car park playtime

[cheekymonkey]

just a quick question. If one were to sneak into an empty car park at night when no-ones about and generally hoon it about and practice slides etc are you technically breaking the law.. i.e dangerous driving etc? personally i see it as getting to know your car in a safe environment but can't see a copper seeing it that way.

anyone got thoughts?
anyone been caught themselves?

thanks

[monkeyhanger]

I think you'll find it's a public place, therefore they'll throw the book at you if captured.

Remember such places tend to have CCTV too.

[Flat in Fifth]

opening up the possibility of a section 59 being issued and you do NOT want to go there.

Plus I always reckon that hooning on a wide open space doesn't teach you much. You need some constraints which you do not get if it doesn't matter if the slide is controlled by here...... or maybe here.........or even over here.

[eccles]

its probably not legal, but thousands of chavs in their souped up nova's and saxo's do it every night with impunity!

[telecat]

I think the "public place" is invalidated If access is restricted at any time in the year.

[KB_S1]

I used the local supermarket car park for some snow control practice last December.
I wasn't doing anything stupid, keeping it to speeds only slightly above how i would drive in snow on the road and practicing stopping and turning (with aid of h/brake occasionaly).
I did learn a lot that night.
As said in previous post big open space doesn't tell you much so i was using the bollards in the car park and doing fig' 8 and slaloms.
Probably technically illegal but I was well prepared to stand up for what i was doing as it was the first time i had driven that car in the snow and i found out a lot about when and how its ABS kicked in and the transition spell between grip'n'slip.

If you want to learn about high speed stuff, best get an instructor and do it properly.

[cheekymonkey]

Thanks for your thoughts guys, i've also done the old figure of 8 and stopping proceedures in the snow before and have found it invaluable in teaching me car control in a situations you don't normally encounter.

I'd love to do an airfiled then track day too , and i will do in due course but just wanted to evaluate the possible risk of playing in the public domain! I guess the answer is don't do it if you don't want trouble!

Thanks again

[mr clive]

A public place is defined as a place where a reasonable person would reasonably expect members of the public to be. A supermarket car park (even in the small hours) is definately a public place.

[^Slider^]

A public place is where a memeber of the public has access upon payment or otherwise at the material time. If the carpark was closed by barrier or maybe even signs stating no public access when store closed etc then it ceases to be a public place.

If no signs or barriers then it is a public place and as such can be treated as a highway for purposes of road traffic legislation.