Thoughts on Excessive Speed

[panthro]

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.

 

[panthro]

Do energy drinks actually work in keeping you alert? Last time I had one I just had palpitations and became irritable

 

[panthro]

Do you really need a fast car, even if you are driving on track?

The answer is probably no, but if need was the only metric in life it would be very boring.

I want a performance car because I can take enjoyment from it and that comes in many forms, but hardly ever involves me carrying BIG speeds for long periods of time even in Germany. I consider myself a highly experienced driver which is not really about the length of time I have driven or even the miles. For me it's more about the types of cars, the circumstances in which I have driven them and how often as well as my experience of performance and my ability to understand better than most (because I've been through experience the way things happen at speed) through learning. I also have a natuarally risk adverse mindset being the wheel of a car, more so with age. I don't get red mist events anymore, they are consigned to the past.

BUT, putting all of that to one side I would say the biggest thing about being a good driver is when you are behind the wheel the first thing you are doing is driving that car and accounting for those around you in their cars. I see so many people (as a passenger or on the road) who to me seem to be focused on 100 other things than the act of driving and those people (most people I fear) are REALLY dangerous when you add speed. They don't account for others, they never read situations and they never pay attention to much the car is telling them. The car pulling out 500 yards away is a big event at 180mph.

I have sat at 200mph (it is a proper event, anything over 160mph gets serious) and have driven a lot of different high performance cars. I don't however carry big speed on the roads, I may go there and come down on occasion and enjoy a nice flowing road at 'some' speed but again its about how you do that really. I am human so prone to mistakes like anyone and certainly not some epic road racer/racing driver. I just have a sense of what you need to focus on when in a fast car at speed, where I suspect most are pretty clueless really. The most important thing about big speed is circumstance. If that is wrong, big speed is the act of the idiot.

Speed rarely kills, bad driving, human error and mechanical issues are the main culprit. Final point is about your measure of performance. When you are used to a car that will top 100mph in less than 7 seconds and within .5 of second of a McLaren F1 the ability to go fast really quickly also needs comprehending. Getting to 100mph for me is a few seconds, from 70mph I can be at 100mph in less than 2 seconds. It is truly effortless as I can go from 70mph to 100 and back to 70 by the time most cars are still accelerating to 100 from 70.

So for me, I am not an experienced driver other than having driven for 20 odd years. I have never taken any sort of advanced driving courses or track tuition. I would like to though, where do I start?

 

[panthro]

If it's someone single, with no family etc... and they want to speed say at 3am on a dead motorway and I'm talking no one for literally miles and all there is to hurt, is themselves and they fancy a quick blast in a straight line providing they have a well maintained car/decent tyres and suspension and know how to drive it with genuine experience and the weather isn't risky/surface is decent, then that's upto them in my opinion - however going above 100 is a bit silly but a quick blast to 100 is less of a risk than say topping the car out.

The same as with someone drifting a massive empty industrial estate roundabout say, then that's upto them and they're risking themselves and the barriers they'll potentially hit.

Not condoning it but I think that's probably the only vaguely 'safe' scenerio off the top of my head purely because it doesn't endanger anyone else as it's away from everything else, but literally any place where there is housing/public places etc, then that'd just be selfish.

People who think that they can never crash are ridiculous, as is people doing anything in any hour when the public are about/near anyway an innocent can be hit.

To a certain extent I agree, but it's impossible to guarantee the external factors ie no one around at 3am etc.

Then I see videos of a*holes like DMODeejay and Drivadave, driving like absolute pillocks with no seat belts or crash helmets and think, all it takes is one thing and their life is over.