Gotta give vman his due.

He gets better with every post,never mind H&S,standup is the way

valman wrote:theres your problem... have a bit of fun.. chances are he wasnt going fast enough to kill a cat, let alone a bunch of school kids, you need to be going atleast 40 to achieve that...

You can't kill anyone below 40mph? That must be why there's a 20mph speed limit outside most schools....

And if he wasn't going fast enough to kill a cat there is no way the car would have drifted around the island....

I'll take criticism all day long but lets keep it sensible..

as a guy that actually regulary drifts on public roads, the thought of people doing it even near pedestrians or any other road users makes me sick.

if you want to learn and get better at drifting; you try to do it on the very edge of control, with as much speed, rpm's, angle and smoke as possible. with this and a relatively low-powererd car the chances are very high it catches grip unexpected or you simply blow a tire and the weirdest things can happen at that moment (i've destroyed a rear axle and 2 front suspensions that way! and lucky it was just that)

the thought of the slightest possibility any of that happens and you go frontal into a group of "viewers" or another car, dawm man... there's a reason there are concrete blocks all around a drift circuit, and you don't find those at public roads...

i personally think the governments don't do enough to legally allow people to entertain themself with their cars (drifting/racing) on circuits, there are very little trackdays and very few circuits; and most of the time tracktime is really; really expensive! cheap alternative is simple; the public roads! it's quite simple, if you want to drift on a public road; fine, but do it where you can't hurt anyone or destroy anything that isn't yours. i usually go out skidding at 3 or 4am in the morning on saturdays or throughout the week, little to no traffic on the roads and empty industrial site's are guaranteed asphalt for some serious sideways action, and you don't put anyone in harms way!

if you want to "showoff" to your mates at school; get a proper camera and mount it to the bodywork or in the car, don't put them in danger by letting them standing on the sidewalk with you sliding by. those unnecessary risks will eventually f*ck the scene up, with extremely high penalty's if you get caught and potentially fatal endings, and believe me. the image of running over someone will remain in your mind for the rest of your life especcially if it's someone you know.

What about public relations?

We each car enthusiast represent all car enthusiasts for average Joe and Mary.

What will Mr. & Mrs. Average think when they see car sliding near school and people?

That is what makes their opinion and there are far more of them than us.

If someone goes with their emotion, having fun, he probably will loose control part of his brain that would say what is good PR and what is bad PR.

Responsibility is also responsibility of what kind of image car enthusiast is putting out to Averages from car enthusiasts and with poor choices this will lead general opinion to get even more against car enthusiasts, meaning choices being made in voting so that car enthusiasts will face more limitations, politicians will sense what people would like and more limitations to car enthusiasts, insurance companies see potential risk, up goes insurance quotes.

While car enthusiast could still have his fun in more appropriate place with bit of planning ahead, with bit of thinking and not by giving his emotions to make a choice, only let his emotion to give that good feeling.

With good PR there would be more of those appropriate places too and all it takes is think first, act afterwards.

Public roads are not places for having that fun, public roads closed from traffic are better, closed areas are the best, getting such places might require bit effort, but it is really a win win for all.

It is really huge amount of damage that acts of instant fun have made to whole scene, one thing many don't understand is that there is no need anything to go wrong to get that negative impact, it is impossible of course to realize this when young and invincible, but when one gets older and starts to see what affects to what, when one starts plan ahead more, then there is realization of how badly wrong one has acted.

Those are things of life, things that repeat themselves generation after generation, no matter how much knownledge there is, too bad it has now made serious harmful impact on general opinion in last 20 years or so.

One thing all must start to realize is that we are living last ages of car hobby as we know it, we have more threats that we can handle, green eco boom will stop our cars (if not by anything else, proper petrol availability will stop in 20 years), regulations will tighten so that with more modern machines you can't even change bumpers without permission or something as insane as that.

It is not like drifter would be synonym for this culprint, but everyone must see that it does lure in certain type of people who don't bother think responsibility, type of perons that feel it is too boring to think anything what are effects and consequences, it is same in every each hobby where there is speedy fun.
There are many very responsible drifters, but they are far outnumbered by others, who are affected even by peer pressure, which is again one of things leading to bad PR and even worse.

If car enthusiasts are going to make their stand and plan to remain still in future, we should start to think more of PR and ways to get Mr & Mrs Average to see our hobby as positive thing so that they would be ready to support it. Task might be nearly impossible already by now, but I think it is still better to try than just look hobby getting killed by eco facists and bad PR.

One must remember that his actions are not only his actions, they are actions affecting all of us.

jtbo wrote:What about public relations?

We each car enthusiast represent all car enthusiasts for average Joe and Mary.

What will Mr. & Mrs. Average think when they see car sliding near school and people?

That is what makes their opinion and there are far more of them than us.

If someone goes with their emotion, having fun, he probably will loose control part of his brain that would say what is good PR and what is bad PR.

Responsibility is also responsibility of what kind of image car enthusiast is putting out to Averages from car enthusiasts and with poor choices this will lead general opinion to get even more against car enthusiasts, meaning choices being made in voting so that car enthusiasts will face more limitations, politicians will sense what people would like and more limitations to car enthusiasts, insurance companies see potential risk, up goes insurance quotes.

While car enthusiast could still have his fun in more appropriate place with bit of planning ahead, with bit of thinking and not by giving his emotions to make a choice, only let his emotion to give that good feeling.

With good PR there would be more of those appropriate places too and all it takes is think first, act afterwards.

Public roads are not places for having that fun, public roads closed from traffic are better, closed areas are the best, getting such places might require bit effort, but it is really a win win for all.

It is really huge amount of damage that acts of instant fun have made to whole scene, one thing many don't understand is that there is no need anything to go wrong to get that negative impact, it is impossible of course to realize this when young and invincible, but when one gets older and starts to see what affects to what, when one starts plan ahead more, then there is realization of how badly wrong one has acted.

Those are things of life, things that repeat themselves generation after generation, no matter how much knownledge there is, too bad it has now made serious harmful impact on general opinion in last 20 years or so.

One thing all must start to realize is that we are living last ages of car hobby as we know it, we have more threats that we can handle, green eco boom will stop our cars (if not by anything else, proper petrol availability will stop in 20 years), regulations will tighten so that with more modern machines you can't even change bumpers without permission or something as insane as that.

It is not like drifter would be synonym for this culprint, but everyone must see that it does lure in certain type of people who don't bother think responsibility, type of perons that feel it is too boring to think anything what are effects and consequences, it is same in every each hobby where there is speedy fun.
There are many very responsible drifters, but they are far outnumbered by others, who are affected even by peer pressure, which is again one of things leading to bad PR and even worse.

If car enthusiasts are going to make their stand and plan to remain still in future, we should start to think more of PR and ways to get Mr & Mrs Average to see our hobby as positive thing so that they would be ready to support it. Task might be nearly impossible already by now, but I think it is still better to try than just look hobby getting killed by eco facists and bad PR.

One must remember that his actions are not only his actions, they are actions affecting all of us.

Well said that man..

Ian Mac wrote:

valman wrote:theres your problem... have a bit of fun.. chances are he wasnt going fast enough to kill a cat, let alone a bunch of school kids, you need to be going atleast 40 to achieve that...

You can't kill anyone below 40mph? That must be why there's a 20mph speed limit outside most schools....

And if he wasn't going fast enough to kill a cat there is no way the car would have drifted around the island....

I'll take criticism all day long but lets keep it sensible..

well it depends you can get these things going sideways at about 15 in the wet with enough persuasion, what im getting at is that the car is going slow enough for the cat to see it then get out of the way - the chances of it actually getting under the wheel at this stage gets very low.. so you would think humans could react in a better manner as they'll know the sound of a car coming especially if they were watching too.

i do however agree with jtbo's (one individual doing bad always represents the community to mr and mrs average) and anjo's (drifting where safe) posts i would go further, but thats very off topic and i cba

talking of which, lets get some pictures of good drift 340s? to try and get something good out of this

think this has been recently acquired by someone on here:

Please be careful valman. Us fuddy-duddies were 17 once too, and did similar things / made similar mistakes. Sure, you're young and want to test the boundaries ... but the car is still a 1 point something ton of metal that can do sooooo much damage to people. I think everyone in my 6th form crashed at least once, including me, but it was only luck really that no-one was hurt badly. A few years later I was egging on a mate in his Sierra (was I 20 yet? I can't remember), on a return trip from the Nürburgring, and the car ended up on its roof and we both had nasty bumps.

Oh, and my aunt was killed in a car crash and a teacher of mine at school was killed by a driver who lost control over his vehicle. She was a pedestrian. Public road / track: big difference.

But ... finger-wag over, no more posts from me in this thread.

Tom

P.S. sod's law dicates I'll have a crash tomorrow or something. Haven't had one for a long time.

valman wrote:so you would think humans could react in a better manner as they'll know the sound of a car coming especially if they were watching too.

How about the deaf, blind, physically impaired or is it a case of "how dare they go out walking whilst I'm in joy-rider mode..." Furthermore, the response time of the average able bodied human is much slower than that of a cat..!!

I agree about the pics, lets have some of nice, original, unmodified cars with steel wheels and cassette players...

Joking aside, the white five door with lowered suspension in the For Sale section looks good - I still prefer mine though!!

well to cater for you aswell, here's my current daily (any chance to whore some pics ).. probably more standard than my mums v40! and its 4 times older! and its staying this way as its just too clean - only bit of rust appeared jsut after the snow, quite a big scab on the driver sill, must have been due to the salt as i didnt try my best to clean it but itll get patched up in spring

and here is a shots of the interior, at the time of the pic only been sat in by me during the test drive

more, drifting pics:

The drift cars look great - on the track!!

Your daily driver looks pretty clean - nice to see a stock three door, not many of them around.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say I did something really really stupid 2 weeks ago. There was gridlock traffic on the other side of the road but my side was clear, pulling away from a roundabout in a 40 zone there is a slight corner. The view is obscured by bushes so basically you can't see around this corner all the way but you can see at least 15-20 yards so you know there is nothing there.

Like an idiot (what can I say, I'm 22) I thought I'd show off to all the people in the traffic jam what a 3 series can do. Absolutely nailed it with the intent to kill the throttle at 40mph. At the head of the corner I suddenly see 2 young girls waiting to cross the road (16 or 17). In a really weird panic one of them actually JUMPS OUT in front of me. I swear to god I've never shouted NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO so loud. Luckily there was time for her to jump back as I was still doing about 35mph but holy shit, I'm not sure with the transfer of feet/getting car under control that I wouldn't be able to stop in time.

It haunts me that I could have even come close to hitting a pedestrian and I'm sure this will stay with me for a long long time. And this was 2 weeks ago! Sometimes I think what the hell is wrong with me. Safe to say I won't be nailing it around at rush hour anymore, if at all. Fast cars are dangerous for 20-somethings.

(And to give more perspective - it is not a pedestrian crossing area, there is a subway which people don't use due to laziness. I wasn't expecting pedestrians at all)



Basically valman, you will think this is really dumb right now but in a few years time you will realise how vulnerable you and other road users really are. We've ALL been there but unfortunately it's the only way to learn - the hard way. I was once hit by a car on a MTB at about 15MPH. I ended up on the other side of the car face down on concrete. Good job I'd just been down the dirt track and I was wearing my helmet, I walked away with basically nothing.

If you want to show off in front of a school, buy a V8 and do it low and slow. The girls will lust for you for being "that guy" rather than "that chav over there doing a drift".

Speedy88 wrote: In a really weird panic one of them actually JUMPS OUT in front of me.

She must have been a cat

Speedy88 wrote:
If you want to show off in front of a school, buy a V8 and do it low and slow. The girls will lust for you for being "that guy" rather than "that chav over there doing a drift".

Absolutely. When I was 17 I had a five litre Mustang and I literally had to fight-off the girls.

That was some dream

Can't remember if it was last summer or one before that, father of two were killed at parking lot as car reversed over him, surely car did move only 5 meter's or so and did not had much of speed, but human being is fragile.

It is quite well possible to get person killed/injured for life with a car, when things go bad even seamingly tiny bump can have serious consequences, there is chaos theory that can shed some light why it is so, but I think it is better just to accept that human being is not too well made for ragdoll testing.

We may be old farts that have no idea about anything, but there was time we were looking our place in a world and learning what actually is causality in bigger picture. Most probably agree that there were pain in process at least in some scale.

But it can be that only way to figure things out is to experience them.

One of misconcepts of life around young person is that young person would be center, it is true cruelity when at some point of life one notices that there are no center, there are just the crowd and causality.

Finding out that one is one part of crowd of 6 billion or so is a start, then one learns that others are no obstacles that should move out of MY way, get out of MY road.

It took me over 30 years, don't know if some figure it out sooner, but to understand that it gives quite a lot more perspective to own actions and also opinions.

To have loud exhaust for scaring people out of way is one good example from how I used to think too when younger.

Two to five people need to be scared off so that I can do what I wan't on MY road. This means irritating few hundred of average Joe's and Mary's with loud exhaust in situations where there is even no need to. These few hundred then get annoyed to all car enthusiasts, some even anything related to cars, they demand action, they see some drift on THEIR street, which overflows their cup, so they come accross a green movement that aims to limit car usage and with moments of fun there I create many hurdles to my hobby.

Have done that for sure, I have used horn, I have raced on road just so that that one could not overtake ME on MY road.

I laugh these days to stupidity of myself, but right after I cry from what bad those small moments have caused for years and I have not even seen the bad that I have caused, but so it is, what you can't see you think there is none, even it still is.

This is just to encourage young ones to be better than old farts, however choice is always up to person itself, some live whole life the way they live when young, it probably is no any worse, but because of causality there always is something that follows.

Ian did forgot kids running after their football, damn once it was close, did run straight to front of car between parked cars, I don't know how I could avoid hitting him, but I guess was lucky, simply just saw something flash, those are things that just will happen.

One good point with driving like grandma on public street is that if something happen nobody blames you, no matter how poorly you did react, yeah, I'm still bit selfish, but I'm working on it