Its odd coz I have heaps of friends say "you have a rex, you can go faster
in the wet". What they don't realise is that it may hold on longer but
when it does let go you have a bigger accident coz your going faster.

R I P

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My flame suit is on. Give it your best biatch.


[COLOR="Red"]My STI's carbon emissions are offset by killing puppies.[/COLOR]

fobz your spot on.

R I P Suresh, i knew you briefly.

wet weather and passengers = no risks.

Come on mate you're smarter than that. You know that car was doing a lot more than 60. Yes you can get extensive damage at low speeds, but not this much. If cars crumpled that easily then we would have much higher death tolls and car companies would be under significant pressure to strengthen B pillars. During safety testing do you honestly think Subaru would have slammed the test car into a pole sideways at < 60km, watch it disintegrate and gone "oh yeah that will do". I understand you wanting to perhaps emphasise that you can have fatal accidents at low speeds and I'm being very objective here , but suggesting this car was doing the speed limit is ludicrous.

he never said he was doing 60, he was suggesting that even IF....key word IF. and yes cars do crumple very easily, i had a crash at about 30 k's and hr and it toally wrecked my front end a few years ago. Pretty much everything will damage at speeds, thus why there so much emphasis on getting people to slow down, less likely to crash, and if it does happen theres a less risk of a fatality.

I have probably been away from physics classes longer than most of you but I don't remember anything about accelarating an object without inputing some sort of force.

If you start aquaplaning or go onto wet grass the grip level will dramaticaly reduce and any decelaration will be reduced dramaticaly which may feel like you accelarate but it is not the case.

The rules of physics don't change just cos the "OH SHIT" factor increased dramaticaly.

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I think the reason a lot of accidents occur in the first place is from complacency about speed and limits. People seem to think that if they do the speed limit they are 'automatically' safe. All those white signs around with black numbers inside a red circle are LIMITS not TARGETS. There's no such thing as safe speeding can also be applied to speed limits. Just because you're doing the speed limit doesn't mean you can take your eyes off the road for a bit or lose your concentration momentarily because that's all it takes. Anticipation makes driving safer, not doing the limit.

In this case unfortunately someone has died. Maybe if he had off kept of the kerb, been doing the speed limit etc etc. Basically he had zero respect for the conditions and was not driving accordingly. R.I.P Suresh and I hope the two passengers make a full recovery.

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If it had hit the b pillar, it would be a different story, but if you look at the foto, the pole has hit the door, FORWARD, of the b pillar, in as i said, one of the weakest parts of the car..

not much between the drive and the pole then, except a few sheets of flimsy steel..

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I contract for western power inspecting poles for their structural integrity and treating them for wood rot ect.

1stly, every pole is different and some have been in the ground since the 70's, jarrah poles from that time are still bloody strong.

A few years back we used a bending/breaking machine on some poles to test the poles and if they broke western power would come and replace them so I can find out an average snap force required if yas want me to ask the higherups.

It all depends one the type of wood, age, internal wood rot, treatments, reinforcing, yadda yadda yadda... I would go as far to say if the pole did NOT snap (if it was a 700mm dia jarrah pole with massive reinforcing) the car would have and it could have been alot worse for the other 2 occupants.

But without knowing much about the pole at hand I cant really make any comment about it.

If your ever heading for an impact look to where you want the car to go not where you think its going to go (look to open space, not the big tree your heading for), your body/brain has a habit of taking the car to where your eyes are pointing, thats why heaps of accidents happen/nearly happen when the driver is writing a message on their mobile or searching for a song on their stereo.... you tend to veer they way your eyes are looking.

I was aquaplaning driving home from toodyay last friday. 110kph, aquaplaning going into bends driving down a big hill aint much fun so you adjust your driving to suit the conditions... I sat on pretty much 80 the rest of the way with low and controlled throttle input.

Deepest sympathies to all involved.

Very good advice people, hope you're taking notes. 9/10 the car will end up where you are looking.
As was said previously, the OH SHIT factor increases dramatically, but that is where some form of driver trainer can help. Personally I grew up in a small town in Victoria and my mates and I were forever hooning around in paddocks doing sic skids, donuts, power drifts etc. It really has made me a better driver for it because to know how to control a car, first you must know how to lose control. All people are taught in this country are the road rules and how to change gears. If everyone had to go through a skidpan day or similar the number of accidents would go down overnight. However, there's always a few cowboys who would then say 'I know what I'm doing now, and I'm the best driver ever' and these are the one's who would still be having high speed accidents because their beleifs outweigh their abilities.

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Have mentioned in another thread before. Step dad used to be an instructor and also did advanced driver training and for a while was involved with a crowd that had some cars with a frame and hydraulics that would lift weight off any or all of the wheels. No joke you could lift it right up and push the thing sideways by hand if you wanted.

Funny thing though when driving it you may have only been doing 30 - 40 km/h but you couldn't feel the car had no weight on the wheels it just slid. HOWEVER THE INSTRUCTOR WANTED.

Didn't matter how good you were if he wanted you to loose the rear end you would loose it and didn't know if he had lifted the wheels right off the ground or if it was the fact that you simply couldn't control it.

Every single person left realising how easy it was to get out of control and NOT being able to recover it. If they couldn't control it at 40 how the hell were they going to cope with the overloaded, top heavy work van that they always tailgaited everyone in at 80 or 100.

Was really quite wicked there was a slight camber on the strip of track that they had. made you realise how much a car can drift from a straight line when you lock wheels.

Still enjoy a spirited drive but sure as hell has made me think a lot more about the situations I am prepared to put myself in.

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