Revolver

Timbo

Even if there were enough people with the will to organise regular amateur track days, another impediment is insurance.

The owners of tracks like Oran Park have very strict indemnities built into their hire agreement which basically gets them off the hook even if an accident is due to failure on their part to properly maintain the track, etc.

Many non-commercial would-be hirers cannot afford or even obtain the insurance required, which makes the whole thing far too risky to entertain.

I know a fellow who ran motorcycle track days at Oran Park. Although he tried to run a professional outfit with the requisite safety briefings, medical back-up, track inspections, etc, it all came apart when a goose overcooked it, came off and decided everybody but himself was to blame. Result: protracted and expensive litigation and no more track days.

Hymee

iTrader: (1)

Revolver,

Point 1 has some merit - the bit about the pissed mates.

Points 2&3 - Why should it be any different. That is my whole point - intensive training and testing.

Point 4 - Yeah that is a funny one. Might not be any pole up there, but there is a big hard thing called the earth, and if you fall out of the sky it is one helluva whak-*** when you hit it.

As for the ******** who cooked it and went to town on eveybody else... FFS. No wonder this insurance things is getting out of hand. People can't take responsibility for their actions, and f@ck it up for everyone else. ********.

Cheers,
Hymee.

idolo

I can't believe some of the **** attitudes i have read in this thread.

17 year olds may well drive like ********* in RX8's but they will also be ********* in Datsun 120Y's. I know which one is safer to drive fast and i also know which one i would rather crash in.

Australia stop being such a pack of ****'s and realise that you can't legislate against everything. Many young people will be reckless regardless of the type of car they are driving. Remember we were all young once. The road safety campaign in this country is based on a pack of lies. We have more road deaths per head of population than Germany and its non speed limited autobahns. Why you may ask, because our roads are **** and theirs are good, plain and simple. Road safety here is not about real road safety, its about justifying revenue raising through ridiculous laws and speed limits.

It really makes me angry that so called car enthusiasts like many of you nod approvingly at many of these draconian laws.

Zephyr i feel sorry for you mate. Being punished for driving a nice/safe car simply because you are young. Just take off the plates and keep driving it mate, f&%k them!!!

ELITE-RX8

Thats right man. just drive.

was talking to my friend the other day.

Like idolo said. if you drive a fast car but not safe. and you drive a fast car and safe. which one you want to be in??

i think the police need to know which car is safe and which aren't.

not just say that can't drive more than 125KW car.
if thats the case. BMW can be safe but more than 125kw. and some other car can be less then 125kw but you might die if you him with 60 or 70 km per hour.

Revolver

Hymee

Tongue was firmly in cheek on point 4.

I agree with the essential point you're making. I just think we're such a long way from comparing car licencing to fighter jet training that the analogy gets stretched too thin. Agreed they're both highly dangerous when misused - the trick is to get the balance right between increasing the amount of instruction/education required but not to make it so prohibitive that only the wealthy can afford it (i.e. a bit like learning to fly).

takahashi

I never see it at the way that idolo see it....

It could potentially a discrimination case.

Gibbo

As we have said not everyone matures, there are even some older people that don't gorw up.

Idolo, the point of this thread was to promote further training for drivers, promote safer attitudes and take away the immediate temptation of street racing. There is a legitimate reason why so many race car drivers started out in go-karts. They learn to walk before they run. This is the same on the road, put you foot to the floor in a 120Y in the wet and see what happens, do the game in a GTS Skyline or a V8 Commodore and see what happens. It comes down to experience, I am the first to admit that there are many crap older drivers out there, but as has previouslybeen said they are not the statistic here.

I am all for more training and limitations on vehicles more in line with motor cycle laws type of guidelines. This is not draconian, this is simply setting limits for those that don't always know how to set their own.

When will society learn that the actions of the few will always dictate the laws of the many. This is not fair, this is not just, it is the law. I know because this is the very reason I am no longer a lawyer, I could not accept that the law is not fair and it is not just. The law is a set of rules that attempts to make us civilised.

If you don't like a law I suggest you challenge it and fight it for all you're worth, however if you purposely break that law don't winge if you get caught.

That is my 2c worth, like it not.

rotarenvy

I don't see a lack of facilities, I see a lack of participation at the facilities!
when I went to the drags it cost me $30 plus fuel (it was Warwick drag 1/8 mile) for as many runs as I could fit it. when I went back through town there was the usual lapping morons annoying the public. why weren't they participating? they just don't want to. you can provide all the facilities you want and the unsocial and dangerous morons will still be doing it on the streets.
unless you don't have a facility within 200km then you can't complain in my book. they should get off their ***** and make some effort to go to a venue and stop being apathetic and making excuses.

I wish all P platers were sensible enough to deserve the right to drive whatever they wanted but the fact is they aren't and never will be, as wisdom only comes with age. the rx-8 is a safe car but there is the dsc disable button and as the young Americans on this forum have proved temptation is too strong and misfortune is what results.

I wish the police would crack down on unsafe driving, not speeding. on Thursday I wished a cop would book an idiot in a commodore Ute tailgating me at a distance he couldn't have stoped from. he went on to overtake at double lines on a crest, showing his intelligence and driving skills. education may have helped but I feel most people come away from defensive driving courses with the idea they are good drivers. they get this from all the encouragement you get from making small improvements. at the end of the day they go home with the message that they can break better, not the first message "you will hit the car if you don't leave enough gap an follow to close no matter how well you can break"

labrat

Perhaps one of the reasons why there are fewer road deaths per capita in Germany is because of better driver training. Your Dad can't teach you: you HAVE to go to a driving school (Fahrschule). You HAVE to pass both written and practical exams; and they are really tough. And the process is expensive, so a driving licence is a very valuable item. In my experience, German drivers are not only more skilled than Aussie drivers, thay are much better mannered (except when it comes to moving off from the lights). You get about 0.2 nanoseconds to get moving before they toot their horn. BUT, there is no road rage over it.

idolo

I agree whole heartedly with better driver training. I mean hell if you base a pass/fail in a test on whether or not you get a reverse park right first go then i'm sure half of us would fail on any random day.

I recently heard a good proposal. Currently P platers in NSW must be on their P's for 3 years. Then why not offer them a chance to do an advanced/defensive/whatever u wanna call it driver training course, at which on completion they are entitled to ditch the P plates after 2 not 3 years. If they couldn't be bothered doing the training then they can cop the 3 years on their P's. The government could subsidise this training with their speed camera revenue. I can see Rotaryeny's point with this perhaps giving them a false sense of security, but you can't control people's attitudes, you just have to hope the training just might one day save their and perhaps someone else's lives.

I also completely agree with the points about driving in the right lane. I must say their is little that infuriates me more. Why don't the government run an add campaign on TV about this. I am sick of the constant adds that go something "like braking from 60km/h takes x amount of metres to stop whereas braking from 50km/h takes x less". What nonsense, in what type of car? How alert was the driver? Did the driver consider steering to avoid the crash as opposed to jamming on the brakes? Did the driver ever learn to check his/her tyre pressures so that the tyres gripped better?

How about an add campaign that says GET THE F$%K OUT OF THE RIGHT HAND LANE. To me this is a far bigger factor in causing possible fatalities than driving at 50 as opposed to 60. I do agree with 50 in quite streets, but it is being way overused.

Labrat you are right about the attitudes of Aussie drivers. I think a major difference between driving in Germany than Australia is the unspoken rule about the hierarchy of cars. VW keeps the way out of Audi which keeps the way of Porsche. Nothing is more annoying than a Hyundai sitting in the right hand lane. All cars were not created equal.

At the end of the day not all drivers were created equal, punishing a young person based on nothing other than their age is wrong. I will never agree with laws like this. There are far more important issues that need to be addressed first.

Wildcard

LMAO!!! :D :D :D

Or what about "If you have been doing 20 under for the last 10 mins and have a chain of 30 cars backed up behind you, PULL OVER"

Revolver

It also helps that most German autobahns are about 1 million times better than the goat track that passes as the major highway on the east coast of Aus.

Germans might just be better at moving over because they've usually got four lanes to pick from.

Having said that, there's absolutely no excuse for being in the right lane unless you're overtaking - and that goes for everyone - i.e. us, not just the Hyundai drivers.