Excessive speeding? Maybe not…
As most people will attest to, riding on roller coasters with friends are a lot of fun. Driving at the go-cart track and racing against your friends is a lot of fun as well. We enjoy our times with our friends and that’s a huge part of how we enjoy our lives. Do our friends influence our choices in life? Do you do things on the go-cart track that you wouldn’t do on public roads? Perhaps, but is that because you’re wearing a helmet, a three-point safety harness and under supervision with very little to hurt or damage? How do you know you’ve crossed the line of fun and safety?
I enjoy competitive sports. I’ve played them, coached them and love watching them. I’m a race fan as well and really enjoy watching what it takes to compete, but competing on a public road isn’t the proper place to do it. Now, when I say compete, I have to ask this question; who are you competing with on public roads if it’s just you and your friends in the same vehicle? Maybe you’re competing against time, maybe against yourself, or maybe you’re competing against the rules of the road or common sense. Whatever your reason, there has to be a safe place to do this and sometimes you just need to stop competing.
A driver was recently pulled over and charged with going 111 km/h over the speed limit. They were traveling 191 km/h in an 80 km/h zone. It was late at night; or early morning – depending on how you look at it. You wouldn’t think of it as being a risky time, but all it takes is a large animal coming into view in their path, a pedestrian walking out or another vehicle backing out of the driveway to make them do a sudden swerve that can cause two people to lose their lives. What or who were they competing with? http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/04/18/driver-speeding.html?cmp=rss
When pulled over the 24 year old driver and their passenger told the police officer they were on their way to the beach to watch the water. Here’s a newsflash; the water isn’t going anywhere! If you’re going to give a lame excuse to the police, couldn’t you come up with something that was a little more believable? Maybe something like; sorry officer, but I was trying to go as fast as possible to see if I could shave 5 minutes off my travel time. At least that honesty would make the officer listen to you. Maybe.
The good news about what this driver did is that they’re now off the road for one week as he lost his license for that time and his vehicle was taken away from him for the same period. This may help protect many other drivers on the road if this driver isn’t there, at least for one week. The other positive was that his insurance will most likely sky rocket. Maybe a lesson like that will stop this 24 year old driver from racing and speeding again. Or maybe not. Maybe other drivers can learn from this 24 year old driver’s ways and what could happen to them. Or maybe not.
Driving at 191km/h is the same as traveling at 53m/s. taking into account the international excepted perception/reaction time, the driver of such a vehicle will only be able to apply brakes or start swerving after the 1s. He would thus have traveled 53m before his/her evasive manouvre starts. On a level road with a rough tar surface, (mu = 0.8), and with his brakes working optimally, it would take a further 178.88m to skid to a complete stop. The reality of this is that if a pedestrian crosses the street within 231m in front of the speeding vehicle, the driver would not be able to stop in time.