A chap I worked with once, had just fitted new piston rings to his motorbike and was hence taking it out for a gentle run to check it out, and give them chance to run in. A horse jumped over a hedge and landed vertically right in front of him (as in less that two feet away). He hit the thing broadside and the bike carried on under the horse. He said the horse looked a bit startled and legged it - he was ok but somewhat winded. When he picked up the bike he found large tufts or horse hair in the brake leavers!
Another was a friend who had a Cortina written off when a cow sat on the bonnet!
Absolutely. The rule that you 'must be able to stop in te distnace you can see' is total crap and very dangerous.
When its just other cars, you can have it a good deal less, as they probably cant stop any faster than you can. In situations where you cannot guarantee the road will stay clear, it ought to be a lot more.
That includes woods either side where deer will cross, parked cars by schools where kids will dash out and so on.
There is no safe speed really. It's balancing the probabilities. One stretch of road got a speed cam because someone was driving along at probably no more than 50mph, when a tractor/trailer pulled out of a farm. She wasn't enough of a driver to overtake it, or perhaps there was traffic coming and she wasn't smart enough to head for the hedge, and piled right into it. Not really her fault but it got used as an excuse..and killed her.
A better driver would have survived. But the tractor was at fault in this case technically.
How many of you out there incidentally have slowed down for no reason, and found afterwards there was a good reason.. My wife did it the other day..there was a rabbit in the road round the corner...happens to me about once a year..too..
Being able to drive and legal liability are not the same. Sure you can claim off the guy behind but most drivers would rather avoid it. A good driver would avoid it by making sure the idiot behind could stop. By slowing down in all probability.
Its you that needs to make up your mind.
Go on then name one reason why you aren't allowed to stop if you think you have too. I don't think answering your mobile on the motorway counts BTW.
That is a good list that agrees with what I said.
I can legally drive without them but I wouldn't. Unlike many drivers I know the difference between eyesight that can pass the test and what good eyesight is.
Horse is hidden so assume 2 m high hedge. Time taken for an object to fall from 2m to the ground.. about 3/4 second. Double it as the horse had to jump and would be visible as soon as head was above hedge.. 1.5 seconds. So this sudden event took at least 1.5 seconds. Not exactly instant.
I bet the idiot speeders claim they can react faster than that.
My real ale pub is at the end of a lane where the farmer has to get his cows down at the end of the day. I travel that rout outside of the herding hours now.
Agreed, it does not hold for all roads, only those that have animal barriers ay the side of them.
That depends on the circumstances. About 10 years ago I went up to the Lakes to pick up my wife and her friend from scout camp (they are both Scout leaders). Driver in front was too close to what was in front of him and had to slap on the breaks. He skidded left from the right hand lane of the motorway, before skidding right and ended up hitting the crash barrier in the centre of the road head on. He stopped a damn sight faster than I could. I ran into the side of him with a police patrol car seeing all this. Ambulance was called for wife and passenger, due to minor injuries and I sat in the police car talking to the driver/police officer, while waiting for recovery. He told me that as soon as the driver skidded, there was absolutely nothing I could do to avoid a crash. I wonder how much whiplash he suffered because he must have hit that barrier at close on 60 MPH.
I see it now, I was wrong to slow down for a car that was aiming for me after drifting out of his right hand lane without signalling, after I tried to come over a give way line, to join the lane to his left and have him run into me. What was the lady driver of the 4 x 4 looking at? When did it become my responsibility to ensure that a driver behind me can stop safely before hitting me?
I haven't snipped the above, because I can't see how a couple of, quote "," can affect the parsing of that sentence. How can I be behind myself?
If yu do teh calculations, its is astonishing how quickly you can stop a car without killing the driver. You only have to look at formula one etc for that.
I think 100mph to 0 in 6 feet or so is quite survivable. If well strapped in to something that won't poke sharp bits into you.
From 100 mph to stop I make it 672 feet/g so at around 100g its a shade under 7 feet.
for the unitiatied
1g is normal, and goodish brakes
2-3g is fairground ride stuff, and really good brakes/tyres or race car stuff.
4-6g is getting towards dizziness and serious formula 1 car stuff
6-10g is combat pilot territory - or red bull air races,and temporary blackouts or redouts.
10-20g is a bit of a shock, and will result bruising.
20-50g is quite a crash, and unless strapped in things start to snap.
50-150g is internal bruising and concussion.
150g-400g upwards is broken bones no matter how well starpped in, and concussion. >400g is multiple internal trauma, and usually death.
If cars were made with full race style safety cages, a 6ft crumple zone at the front, and the drivers all wore belts and helmets, just about any impact up to > 100mph would be survivable.
Its a different story with a pedestrian though..one hit by a car directly to the human body is a 50-50 chance at around 5mph.
The thing with g forces is a bit like electric shocks. The duration is all important. In addition the direction of the force and how the body is supported also make a big difference.
4-5g+ sustained without any protection and without practice will cause many people to start to "grey out" if the force is applied along the spin axis. However with proper support and practice a fighter pilot can routinely pull 9g.
-ve g (i.e. toward the head) however is far less survivable 2-3g being enough to start causing damage. Across the spinal axis we can take far higher forces. Over 15g acceleration is tolerable to most people without any special protection.
Not necessarily - there have been cases where people have survived much higher short duration exposures. The record is possibly held by the F1 driver David Purley who stuffed his car into a barrier at Silvestone during practice lap when his throttle stuck in the late '70s. They estimate he survived nearly 180g when he decelerated from over 100mph to zero in just over half a meter. It took several months to recover, and he suffered multiple fractures to his legs, pelvis and ribs. However he did race again in F1.
Depends on where you are looking I suppose. He said the first thing he was aware of was the horse landing in front of him. He did not see it in the field at all. It was open road, horse, bang!
I doubt even the sensible speeders can do much in that time scale.
He was following cattle being driven down a road toward their milking shed. One particularly large specimen got spooked by something and started backing down the lane away from the other animals. Chap in the car was stopped - but the cow effectively reversed into him, and then sat on the front of the car as it lost its balance.
So you think the record case has any bearing on real accidents? All it does is give idiots a feeling that they will be the one to survive, ask any smoker and you will get a similar false belief.
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