Confidence/Limits

[PhillipR34]

I'm new to the forums so Hi first of all.

I see all these videos of crashes in various events/races and I was wondering if people really push that hard on public roads?

I was overtaken by a saxo today and then about 30 seconds later I saw it on it's roof half way round a roundabout. I've only been driving for a few months and it was a bit of a reality check for me. Really made me think about all the times I've driven 'swiftly' and what could have happened.

So do you push that hard on public roads?

Would like to hear of any experiences where things have gone wrong or close calls. Hopefully I can learn from your mistakes

[Sump]

Here go nuts:

http://www.pistonheads.com/GASSING/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[paranoid airbag]

As a rule of thumb, if I've ended up upside down, I've pushed too hard.

(Sorry I can't be more helpful. Erm... crash thread is probably good. I'm fairly miss daisy, if only because I don't really know of places where enthusiasm isn't limited by "stop in the distance you can see to be clear")

[BritishRacinGrin]

Two close calls that I've had stand out for me- both involve hurtling down a 'B'-road in a flurry of youthful exuberance and continuing to hurtle upon seeing oncoming headlights, in the misguided belief that the vehicle those headlights belonged to would be entirely on the correct side of the road.

The first time it was a tractor towing a plough, no marker lights etc, just a cluster of headlights on the front of the tractor. I'd thought it was an old mod-style scooter from a distance, and by the time I'd gotten close enough to notice that the contraption was overriding the center line by about three feet it was too late to affect any kind of effort to stop, so I had to brake as well as I could, swerve as far as I could and hope not to collect it. I didn't hit it but in my effort to do so I had lost control and ended up spinning 180 deg but miraculously hitting nothing.

The second time it was a 7.5T truck horsebox thing, I rounded a bend to find that it was again well over the center line, I came out the other side very grateful for the narrowness of my Caterham.

In both cases I had relied on the competence of other drivers for my own safety; I would've been fine if they'd been on their side of the road but it taught me that other drivers cannot be relied upon and I need to leave a margin for their errors and drive at a more appropriate speed to give myself more options should I be confronted with the same situation again.

[Asterix]

Once you get past a lack of experience and common sense, ie. youngsters (mostly), then the road and other drivers tend to be the main reason for buggering up.

A mate of mine who's raced at an international level had a massive crash simply because he came round a corner, on a road he knew well, and there was a dump of hay in the middle of the road - he'd driven that road a million times, he said he was well within his and the cars limits (I have no reason to doubt him) but the rules changed in half a second and that was that. Car was stuffed into a telegraph pole.

I'm in Dubai and I've once, and once only, ever encountered diesel on the road in 11 years. I was coming to a stop at a set of traffic lights at night probably doing no more than 30kmh. Couldn't see there was oil all over the road and I put the brakes on, ABS started clicking away and I gracefully carried on until I was in the middle of the junction.

Luckily for me it was quiet and nothing happened.

What could I have done? Would that have been my fault?

Anyway, I save my speedy stuff for the track.

[jamieduff1981]

I was really quite apprehensive when I bought my Cerbera. I'd driven powerful cars before but either not driven them to their limits, or not driven them enthusiastically in the wet, or always had an electronic safety net.

Youtube is full of dashcam and bystander footage of powerful cars majestically yawing off the road under acceleration or one of a variety of other spectacular crash themes.

I definately have my limits and I think I know them. I've concluded that there is no real reason to crash whilst accelerating - there are ways to bring the car back in line but you do need to lift your right foot off the carpet.

Otherwise I've realised that I'm afraid of understeer which is probably why I just can't get along with FWD or AWD cars. I probably go slightly faster than being able to stop in half what I can see to be clear (and suspect most do) but I could slow to minor collision speed rather than A-team-esque fireballs. My road driving style has evolved to a slower entry speed on corners (because I'm paranoid about understeer) and then enjoying the application of power round the bend which in all my cars is quite benign and controllable without over committing to cornering speeds etc.

I seems to work well enough at keeping me off my roof.

[SLCZ3]

Found myself travelling too fast, in an Avenger many years ago, to effect a 90 deg righthander, fortunately it was a hire car with very good tyres on it, locked up the brakes and slide a considerable distance, with a good degree of righthand steering on, then stopped braking and the tyres gripped tremendously and basically did a hop of 90 degs to line up perfectly to take the righthander, taught me the old adage, slow in fast out.

Have witnessed two incidents where I have been overtaken, and then caught up with the overtaker at the next sharp bend, and noted the distance they travelled in to the fields when they could"nt make it round the bend, an excellent reminder.

[TooMany2cvs]

Asterix said:

Once you get past a lack of experience and common sense, ie. youngsters (mostly), then the road and other drivers tend to be the main reason for buggering up.

I hope you're not suggesting that applies to your "mate"...?

Asterix said:

A mate of mine who's raced at an international level had a massive crash simply because he came round a corner, on a road he knew well, and there was a dump of hay in the middle of the road - he'd driven that road a million times, he said he was well within his and the cars limits (I have no reason to doubt him) but the rules changed in half a second and that was that. Car was stuffed into a telegraph pole.

Clearly he wasn't within his limits. As the man said :-

paranoid airbag said:

I don't really know of places where enthusiasm isn't limited by "stop in the distance you can see to be clear")

[kambites]

paranoid airbag said:

I don't really know of places where enthusiasm isn't limited by "stop in the distance you can see to be clear")

Places where you aren't visibility limited do exist, but they're certainly the exception not the norm.

[chris watton]

I have found over the years that, it isn't just your own driving abilities that count. What is of equal importance is anticipating the stupidity of other driver's, ensuring you're not in their line of fire...

[SteveSteveson]

PhillipR34 said:

So do you push that hard on public roads?

No, never, and no one ever should push hard on a public road. Air field track days happen all over the country all the time and can be had for less than a night out. They are the place to go if you want to push hard.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy driving, and enjoy driving my car fast, but always with a HUGE margin for error on the road. I have made dumb mistakes as a kid thinking "I know the road" not realizing that all I know is what the road was like last time I drove it. Never anything major, but I spun a 340 volvo, almost hitting a lamp post, and then broke the suspension running off the road avoiding a car coming the other way as I was going too fast to brake and spun my mk 1 clio coming over a bridge too fast and ended up in the other lane facing the wrong way. The only real car crash I have been in involved a mate of mine hitting diesel on a roundabout and going in to a ditch. He was not going fast, but had he gone a little slower it would have been fine. All four could have been nasty had their been another car behind me or on coming the other way. Fortunately their was not.

We all do dumb stuff as kids, but the road is not the place to "push hard".

[DJP]

Asterix said:

...A mate of mine who's raced at an international level had a massive crash simply because he came round a corner, on a road he knew well, and there was a dump of hay in the middle of the road - he'd driven that road a million times, he said he was well within his and the cars limits (I have no reason to doubt him) but the rules changed in half a second and that was that. Car was stuffed into a telegraph pole...

Then your mate was driving like a knob - unable to stop within the distance he could see to be clear.

[CrutyRammers]

SteveSteveson said:

No, never, and no one ever should push hard on a public road. Air field track days happen all over the country all the time and can be had for less than a night out. They are the place to go if you want to push hard.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy driving, and enjoy driving my car fast, but always with a HUGE margin for error on the road. I have made dumb mistakes as a kid thinking "I know the road" not realizing that all I know is what the road was like last time I drove it. Never anything major, but I spun a 340 volvo, almost hitting a lamp post, and then broke the suspension running off the road avoiding a car coming the other way as I was going too fast to brake and spun my mk 1 clio coming over a bridge too fast and ended up in the other lane facing the wrong way. The only real car crash I have been in involved a mate of mine hitting diesel on a roundabout and going in to a ditch. He was not going fast, but had he gone a little slower it would have been fine.

We all do dumb stuff as kids, but the road is not the place to "push hard".

Sage advice ^^^^

[DJP]

BritishRacinGrin said:

...In both cases I had relied on the competence of other drivers for my own safety; I would've been fine if they'd been on their side of the road but it taught me that other drivers cannot be relied upon and I need to leave a margin for their errors...

That's what scares me about the wife's driving: She's a good enough driver in her own right, and you'd wait a million years for her to crash on her own, but she makes no allowance whatsoever for other people.

There was a case in point yesterday: We're on the main road and a guy's trying to pull out on our left. He's edging forward, whilst looking the other way (ie the wrong way). Mrs sails blithely on towards him. “Slow Down” I say. She doesn't. “SLOW DOWN” I repeat. She doesn't. The bloke starts pulling out. At the very last moment, he glanced our way and slammed on the brakes. He was a hair's breadth from pulling out right in front of us. We missed him by inches.

Now, I'd have eased off and been covering the brakes about 50 yards before (indeed, mentally I already was) but the Mrs just assumed that the bloke wasn't going to pull out.

And you can't tell her. She spent the next 20 minutes telling me that “He wasn't going to pull out”. Because, of course, she knows that.

[PhillipR34]

Thanks for the replies . The general theme seems to be that people generally people don't push that hard. I only ask because of all the videos I see. It also seems that other drivers simply can't be trusted to act how you want them too.

Thanks for the advice

[RobM77]

I think your choice of phrase is the most important thing. "Pushing hard" to me means breaching the limits of confidence and safety, neither of which are a good idea at all on the public road and I've never done either (except perhaps as a foolish 17/18 year old, but I think we've all been there). I personally leave a huge safety margin when overtaking or judging speed, probably bigger than most, but I'm happiest like that. The downside is that I tend to be a bad passenger, and whince around blind bends or crests, but that's something I just have to put up with.

However, if one is completely comfortable and experienced with a car's limits, those limits are low enough to be safe and a given corner or roundabout is well sighted and empty, then I see no problem with driving quickly if that person is experienced and capable. An F3 driver used to cornering at 100mph+ isn't really unsafe in a Morris Minor on a rainy day on an empty roundabout with the tyres sliding ever so slightly. The problem with discussing this is that most people are pretty narrow minded and they only view the world through their eyes, and if they wouldn't be safe doing something in their car (let's say they're a slightly above average driver in a performance car with very high levels of grip), then they just assume everyone else is the same. As far as I'm concerned, the cornering speed of 95% of people around blind bends on C roads, the stopping distance they leave on a motorway, or their judgement when overtaking, is far more dangerous than an experienced driver sliding a car a little with low limits on an empty roundabout. You'll never convince those people of that though, because they're too narrow minded.

To finish up where I started though, no, the road is not the place to get anywhere near your limits of confidence or ability.

[Prof Prolapse]

RobM77 said:

To finish up where I started though, no, the road is not the place to get anywhere near your limits of confidence or ability.

Which road?

[aka_kerrly]

DJP said:

And you can't tell her. She spent the next 20 minutes telling me that “He wasn't going to pull out”. Because, of course, she knows that.

Haha and if he had pulled out in front she'd have said why didn't YOU say something

To be honest I'm not quite sure where you can explore the limits other than in a controlled environment with huge run off areas and very few people around. The air strip track events do appear safer than a lot of tracks that have limited run off which can easily make a small mistake into a large incident for example Quarry corner at Castle Combe.

Even on track days there will always be a couple of people who think it's a race and potentially take risks that other track day goers wouldn't be happy with - especially when you introduce the question of track insurance and liability.

Confidence on the other hand can be improved on the road just as much as on the track as quite often it is overconfidence which is the source of problems. I've heard a lot of people say that you NEED some fear to keep you concentrating and those who drive completely carefree sky high on confidence can be easily undone!

[RobM77]

aka_kerrly said:

To be honest I'm not quite sure where you can explore the limits other than in a controlled environment with huge run off areas and very few people around. The air strip track events do appear safer than a lot of tracks that have limited run off which can easily make a small mistake into a large incident for example Quarry corner at Castle Combe.

Even on track days there will always be a couple of people who think it's a race and potentially take risks that other track day goers wouldn't be happy with - especially when you introduce the question of track insurance and liability.

Confidence on the other hand can be improved on the road just as much as on the track as quite often it is overconfidence which is the source of problems. I've heard a lot of people say that you NEED some fear to keep you concentrating and those who drive completely carefree sky high on confidence can be easily undone!

It's a very relevant point that you make. There are a few places where you can explore a car's limits and get tuition as well - try a Don Palmer or Andy Walsh day for example, both are very highly rated. In the absence of that, most car control is just down to being sensitive to what the car's doing. Most cars send out loads of signals saying what they've just done, what they're doing and what they're about to do, and if you listen to those you can learn the relationship between your control inputs and those outputs. You can do all that at very modest speeds on a track day without endangering yourself or your car, or indeed the public road at even more modest and of course, completely safe speeds, and if you're in tune with the car enough, taking things to higher slip angles on a track when you're ready won't bring any surprises - as an analogy look at how competent F1 drivers are sliding around at huge angles in road car magazine and You Tube features - they don't practise that at all, they just understand how cars handle from what they do in racing cars. It's the same going from road speeds to track speeds - cars broadly do the same things at 90mph round Copse Corner as they do at 40mph round a B road corner with a big margin of safety; accidents only happen when the driver hasn't listened to his car and understood what's going on, and you can do that at any speed. That said, going back to those Don Palmer days and the like - they'll accelerate certain aspects of the process massively.