a number of arguements for why it is safe/unsafe. Most modern cars could easily crack 150mph 'safely' but it's like the above post states, it's the driver at the end of the day who makes the difference, and like I said previously, the car can only aide a driver so much.

 

[Deleted member 329]

tbh its just stupid... you dont know whats comming and its all happining so fast... public roads arnt a race track

sure i am sure we have all done at lest 100 on the main roads.. but come on 160?! irresponsible, reckless are just two words that spring to mind... how about you think about other people and there safety rather than your own stupid notions of driving fast where inappropriate ( directed @ anyone who drives @ 160!!!!!! )

 

[cloudy]

I think he was lucky. A mate of mine did jail time for something very similar*.

* - he used to ride his sportsbike at over 150mph pretty much everyday. Thing is, he never looked in his mirrors - there's not much point at those kind of speeds and thus didn't notice the copper trying to pull him over. The car couldn't keep up so they called a helicopter. First he knew about it was when he pulled up at work and they were telling him to keep his hands where they could see them over the loudhailer.

good thing he was locked up too, his powers of observation must be ABYSMAL, you are immediately aware of flashing blue lights in your mirror even if you are not looking at them - if not, you shouldn't be on the road.

 

[Mr Jack]

I'm guessing some of you don't know the A47 very well, it's nowhere near a motorway it's a mostly single carriageway A road through rural East Anglia. There is no right time to travel at 147mph on a road like that, farmers have a strange habit at doing things at odd times, 24hr harvesting happens often.

Having driven on the A47, I'd normally agree with you, but if you look at the section he was caught on - it is mostly a wide dual carriageway.