Thoughts on Excessive Speed

panthro

panthro

panthro

Soldato
Joined
19 Nov 2004
Posts
12,626
Location
Wokingham
I was connected on LinkedIn with a chap who owned a large leasing company. Recently his family posted saying he'd passed away with his son in a car crash. I was obviously shocked and wanted to find out what happened so had a quick look and found out he was driving a Bentayga and hit a concrete pillar on the A50......unfortunately Google also included photos from a pretty grim subReddit where some sick individual (who's been arrested for it) took pictures of the crash, which had photos of this poor man and his son dead in the car. The car was smashed to pieces so I imagine they must have been carrying a fair amount of speed, but I guess when you hit an immovable object it's only going to go one way. Anyway, these images feel like they're literally burnt into my corneas now.
Now I can't stop thinking about it and how dangerous driving can be, it's making me really evaluate whether or not I need a fast car and should I ever drive over the limit! FWIW I very rarely drive over 80mph these days especially with children in the car and after copping a 7 day ban for speeding in a 30 8 years ago I've become much more conscientious.
Anyone else ever have these thoughts? Do you really need a fast car if you're not driving on a track? My car isn't even "that" fast (C43 AMG) and I was until recently planning to change it for something a bit faster. I'm totally off the idea now.
 
I got caught speeding for the first time recently. Only went over the limit for a few seconds to overtake someone driving annoying and slow.

It's still nice to have a fast car, just make sure you drive it fast in the right place and with the right conditions.

Also it's a good idea to stay below 80 now that the 10% +3 rule has changed to 10% +2!
 
I gave up on the idea of "fast" cars a long while ago and now just look for something engaging to drive to get my kicks. My old MX5 ticks that box for me with the added bonus of it not evaporating my income in running costs or depreciation! For me, having to work the engine and gearbox is half the fun but any modern semi-quick car these days is an auto that hits the NSL in 6 seconds flat. While that is impressive, it doesn't give me as much enjoyment as buzzing a torqueless NA engine to 6k through the gears.

For my 'daily drive' I've got a 1.4 TSI Seat. It is a pretty benign thing to drive but the performance is perfectly adequate. The vast majority of time the limiting factor to how quick you drive / accelerate is the car in front anyway. Well, unless you are one of the growing trend of people that weave between lanes on the dual carriageway / motorway where any gap in any lane is fair game for them "making progress" no matter how small.

The danger of any physical injury pales into insignificance against the fear of a career ending driving ban when it comes to justification for keeping my speed in check.
 
You know slowing down is the right thing to do, you tell yourself it's the right thing to do, then you get behind the wheel of a powerful car and it all goes out of the window..

It's hard man, I've been a "boy racer" my entire life and although I feel I know when and where is a more calculated risk now than then, it's still there and if an opportunity to blast past some slow coach is presented... I take it
 
XeNoN89 said:
I got caught speeding for the first time recently. Only went over the limit for a few seconds to overtake someone driving annoying and slow.

It's still nice to have a fast car, just make sure you drive it fast in the right place and with the right conditions.

Also it's a good idea to stay below 80 now that the 10% +3 rule has changed to 10% +2!
Click to expand...
10% +1 in my experience. Got done for 35 in a 30.

Since picking up 6 points and a hefty fine 4 years ago I'm now much more conscious of my speed and generally keep it sensible even on the bike (which is easier said than done!).
 
You're giving yourself incentive to perform stunts because you paid for extra performance and are still forced to crawl along with joe average in their very average car all day.

Reality is an average modern car can do these stunts too, you're mostly pressing a pedal next to someone who isn't :p
 
panthro said:
Anyone else ever have these thoughts?
Click to expand...
yup, as the advertisement says - speed kills. those reddit images, while horrible and i hope the person that took and shared them gets jail time, could be used as a very powerful tool to show the dangers of speeding. given the damage to the vehicle i'm surprised the 2 guys bodies were in such relatively good condition.

on a side note, some of the weasels in the reddit comments should be made to clean up the next road fatality near them. that'll give them a better perspective on life and the brutal realities of what can happen to a human body when it's involved in a fatal road accident.
 
XeNoN89 said:
I got caught speeding for the first time recently. Only went over the limit for a few seconds to overtake someone driving annoying and slow.
Click to expand...
so was that in a 60 NSL road ? - for overtake, it's hard not to occasionally, versus 30/40s where I never exceed limit,
otherwise I'd say it wouldn't be speeding but ill judging cornering capability which would be my achilles heal.
 
Last edited:
Having seen first hand the outcome of a few incidents these days I pretty much stick to the limit in 30s and 40s not like religiously but probably annoy a fair few people because I drive to those limits. On the open road/multi-lane I'm a little less cautious but I won't do silly speeds.

I have very mixed feelings about it personally as some of the safest drivers I know tend to drive to the limits in built up areas but will push on significantly over the speed limit on open roads but are paying far more attention and driving far more appropriately to the conditions than many drivers who are doing the speed limit or less...

Personally not going to condemn someone for opening the taps a bit on a empty motorway, etc. don't really care if someone pushes on a bit on multi-lane roads but in other cases I have a fairly dim view of excessive speeds - especially those doing like 90-100 on an NSL along a road with multiple joining roads...
 
Last edited:
Thekwango said:
yup, as the advertisement says - speed kills. those reddit images, while horrible and i hope the person that took and shared them gets jail time, could be used as a very powerful tool to show the dangers of speeding. given the damage to the vehicle i'm surprised the 2 guys bodies were in such relatively good condition.

on a side note, some of the weasels in the reddit comments should be made to clean up the next road fatality near them. that'll give them a better perspective on life and the brutal realities of what can happen to a human body when it's involved in a fatal road accident.
Click to expand...
Talking of brutal realities, the images of the paramedics stood around with that in the background really shows you what they deal with daily.
 
My S5 was already too quick for me, and the problem is, newer cars are so refined that accelerating quickly in the S5 to NSL was already dull. Hence, I felt I was getting into the slippery slope of wanting quicker.


I decided to change that up a bit and get something more connected and visceral.


My 135i is still very very quick don't get me wrong, but I get that feeling of "you're going too quick, slow down" almost immediately now. I never got that in my S5. I felt I could always go quicker.
 
Plenty of people drive very fast every day, you have to be either extremely incompetent or extremely unlucky for something like that to happen, and I say that as someone who has seen similar stuff to those photos in real life on several occasions. Selling a fast car because you're worried something like that might happen to you is like refusing to get on a plane because you heard about one crashing recently.
 
Fuzz said:
The comments are too much.. :o "Could have easily been prevented if he drove with both hands"
:o
Click to expand...

Pretty appalling to see such childish, generally troll like comments on what is a tragic outcome for two loved ones but being the Internet it does not surprise me.

It blows my mind that a farther could drive at such speed with his own son on board and that's without having the conversation about the risk to other innocent road users.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: NVP
Pretty sure I know who you're referring to :(

The problem with defining "excessive" speed is that most people see a sign that says 30, 60, NSL etc. and think that's the safe speed, but that's only a very small part of it.

30 at 1am on a main road through a village - fine. 30 down a narrow residential road at 3:35pm with kids playing and parked cars either side - have a ****ing word with yourself.

NSL on a wide open road in dry, well lit conditions with no junctions, no other traffic, and a well maintained vehicle is (IMO) perfectly safe, and arguably you could safely exceed the limit. Doing that same NSL on a twisty single track with tall hedges, in the dark in pouring rain with 3 bald tyres is suicidal (even doing half the limit in those conditions would be pretty stupid!)

I'm with @Rroff on this one to be honest - the people blindly sticking to the limit (or even worse the drive 40mph everywhere brigade) whilst on autopilot are significantly more dangerous than those who exceed the speed limit on occasion but do so after assessing the risks properly and actually paying attention.

Personally I stick with "drive to the conditions", and the speed limit is one - but in many cases certainly not the most important - of those conditions.

The other problem with excessive speed is that usually you don't realise it's excessive until it's too late :(

XeNoN89 said:
Also it's a good idea to stay below 80 now that the 10% +3 rule has changed to 10% +2!
Click to expand...

Showing your age there! It's been 10%+2 since before I started driving 20+ years ago!

geekman said:
Plenty of people drive very fast every day, you have to be either extremely incompetent or extremely unlucky for something like that to happen, and I say that as someone who has seen similar stuff to those photos in real life on several occasions. Selling a fast car because you're worried something like that might happen to you is like refusing to get on a plane because you heard about one crashing recently.
Click to expand...

Thanks for perfectly illustrating the arrogant "it'll never happen to me" attitude which causes accidents like this.
 
Last edited:
Haggisman said:
The problem with defining "excessive" speed is that most people see a sign that says 30, 60, NSL etc. and think that's the safe speed, but that's only a very small part of it.
Click to expand...

Assessing a safe speed, different to the posted limit, can be something of a skill and a tricky one practically in some circumstances - for instance there is a place on my way to work on a dual-carriageway with a junction joining from the right (personally I think they should close it or change the road) just after a rise in the road so you can't see what is coming - purely driving safely would mean not overtaking through that section and probably dropping speed to about 50-55 on approach but in reality that isn't very practical and can cause safety issues with other road users who don't care/aren't aware, etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom