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Today some guy somehow tried to turn right on a railway crossing, delaying thousands of passengers on Christmas eve. These are the people you share the train tracks with.
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Dec 24, 2013 21:38
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Krakkles fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Feb 22, 2018 |
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Dec 24, 2013 22:02
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FogHelmut posted:Neighbors buy their kid a Mustang for turning 16. He gets his license (somehow) and proceeds to launch from stop signs, speed through the neighborhood, drives around at 5000 rpm when he's not speeding. Two weeks after getting his license, he crashes and totals it on a 25 mph neighborhood road. I went to a private school in central Florida from 8th to 11th grade and this is pretty much every other male who received a new car when they got their license. A G35 that hit about 3 parked cars going 90+ through a sweeper, an IS300 whose drunk driver smashed along the Jersey barrier/K-rail of the interstate, a Scion TC that managed to roll down the side of a highway offramp embankment, an RX-8 (girl driver for this one!) that spun sideways into a brick bridge support and basically exploded a rear wheel and every component of the suspension. Those are just the dramatic sounding ones too, I know so many instances of morons just understeering into curbs and somehow totaling the cars. And plenty more stories of old shitboxes being destroyed, particularly in our school's giant grass field parking lot. I never really count those though, because killing beaters is always awesome. One of my buddies went through 4 Volvos. He had sedans and station wagons, one 700 and 900 each. It takes dedication to go through that much Volvo in under 2 years. The moral is that teenagers loving suck at driving.
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Dec 24, 2013 23:23
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If I were to, say, let somebody hit me when they're clearly in the wrong, they'd have to pay for pretty much everything right? There's an intersection here where the right lane just after a light goes right turn only, the middle goes left only, and you have to kind of veer to where the right lane was to go straight. Every drat time I go through I almost get hit, I could clean up there.
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Dec 25, 2013 00:29
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Depends on the state. In many places you can be cited for failure to avoid an accident even if you were not the one doing anything wrong.
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Dec 25, 2013 01:10
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Yeah, it's the kind of thing I wouldn't chance. Even if you don't get assigned fault or failure to avoid (which you easily could), you run a serious risk of injury. It's not worth it.
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Dec 25, 2013 01:15
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Or you end up with a cop who doesn't want to stick his neck out and calls it a no-fault accident, which in insurance terms is the same as being at fault.
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Dec 25, 2013 01:37
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Even if everything goes your way, you're still talking generally weeks of repairs with the car unavailable, and possibly months to years to actually get everything squared away, especially if lawyers get involved. And then if your car was repaired and not totalled you'll never really know if it was fixed right. Basically the only people who deliberately get hit are unbelievable asshats and insurance scammers.
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Dec 25, 2013 03:27
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Naw man, just do it and let us know how it works out.
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Dec 25, 2013 08:17
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jamal posted:Naw man, just do it and let us know how it works out. After all, you could always pull the bicycle out of storage.. 
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Dec 25, 2013 08:18
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Or you have the situation in the UK, where a 100% not at fault accident (idiot runs into the back of you while you're stopped in traffic, for example) is still justification to raise your insurance premiums because  .
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Dec 25, 2013 10:00
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To be fair having the gall to renew your insurance is a pretty good reason to try and double your premiums in the UK. Except mine, for the last two years letting it auto-renew has been nearly £100 cheaper than the next best quote. 
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Dec 25, 2013 14:29
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Ror posted:I went to a private school in central Florida from 8th to 11th grade and this is pretty much every other male who received a new car when they got their license. A G35 that hit about 3 parked cars going 90+ through a sweeper, an IS300 whose drunk driver smashed along the Jersey barrier/K-rail of the interstate, a Scion TC that managed to roll down the side of a highway offramp embankment, an RX-8 (girl driver for this one!) that spun sideways into a brick bridge support and basically exploded a rear wheel and every component of the suspension. Teenagers are generally terrible regardless of car. When he was a teenager and driving a $900 1986 Ford LTD in the rain at night, my brother rear ended a cop, and somehow didn't get in any trouble for it. My other brother who is considerably younger than me is still a teenager. He hasn't gotten his license yet, but somehow physically lost his learners permit. No authorities took it away from him or anything, he just literally lost the piece of paper. When I was a teenager, I understeered my 1988 Caprice into a curb. But I wasn't speeding per se. Going too fast for the turn I was making, yes. I cut the wheel really hard all the way, the bald front tires turned sideways, and the car just plowed straight ahead. I don't think it did any damage to the car, but then it only cost me $750 at the time, had no suspension to speak of, and burned a quart of oil per week.
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Dec 25, 2013 15:21
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People with little/no experience driving don't know what material deficiencies feel like. So kids may vaguely grasp the concepts of 'bald tires, no brake pads, blown shocks' but they may not grok what that actually does to handling and why their car doesn't move like one does in Gran Turismo. That may not apply to the AI poster who's been kart racing since age 6 but it certainly goes for most yoots out there, and if their parents aren't providing or can't provide oversight and sometimes funding then it's often the case that a young driver's car is a hopeless shitheap and they don't even really realize it. That's not really age-specific, either, just loosely tied to driving experience. In the mil I saw plenty of guys who'd never owned cars before joining up, bought claptrap disasters and didn't have any idea that they needed to maintain them. I lived in a very immigrant/refugee heavy area for a while and people coming from places without much car exposure were constant fodder for the corner lots selling sloppy jalopies that probably needed more work done to be safe than their sale prices would cover. State inspections, where they exist, still let complete shitwrecks piddle around on the roads - here in CT the check is pretty much just checking your emissions light, which explains why almost no cars have lights at all four corners working.
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Dec 25, 2013 18:39
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Yeah, it's really down to instruction. I'm a very cautious driver, and for being 20 and having my fair share of accidents and tickets for stupid poo poo, I've learned so much about driving well. I can feel every second of lost control and it's probably giving me heart arrhythmia. But yeah, for a lot of people, you gotta drive lovely to learn how to drive good. Just be glad some of us actually learn from our mistakes. 
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Dec 25, 2013 23:41
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Tha Chodesweller posted:But yeah, for a lot of people, you gotta drive lovely to learn how to drive good. Just be glad some of us actually learn from our mistakes.  I learned so much spinning donuts late at night with my friends. Driving's just one of those things where you gotta push the boundaries a bit before you can really grok how everything works. I think it should be mandatory for every sixteen year old to get signed up for a week long race driving course.
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Dec 26, 2013 00:38
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xzzy posted:I think it should be mandatory for every sixteen year old to get signed up for a week long race driving course.  This could not possibly end badly.
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Dec 26, 2013 05:03
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They teach you more than how to go fast in those courses. They spend a lot of time on dealing with driving mechanics and how do deal with losing control, which I consider critical knowledge and is completely absent from testing standards in the US. Kids are going to drive like shitcocks regardless, might as well spend some effort teaching them how to survive it.
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Dec 26, 2013 05:07
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Friar Zucchini posted:
Not for me. 
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Dec 26, 2013 05:12
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Teaching them to drive like shitcocks well ensures that they never stop driving like shitcocks because since they're good at it, there will never be any adverse consequences. I'm sure you'd love it if every single other car on the road was driven by the same enraged nut in that black BMW flashing his high beams at you.
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Dec 26, 2013 05:14
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Being against teaching teenagers about driving dangerously is exactly as stupid as being against teaching teenagers about sex. They've probably done it already. Friar Zucchini posted:Teaching them to drive like shitcocks well ensures that they never stop driving like shitcocks because since they're good at it, there will never be any adverse consequences. I'm sure you'd love it if every single other car on the road was driven by the same enraged nut in that black BMW flashing his high beams at you. Enraged idiot in a BMW who can't drive vs. Enraged idiot in a BMW who can. You choose.
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Dec 26, 2013 05:14
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Friar Zucchini posted:Teaching them to drive like shitcocks well ensures that they never stop driving like shitcocks because since they're good at it, there will never be any adverse consequences. [citation needed] We all grow up, everyone gets wiser as they age and stop loving around. You can't forbid someone knowledge that might save their life (or more importantly, someone else's life) just because some percentage of them will use it irresponsibly.
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Dec 26, 2013 05:21
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How about putting teenagers through a thunderdome-style gauntlet? Send the driver through a dangerous obstacle course, and if he survives he will have proven himself to be worthy of driving the asphalt jungle! In all seriousness though, young drivers should know what hydroplaning and bad brakes feel like. Better to learn early on, then learn the hard way.
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Dec 26, 2013 05:29
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Never not once in the history of the automobile has lack of knowledge of how to safely drive like an rear end prevented anyone from driving like an rear end anyway. All y'all are really arguing for is for formal driver's ed to be the comprehensive thing it used to be back in the day before mass mandatory attendance made it a rubber stamp, and then making that thing mandatory for the masses, which will inevitably turn it into a rubber stamp. There's really no substitute for an extended instruction by a at least somewhat clueful parent / guardian / older sib and some wheeltime with a beater and a vacant parking lot.
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Dec 26, 2013 05:33
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Friar Zucchini posted:Teaching them to drive like shitcocks well ensures that they never stop driving like shitcocks because since they're good at it, there will never be any adverse consequences. This is very true. I support any initiatives to make them better drivers, but being new drivers and terrible at fundamentals isn't the root problem of teenagers being loving awful drivers. They just have lovely brains that aren't fully developed and make much worse decisions and evaluations of real-world consequences for their actions. I mean, relatively speaking, because there are still way too many 40-something adults out there with whole lives full of experiences who somehow manage to be more clueless about how roads work than a 15-year-old feral child taken directly out of the jungle and placed behind a wheel.
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Dec 26, 2013 06:31
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Measly Twerp posted:Being against teaching teenagers about driving dangerously is exactly as stupid as being against teaching teenagers about sex. Exactly this. I wish someone would have let me get my jollies/ohshitI'mgonnadies out in a safe area, under supervision. I never got into any serious accidents as a teenager, but had two very close calls because I hadn't really pushed the limits far enough to be scared yet.
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Dec 26, 2013 07:20
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My accidents were pretty minor, all things considered (aside from thousands of dollars of damage, but y'know, that's why I banked all the money I had.) My first was because some shitheel merged into my lane without looking and was about to hit me. Instead of collecting free money, I swerved into a truck. Thankfully they didn't have a lick of damage (and the insurance gave 'em a middle finger too) but it was still scary being like 18 and "OH GOD I JUST GOT IN AN ACCIDENT WHAT DO I DO, OH I KNOW, SIT IN THE MIDDLE OF RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC AND PANIC CALL YOUR PARENTS." The other one was a lovetap, but I was the one who got hit and it was my dad's truck I was driving literally across the street from my house. It's a huge rear end F250 and already in relatively poor condition, so if anything happened it was a scratch on the clearcoat. But there was one time I accidentally raced a cop. Yeah, you read that right. I felt like an utter shitheel when he pulled alongside me and flashed his lights. Turns out those V8s are rather peppy!
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Dec 26, 2013 07:43
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When I was 16 I raced a train. Teenagers are loving ignorant.
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Dec 26, 2013 09:23
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I'm extremely glad I got most of my idiocy out of my system before the roads started getting a lot of 50 limits to replace 60/70 ones, and speed cameras proliferated everywhere. I agree that if people are going to drive like knobs anyway, it's worth seeing if they can at least be vaguely competent knobs. I also firmly believe that an understanding of how cars work makes you a better driver, and better able to read what it is you're asking the car to do. What I've seen of things like police "advanced" courses seems ok, and some of that stuff would probably be worth incorporating on top of basic driving tuition.
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Dec 26, 2013 10:12
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Professor Bling posted:When I was 16 I raced a train. What, like on a side road, or through a crossing? 
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Dec 26, 2013 11:25
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Tha Chodesweller posted:But there was one time I accidentally raced a cop. Bad Idea. Professor Bling posted:When I was 16 I raced a train. Worst Idea. That is, assuming you did actually race the train across the crossing. I've always been a railfan, so long before I started driving I knew enough about train-car encounters to never even consider trying this. That said, with the amount of time I've spent around railroad crossings I can tell you it's a sadly common occurrence. The other kind of racing a train though, I've done many times. I'll race it to a crossing, but only so I can film it. That was actually my original reason for wanting a faster car, because passing people on the kind of roads that follow the rail lines in rural Massachusetts tends to require a bit more acceleration than a 96 Subaru Legacy could provide. Disgruntled Bovine fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Dec 26, 2013 |
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Dec 26, 2013 18:11
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Friar Zucchini posted:
I dunno. I took a couple day Bondurant course when I was 15ish before I got my license. I think being out on a skid pad and really learning what driving at the limit feels like is good for an inexperienced driver. Seeing how to recover from skids, what happens when you lock up the brakes(this was in the days before ABS), how to deal with oversteer(again, days before ubiquitous FWD cars. drat I'm old.), etc. There's no driving school like that near me for my son but I do take him to local parking lots and let him hoon the ride a bit. He also started driving my Defender with a manual transmission at age 8 so he had a bit of a head start over most kids. Show them how to be safe and how and where to get it out of their system in a safe manner. Just like sex and drug education. Making it all taboo makes them wanna do it in an unsafe manner. "Wanna thrash on a car? Let's go to the local gokart track or parking lot." Done this lots. "Wanna try booze? Fine, here's the liquor cabinet. What do you want to try?" He shared my 18 year Glenmorangie for Xmas yesterday. I just realized the scotch was older than him. drat. "Weed? Not my thing but I'll make sure you do it safely." "Cigarettes? No. Not ever. Now I'll smoke a cigar with you occasionally but cigarettes are out. I lost two Grandparents to cancer that way." He picked out a cigar and smoked with me at the bottom of the Grand Canyon for his 17th birthday. Make it all a 'meh' affair and the excitement of 'getting away' with something behind mom and dad's back is gone. Oh, in stupid driver related stuff. No one drove their car into the ditch across from my house this Christmas. We did hear squealing tires and ran outside to see someone speed off after a near-miss though. It's kind of a holiday expectation any more. It's happened on three Christmases, three Halloweens, and New Years a couple times over the past 15 years we've been in the house. This doesn't include the normal Friday/Saturday night drunken venture into the creek. edit: sorry for wall of text. Office is empty at work and I got on an uninterrupted roll.
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Dec 26, 2013 19:05
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Kill-9 posted:There's no driving school like that near me for my son but I do take him to local parking lots and let him hoon the ride a bit. He also started driving my Defender with a manual transmission at age 8 so he had a bit of a head start over most kids. Tire rack street survival course? Probably not the same as Bounderant, but it atleast something...
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Dec 26, 2013 19:26
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One time I did some texting while on the interstate. While riding my motorcycle at night with a 6v headlight during deer season. Boom.
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Dec 26, 2013 20:34
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Brigdh posted:Tire rack street survival course? Probably not the same as Bounderant, but it atleast something... Local sportscar club goes out to a frozen-over lake and does some ice driving survival skill drills. A lot of guys from the club bring their wives/scared coworkers/children and it seems to go a long way - the club racer guys get a chance to play on a new surface and everyone else is way more confident. I've seen people who are terrified to turn the key in winter go to being able to lose and regain control at high speeds on ice and that's a valuable skill here. Unfortunately the locals are trust-fund retards who want their precious lake homes to remain unthreatened by the exhaust noise of bone stock commuter cars so who knows how long that'll stay. 
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Dec 26, 2013 20:45
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Fucknag posted:What, like on a side road, or through a crossing? Disgruntled Bovine posted:That is, assuming you did actually race the train across the crossing. I raced it down a frontage road and then, yeah, through the gates and across the crossing. Made it (obviously, I can still walk and have the use of both arms) but that's definitely the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life. And at 16 it seemed a decent risk to take in order to be on time for a stage rehearsal. When I drove an 88hp Maverick with the 200 I6. So, yeah, at 16 I risked life and limb to not be ten minutes late because "it'll look really cool when I make it across".
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Dec 26, 2013 21:23
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I think I've mentioned this before but my parents sent me to Russell Racing school a few months after I got my license. I still drove fast, but I am most likely alive today because of the skills I learned. I was going to drive fast regardless, and it's been proven that better real-world driver training instead of the laughably stupid "be afraid of everything YOU'RE GOING TO DIE AT ANY MOMENT RARRRGGH BLOOD DEATH SPEED KILLS" type of poo poo that passes for drivers ed in the US is simply incomparable when it comes to a positive statistical outcome.
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Dec 26, 2013 21:27
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Seat Safety Switch posted:Local sportscar club goes out to a frozen-over lake and does some ice driving survival skill drills. A lot of guys from the club bring their wives/scared coworkers/children and it seems to go a long way - the club racer guys get a chance to play on a new surface and everyone else is way more confident. Where I live all the rich lake homeowners come out and play on the ice with us local ice racers. The county sheriff's come out and watch while riding around on their snowmobiles too.
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Dec 26, 2013 21:54
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Professor Bling posted:I raced it down a frontage road and then, yeah, through the gates and across the crossing. Yeah, that's pretty dangerous alright. My office is on a short straightaway across from the metro tracks, and I get more than enough thrill just pulling out of the parking lot when a train happens to be coming up then accelerating so I can beat it to the light where it disappears behind some buildings. Granted, it's only going about 5mph over the speed limit, but it's less about the speed and more "I'm racing a train! Bet I'm blowin' those bored commuters' minds!"
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Dec 26, 2013 22:04
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You're simply not classy enough to pull it off, is all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Train_Races
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Dec 26, 2013 22:11
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