Bmw 4 series spun out of control m25
Discussion
OP, sometimes it takes a situation like this to give you a real wake up call. As long as you do learn from it, you could even call it a blessing. I'm genuinely astonished that you didn't damage yourself, the car or even someone else. Just count yourself extremely lucky, as i'm sure and hope that you do.
Knowledge and experience are key things here. My dad always taught me basic car maintenance and checks, which is vital, IMO. The experience bit is not just driving experience (or lack of it) but more of being a young lad driving a relatively new and powerful RWD car. Combine the two and here you are.
Knowledge and experience are key things here. My dad always taught me basic car maintenance and checks, which is vital, IMO. The experience bit is not just driving experience (or lack of it) but more of being a young lad driving a relatively new and powerful RWD car. Combine the two and here you are.
Pan Pan Pan said:
Saw a BMW on the M25 the other day, which had what looked like very low profile tyres, where one of the rears was partially deflated, the side wall appeared to be so tiny (probably little more than 10 -18 mm) that I wondered how long it would be before the wheel rim was either running on the ground, or cutting its way through the deflated tyre wall.
I did a road trip with some friends this weekend. The girl driver of the other car (small Vauxhall hatchback) mentioned to me that her car was a bit wobbly and could I have a look at them when we go to Pease Pottage, a fair trek from London. 19PSI! Explained to her how to fill up her tyres (to 32PSI) in future, and maybe get a pump from Halfords.Pan Pan Pan said:
A driver should drive to suit the road conditions or to the posted limit, whichever gives the higher speed. Driving at less than this negates the whole point of using motor vehicles.
Agree with this...Pan Pan Pan said:
There is no such thing as a safe speed, once a vehicle of any kind from a bicycle to a hgv to an airliner, to a ship, is moving it has the potential to injure or kill. Anyone who believes they are driving at a safe speed are just kidding themselves
The main question for society is what speed achieves the best balance between reducing (Note! not eliminating) the chances of death or injury, whilst still allowing vehicles of all kinds to be used in a way which makes them worth using. This too is a whole other argument.
Disagree with this...The main question for society is what speed achieves the best balance between reducing (Note! not eliminating) the chances of death or injury, whilst still allowing vehicles of all kinds to be used in a way which makes them worth using. This too is a whole other argument.
Safe is not a hard B&W concept where something is safe or unsafe - it is contextual, and subjective - it is also statistical and the boundary choices there are very subjective and emotively driven... The reality is that you can't escape death at some point, so everything you do day to day is a part of a life which ultimately leads to death - therefore arguably every choice you make and every action you take has an associated statistical risk of death...
Therefore safe can not mean 0 chance of death as there is no such route through life... once you accept that safe has to include a % chance of death it is then simply a matter of setting where society is comfortable - at one end, every drive leading to death would not be ideal - 50% would put most people off - in fact pulling off some random gov. stats showing c 34 billion road trips a year (c. 34 million licence holders making on average over 1,000 trips p/a each - 2015) and 1,713 deaths a year (all road users - 2013) - that means that on average c. 1 in 20 million trips leads to death or 0.000005% of trips end in death...
that looks as though statistically it is getting very close to 0 - i.e. our roads are very safe! You can't base safety on potential to kill - any object has the potential to kill if being used inappropriately - a golf club has the potential to kill someone, or be used to kill someone - so you need to consider the actual figures...
when you look at government statistics: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa... and https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-set... speed is a small part of the cause of accidents - often added as a contributory factor when reported (partly because of the political climate, partly because it is easy to measure), but in most accidents, take the speed out of the equation and the other factors were still sufficient to cause the accident - therefore speed is not the primary cause - I think that latest gov. figures show it as c. 4% of accidents - biggest issues are:
- driver / rider error or reaction
- impairment or distraction
- behaviour or inexperience
- injudicious action
road / environment / vehicle defects are all really small
so basically - there is a staggeringly small chance of death from a road trip (more likely to win the lottery), plus when it does happen it is mainly down to human error...
so speed has little or nothing to do with anything
ked. For the extra bonus point, I'm saying the sat-nav issue was utter bulls
It's impossible to say what happened without actually being there, because 'raining' could mean anything between slightly damp and significant standing water, but it's highly likely it was simply aquaplaning. For a given dynamic situation and for a given car, aquaplaning is a function of water depth, tyre tread depth and vehicle speed, so any combination of these could have been at fault (note that doing 90mph doesn't leave much scope for the other two to vary!).
With enough water on the road it could have happened with decent tyres, but it's worth checking the tyre wear on all four tyres to see if they contributed. The other thing that's likely is that hitting the brakes caused the accident. Stability control is extremely good, but if the car's starting to rotate at 90mph and you brake (the last thing you should do!), then the polar rotational forces involved if you brake would be enormous (thus the multiple spins!).
The good thing is the car's undamaged and you've been brave enough to own up and ask for advice. Basically: drive more carefully!
With enough water on the road it could have happened with decent tyres, but it's worth checking the tyre wear on all four tyres to see if they contributed. The other thing that's likely is that hitting the brakes caused the accident. Stability control is extremely good, but if the car's starting to rotate at 90mph and you brake (the last thing you should do!), then the polar rotational forces involved if you brake would be enormous (thus the multiple spins!).
The good thing is the car's undamaged and you've been brave enough to own up and ask for advice. Basically: drive more carefully!
Edited by RobM77 on Monday 1st October 11:15
superlightr said:
OP -
Hope you are building on your driving experience and not had any scares recently?
Did you sort the tyres out/have any extra training?
I am sure I read somewhere that OP was talking about having it remapped. What could possibly go wrong Hope you are building on your driving experience and not had any scares recently?
Did you sort the tyres out/have any extra training?
Edited by superlightr on Monday 1st October 10:43
RobM77 said:
It's impossible to say what happened without actually being there, because 'raining' could mean anything between slightly damp and significant standing water, but it's highly likely it was simply aquaplaning. For a given dynamic situation and for a given car, aquaplaning is a function of water depth, tyre tread depth and vehicle speed, so any combination of these could have been at fault (note that doing 90mph doesn't leave much scope for the other two to vary!).
With enough water on the road it could have happened with decent tyres, but it's worth checking the tyre wear on all four tyres to see if they contributed. The other thing that's likely is that hitting the brakes caused the accident. Stability control is extremely good, but if the car's starting to rotate at 90mph and you brake (the last thing you should do!), then the polar rotational forces involved if you brake would be enormous (thus the multiple spins!).
The good thing is the car's undamaged and you've been brave enough to own up and ask for advice. Basically: drive more carefully!
Have a read of the thread - its scarily enlightening. With enough water on the road it could have happened with decent tyres, but it's worth checking the tyre wear on all four tyres to see if they contributed. The other thing that's likely is that hitting the brakes caused the accident. Stability control is extremely good, but if the car's starting to rotate at 90mph and you brake (the last thing you should do!), then the polar rotational forces involved if you brake would be enormous (thus the multiple spins!).
The good thing is the car's undamaged and you've been brave enough to own up and ask for advice. Basically: drive more carefully!
Edited by RobM77 on Monday 1st October 11:15
A quick summary -
- drives aggressively, inexperienced driver, spins at 90mph in heavy rain, in the dark, never heard of aquaplaning, doesnt understand the changing nature of grip with rain, doesn't understand car control, TC light flashes a lot at him, thinks its a twitchy BMW, admits to having mis-matched tyres and also at least one bald and wonders why the car spun on the Mway.
Edited by superlightr on Monday 1st October 11:32
superlightr said:
RobM77 said:
It's impossible to say what happened without actually being there, because 'raining' could mean anything between slightly damp and significant standing water, but it's highly likely it was simply aquaplaning. For a given dynamic situation and for a given car, aquaplaning is a function of water depth, tyre tread depth and vehicle speed, so any combination of these could have been at fault (note that doing 90mph doesn't leave much scope for the other two to vary!).
With enough water on the road it could have happened with decent tyres, but it's worth checking the tyre wear on all four tyres to see if they contributed. The other thing that's likely is that hitting the brakes caused the accident. Stability control is extremely good, but if the car's starting to rotate at 90mph and you brake (the last thing you should do!), then the polar rotational forces involved if you brake would be enormous (thus the multiple spins!).
The good thing is the car's undamaged and you've been brave enough to own up and ask for advice. Basically: drive more carefully!
Have a read of the thread - its scarily enlightening. With enough water on the road it could have happened with decent tyres, but it's worth checking the tyre wear on all four tyres to see if they contributed. The other thing that's likely is that hitting the brakes caused the accident. Stability control is extremely good, but if the car's starting to rotate at 90mph and you brake (the last thing you should do!), then the polar rotational forces involved if you brake would be enormous (thus the multiple spins!).
The good thing is the car's undamaged and you've been brave enough to own up and ask for advice. Basically: drive more carefully!
Edited by RobM77 on Monday 1st October 11:15
A quick summary -
- drives aggressively, inexperienced driver, spins at 90mph in heavy rain, in the dark, never heard of aquaplaning, doesn't understand car control, TC light flashes a lot at him, thinks its a twitchy BMW, admits to having mis-matched tyres and also at least one bald and wonders why the car spun on the Mway.
I hope that this guy realises how bad things could have got if this incident happened on a tree lined A road, or a busy motorway, and calms down a bit!
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