Thread: High performance cars and young drivers

G'day Chops

Only thing was that most of my driving was done on roads around suburban Brisbane in the late 50's my mate had a late model 1954 8HP Ford Anglia Tourer,it did 50mph but it's brakes were worse than my V8


They are sought after vintage vehicles now.

cheers

I've got nothing but high performance cars. Kiddies on P's aren't allowed to drive my "high performance" vehicles.
Let's have a look at that in a little more detail.

They can't drive a 101. A V8 that struggles to get to 100km/h.
They can't drive my 100" hybrid. A V8 that struggles to get over 100km/h.
They can't drive my HSV enhanced Commodore with a whopping great 185kw V8.

But....

They can drive a Falcon G series with a 195kw 6cyl.
They can drive a Camry which can reach speeds over 200km/h.

The people making these rules have no Idea of reality. They seem to think the more cylinders, the faster it goes.
What they should be doing is grading vehicles on a power/weight ratio and setting a limit for inexperienced drivers. They may also consider encouraging vehicle manufacturers to produce lower performance versions like a 3 litre Falcon as well as the 4 litre version. How about offering really cheap registration to low power/weight ratio vehicles.

The whole issue needs to be looked at sensibly.

G'day Uncle, yep, I drove for a while a Ford Prefect,, awesome little car, wollowed quite badly, but was just awesome to drive, and as a 19 year old, I appreciated the oportunity I was given to do so.
I suspect because the FIL new I learnt in a VW Beetle, he figured between his daughter and the car, I'd do nothing wrong whilst both were in my care

The old WILLYS JEEP was the vehicles that the driving schools used in my time (in Montevideo)
It was fun to drive

doing 250kph on a freeway is just plain stupid mate. All it would have taken is a rabbit to run out in front of you, or a pot hole in the road to make you roll 40 times into a telegraph pole. You can be the best driver in the world but you CAN NOT control the environment your driving in.

Racing is different because it IS controlled, barriers, safety vehicles, run offs, flags, intercom etc. etc.

Anyone that thinks they can drive that speed on a public road and say its all skill is an idiot. Its purely luck.

put all P platers in old volvos with automatics 0 to 60 in about 6weeks I think give or take a few days problem sorted

Originally Posted by Allan

Have you ever attempted to drift a Smart?

Allan

Smart cars move with all the speed of continental drift. Is that what you meant?

Like most technical solutions to social problems, limiting cars that young drivers can drive is both impractical (in the sense that it can be done logically) and ineffective.

Limit number of cylinders as in NSW? Bans driving, for example, a 1985 110 with 95hp, but allows driving the same vehicle with the same power Isuzu, or a current, almost identical Defender, with 50% more power. Maybe someone can explain the sense of that - I can't see it.

Limit the power weight ratio young drivers are allowed? If set at an effective level, it would exclude virtually every car on the market. I don't think you can buy a car today with power weight as low as that of what were regarded as high power weight when I was leaning.

A few points to remember when thinking about this "problem".

1. The death rate on roads is at historically low levels, and has decreased steadily ever since records started, and is similar to almost any comparable country. The only actions that can be pointed to as having a significant effect by themselves are seat belts and random breath tests.

2. If you look at blood alcohol measured for all drivers in fatal accidents (20-50% above legal limit depending on source of data), and compare it to numbers found above legal limit in random testing (not really random as areas/times likely to get more positives are targetted) where number of positive tests is invariably well below 1%, usually below 0.1%, it is quite clear that alcohol is a far greater problem than high powered vehicles. More logical, and equally ineffective, would be to limit those under 25 to low alcohol beer! (P platers in NSW at least are already limited to zero BAC, which probably has no effect compared to the general limit)

3. More law is rarely the answer - in virtually every one of these "horror accidents" there are already multiple laws being broken. Probably in more than half the cases involved, the vehicle is stolen, speed limits are ignored, blood alcohol limits are ignored, or all of the above. I fail to see how adding one more to break is going to be do anything except make life harder for those who do try to be law abiding.

John