Kiwi driver challenge

[pete376403]

"There are lies, damned lies and statistics" - Samuel Clemens.

[mangell6]

You forgot to mention "Excessive Speed"

Watched it and the major cause of motorcycles accidents is "excessive speed".

What is "Excessive Speed"?

[speedpro]

I hope everyone has bothered to send the TV station their thoughts on the programme. If inteligent viewers don't make their views known the station will continue showing this type of programme.

[Lou Girardin]

40% for the studio audience, 70 - 76% for people on the net or texting. What a bloody joke! Then there was the Asian woman who thought she was a good driver because she drove slowly.
Imagine what practical testing would show up.
And we're sharing the road with these prats.
Lou

[Posh Tourer :P]

I was pretty disappointed with the studio audience.... and even the attitudes of the presenters in making it all a big joke that they all got 40% in the road code test... that says to me (in very very bad logic) that in over half the situations they encounter, they dont know what they are doing.... I tried the test and got 14/15 for the real part of it, not the propaganda part from big brother at the end re drikn driving, accidents without seatbelts, etc. Although I was surprised at the difference in stopping distance between 50 and 60kmh.... has that been verified? I would like to know, as the best cars brake 100-0 in about 33m, how does 10kmh induce that much difference, even allowing for worse brakes. Interesting to note the presenters going on about the wonders of ABS.... it allows drivers to steer while having their foot to the floor on the brake... may or may not be beneficial, I have heard that there can be instances where the driver has "turned the wrong way" and got themselves into more trouble.
What we essentially need is much better licencing. Eg. Guy from Denmark I talked to over the summer was getting his motorcycle licence (In Demark), spent a total of maybe 2 weeks in riding school. Had 3 days of practicing emergency stops.... It pissed down and was very cold ie icy in places, and they were still out practicing emergency stops. Now if that doesnt teach you how to slow down safely in any conditions I dont know what will

[Lou Girardin]

That's good point on ABS. When it first became common in the States, the NHTSB were puzzled why accidents in 1st and 2nd generation ABS equipped cars were higher than for others. They investigated and found that a lot of drivers panicked when the pedal started pulsing and released the brakes.
Lou

[Drunken Monkey]

... has that been verified? I would like to know, as the best cars brake 100-0 in about 33m, how does 10kmh induce that much difference, even allowing for worse brakes. Interesting to note the presenters going on about the wonders of ABS.... it allows drivers to steer while having their foot to the floor on the brake... may or may not be beneficial, I have heard that there can be instances where the driver has "turned the wrong way" and got themselves into more trouble.

Some more info/thoughts.

A new Mazda 6 can do 100-0 in 21m, at 1.05 lateral G's. Tested and proven.

My old Mk III supra would come to a lurching, tyre smoke infested stop from 100 in around 40m at a pathetic 0.76 lateral G's (locking up over 0.69G's). Pish, and they called it a sports car!

My flatmate's old Fairmont's shitty drums would take longer to stop the car than the H.M.S. Hood (7 nautical miles)

That 10m is based on an 'average' braking distance of 35m (or was it 38?). You could see from the demonstration which had cones at 5m intervals in the first braking test, the distance differential was actually only around 7-8m. It would be more accurate to describe it as a percentage - that 20% extra speed (ie 50km/h vs 60km/h) requires 'about' 20% extra braking distance (35m vs 42m). Since energy is expressed as a square of velocity, so that will make up the extra 3m or so...


There can always be exceptions to the rule, but being able to steer around a hazard while braking is a generally good thing. Though that's not the same as using that ability effectively!

Food for thought, anyway...

[Coldkiwi]

My flatmate's old Fairmont's shitty drums would take longer to stop the car than the H.M.S. Hood (7 nautical miles)

...

uhh, to my knowledge, once the germans applied the heavy 16" 'brakes' to the Hood's ammunition store, the ol Hood was stopped pretty damn quickly indeed.
(3 survivors out of 1407 crew)

[Drunken Monkey]

uhh, to my knowledge, once the germans applied the heavy 16" 'brakes' to the Hood's ammunition store, the ol Hood was stopped pretty damn quickly indeed.
(3 survivors out of 1407 crew)

That's true...the magazine ran the length of the ship, without seperating compartments. Kaboom big time. But you got my point - I'll bet the 42,000 ton wreck still ploughed through the water a fair distance as it sank tho

[k14]

Exactly why i answered that question 5m (which was wrong according to them). I know that a car mag i sometimes read gets a Commodore to stop from 100-0 in about 35m. So saying that 10km more makes 10m difference is just bullshit. It is just to stop people from going 60 in a 50 zone.

More propaganda bullshit.

[Coldkiwi]

not necessarily K14... kinetic energy stored by a moving vehicle is a squared function (someone stop me) of its velocity. so picking up twice as much speed actually increases the energy get it back down to that speed is four times as much.. ie. your brakes do 4 times the work. hence why it doesn't take 5m to stop at 10kph and 50m to stop at 100kmhr

[Wenier]

but it is really to do with driver reactions in this case because they are using the same cars with i guess same setup of everything. But there is no gaurentee how each driver will actually react.

[georgedubyabush]

I was in hysterics the way Kelly Swanson-Roe was throwing herself around in the passenger seat under the 'extreme Gs' of an extra 10km/hr through the cones. And when Oscar hiffed the watermelon out the front windscreen when he was supposed to be holding it as tight as he could...

[merv]

I was in hysterics the way Kelly Swanson-Roe was throwing herself around in the passenger seat under the 'extreme Gs' of an extra 10km/hr through the cones. And when Oscar hiffed the watermelon out the front windscreen when he was supposed to be holding it as tight as he could...

Yeah anyone with half an intention of enjoying the ride could easily have braced themselves in the seat during the slalom, and of course at least hung on to the water melon by wrapping their arms around it. Just trying to scare the 40% Joes who don't know better eh!! And as for the 40% crowd they didn't even have a blonde group like they did on the IQ test a while ago.

It is definitely a worry how little so many of then knew and no wonder the driving we see is so appalling. They needed a motorcyclist group there to show the way. At least the taxi driver and the asian woman weren't complete bozos.

[Posh Tourer :P]

Thanks CK and DM for clearing that up for me.... still quite a scary and significant difference.... I'd have to see it to believe it, but certainly 10m looked to be rounded up a bit....
Anyway....
I'd agree with you george... the asian lady, despite her profession of driving carefully=good driving early on, definitely wasnt a *complete* bozo...though there was a high level of bozoness in the room