Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Wreck in Japan

[Adam Green (FlatCrank]

On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 9:53 AM, Brian Keegan <bks281 [at] hotmail.com> wrote:

Honorable Crash Test Dummies ran out of skill, options, and adhesion almost simultaneously.

Looking at the videos of that road, I imagine they all got a dozen or more warnings that they were driving on a narrow road with poor traction, but they kept pushing and showing off.  Fortunately for them, nobody is behind bars awaiting a manslaughter trial, they probably see it as all such a laugh and very manly fun.

I've been on a few of these drives, my car is well set up and turning a healthy 520hp at the flywheel, but I don't need to risk lives to show it accelerate, still, guys come flying past, driving on the wrong side of the lines, diving deep under brakes as if they're on a familiar track where all variables have been checked lap after lap, but no, here we are barreling up a canyon road chosen because nobody knew it.  Good grief.  I gave up those absurd games.  And a year later, a guy --  a very nice guy, well-liked, polite and respectful at the track, enthusiastic about his cars -- killed himself on one of those drives, and some were stupid enough to call it an "accident."

Rant on speeding tickets (delete now at your pleasure) :

Much as I loathe speeding tickets -- they do nothing to curb this kind of behavior -- I think there needs to be one helluva big speeding ticket for morons that participate in this kind of driving.  When they end up in a wreck like this, it should be a quick visit to the ER, then in cuffs and behind bars for attempted manslaughter (or equivalent) and fines, I think like Sweden?, geared to their net worth or taxed income, so a speeding ticket could well be USD$500K per person when it ends up like this.  Forget giving people a ticker for 75 mph on a freeway in commute traffic, that's just indirect taxation.  Make it an income-geared fine for doing 35 past a school (as I see almost every morning ... I set my speed to about 30 mph in a 25 zone or 25 when it's a school ... and soccer moms in minivans are flashing their headlights demanding I clear out of their way ...) so they need say a one year gross income fine for anything above 35 in a school zone.  Then, I think we'd start to have reasonable speed laws.  If I'm out on a country road doing 100 mph on a Sunday morning, I should get little more than a "we frown upon this, but there's no other car in a 10 mile radius, no side roads, no driveways, no paths, not even a horse or a cow, so just take it easy and be sure to slow down well before the next town, it's about 75 miles ahead."  Reminds me of getting stopped while towing to the track.  I was doing about 65 or 70.  The (female) CHP stopped me.  I didn't even look at my speedo.  She advised "that's too quick, it gets very windy up ahead when the road goes along the coast, so keep it to 55, bye now!" ... that is what I call sensible law enforcement.