My poor old M3!!!!

Steve

Steve

Steve

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
3,116
Location
Brighton - In the seat that Ro
Had a call from my best mate who bought my M3 2 weeks ago, he has just stacked my old mint e36 M3 :(

Apparantly he went round a roundabout and hit some diesel that had been pushed up buy the bit of rain we have just had down here.

Front wheels understeared and he caught that just as the rears went over the same patch and just let go, he again caught that but ran out of room and smacked into a very high curb (not too fast) he has trashed the side of the car and the rear wheel is damaged and sitting at a funny angle so the arm must be knacked.

Before you all say diesel aye blah blah, my mate is a driving instructor, an advanced driving instructor, a qualified instructor instructor, now a copper with police driving training, an ex stunt man and a sports motorcyclists so is well adept at driving he has done ice lake driving in finland so is not too shabby at controlling a car when things get slippy.

This is his first real ever crash, and he said you can see the diesel on the ground.

He is gutted but is fully comp (protected) so will claim off that

I am also gutted to as it was such a clean example, hope nothing major is bent

On a positive note 6 hours till I get my M3 as it is finally fixed, woohoo.

Pics of my car and my mates one to follow ;)
 
Nothing you can do in a situation like that.. even people with ice driving knowledge, or low friction driving experience have difficulty not to stack cars in real world situations like normal roads because there is no room for it.

Unlucky for him, but its just the way it goes sometimes.

I await your piccies.. dont hit any diesel.
 
might be leaving my DSC button on in my m3 now lol ;)

As for the Diesel coming from experience on my bike it is incredible how much there actual is on the road if you look for it.

Wait for a little rain after a dry spell and it lifts it out of the road.

I had one incident where I saw it as I cam round a corner on the gixer, so I just relaxed on the bars and my whole body and eased off the throttle and just let the bike go over it as it pleased, was an odd feeling going from grip to nothing in an instant, bike went over ok with a little wobble as the back regained grip on the other side.

There is a whole campaign by bikers about the dangers of diesel and how they are trying to get somethiong done about Trucks over filling (or something)
 
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Thats the thing I supose if he is consentraighting on the traffic (he was going around a roundabout after all) then he probably wasn't looking for it. I know I don't spend my day hunting it out, although with lowpro tyres I do look at the road a lot to avoid potholes :p

Even the best drivers make mistakes
 
The_Dark_Side said:
especially for such an experienced driver, who should be processing not just other traffic movements but changes in road camber/ surfaces/ weather/ spillages.
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Highly skilled drivers do not drive at that state of awareness whenever they are in a car.
 
Steve said:
Thats the thing I supose if he is consentraighting on the traffic (he was going around a roundabout after all) then he probably wasn't looking for it. I know I don't spend my day hunting it out, although with lowpro tyres I do look at the road a lot to avoid potholes :p
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to be fair i can't see how he wasn't looking for it as once you've learned what to look for it just becomes another automatic reaction.
especially if he's involved with the police training side of things as they're big on this.you probably do it all the time to save your alloys so it's not unreasonable to think he should be for the above reasons.
Steve said:
Even the best drivers make mistakes
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quoted to balance the argument.
everyone slips up from time to time (no pun intended)

here's hoping your friend was fully comp so at least he hasn't lost out big time.
Psycrow said:
He's good at driving, not superman!
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i manage it and i'm not superman either.



i'm Clark Kent....a totally different guy that just happens to look almost idential with exactly the same physique as superman and both of "us" are never in the same place at the same time,yet no-one ever puts 2 and 2 together.
 
cdcopyman said:
i , you cant control the elements , no matter how good you are
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who's talking about controlling them.
recognising them and doing something about it, yes...controlling them, NO.
gord said:
Highly skilled drivers do not drive at that state of awareness whenever they are in a car.
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i do and a number of other drivers i know do also.
this may be related to the fact we're all ex-bikers and as such conditions like the accident in the OP could've easily killed us if we hadn't recognised them.
Steve's friend had a BMW cocooning him so he was thankfully safe, on two wheels it's a different game.

incidentally you say this as if it takes huge amounts of concentration, i disagree as IME all it requires is the driver is aware of possible hazards and looks for the signs and in the relative directions at the right time.
 
There is are lorry and bus depots near where I work, you can always see diesel now and again on the roundabout. I assume it is just because they have been filled to the brim, they go around the roundabout for the first time and shed a load. Seen one guy caught out by it, he crossed to the other side of the road lucky there was nothing coming, as it was rush hour.

Last year liquid rubber was spilt on said roundabout... everyone thought it was diesel because of the rainbow effect it causing. Once we found it was rubber the general opinion was "If I had of know that I would have seen how fast I could get round!)
 
Capt Doufos said:
There is are lorry and bus depots near where I work, you can always see diesel now and again on the roundabout. I assume it is just because they have been filled to the brim, they go around the roundabout for the first time and shed a load.

Last year liquid rubber was spilt on said roundabout... everyone thought it was diesel because of the rainbow effect it causing. Once we found it was rubber the general opinion was "If I had of know that I would have seen how fast I could get round!)
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lol, the words "GO" and "KART" spring to mind

:D
 
The_Dark_Side said:
i do and a number of other drivers i know do also.

incidentally you say this as if it takes huge amounts of concentration, i disagree as IME all it requires is the driver is aware of possible hazards and looks for the signs and in the relative directions at the right time.
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Never had an accident?
 
gord said:
Never had an accident?
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like you wouldn't believe.

i've learned some major lessons after screwing up monumentally.

don't get me wrong, i'm not "bigging up" my own ability at all.no superior than thou complex living here i can assure you.i'm a great believer in you're not stupid if you don't know something you haven't already been taught and the fact of the matter is the VAST majority of drivers aren't taught to read the road like this whereas i was.

coming from bikes makes you so much more of a driver, you look at everything more in depth and are constantly working out "if that happened where would i be?" type scenarios.you read the whole road system differently as on a bike if you mess up you almost always get hurt to some degree.
 
Definitely agree with the motorbike bit. And i didnt want to accuse you of being bigheaded about your driving ability, but rather make the point that no matter how good a driver you are you can still be entirely caught out for whatever reason.. it may not be your fault.. it may be a lapse of concentration..

I think this person was just particularly unlucky.
 
I have only spoken to him on the phone at the scene so will get more info.

The torque on the m3 will catch you even at slow speed (develops 66% of max torque at 2.5k revs!) if you hit anything, I almost bought it on a white line on a 10mph corner once.

I drive like I am riding my bike now as although I am protected and am not going to hit the deck I would rather not hurt my baby.

I am suprised this happened to him but I don't know the full details, if there was a car infront of him he may not have had a clear view of the road surface, the light at that nagle may not have been reflecting off it.

Lots of reasons
 
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