Pushed in one of the rear reflectors on the rear bumper plus left some blue paint on it. The Porache garage chagred the insurance company over 1200 to repair it!! I've have pulled the reflector out, polished the paint off and forgot about it myself like...
wow. that is really cheap for a porker, esp considering how rare the parts are etc. i do love those cars so much, they were king ding-a-ling when i was growing up
Dad had one and loved it to bits - Only his Treser Quattro came close as his all time favourite car he's owned. Don't know what you young 'uns think but I was acutely aware of how cr4p I was at driving for a good couple of years after passing and didn't really start to feel confident until I'd done my IAM training (which served to highlight even MORE errors I was making!). The thought of looning around was not on my mind until I really felt I'd learned to control a car properly - Which took a while. Anyone that drives too fast not knowing what happens if they need to stop very quickly, or if the grip goes on a bend is REALLY REALLY stupid and doesn't deserve a license - The test should include much more car control.
yup. you shouldnt be getting involved in things that you have no idea about. youre not allowed to drive until you have passed a test, but that does not qualify you to drive fast. driving fast is a whole different ball game and IMO cannot really be taught. people take wild stabs at 'driving fast'. theyre lucky if they live and very often end up binning their car (who here hasnt binned a car?) lol its like people lowering/modifying their cars for the sake of it without knowing the first thing about what theyre doing and what the outcome will be.... you should know at least something about the matter before getting it under way... hence it scares the crud out of me to be in a car with a know-nothing-numpty who is attempting to drive fast.
but do they know what to do if you loose grip though? there is nothing inherently wrong with driving beyond the grip levels of your tyres, as long as you know what to expect and how to control it
Having the Caterham in prefectly balanced four wheel drift is great fun but definately NOT something that should be done on the public road - if you know how to do it or not. I think the difference between a good driver and an experianced driver is that the good driver will drive at high speed without crashing, the experianced driver will know better...
yup, so true. the road is good, you can have fun, but there are so many uncertainties. im sure a caterfield could be put sideways etc etc etc but you are not sure whats gonna be coming next. i made a bit of a mistake years ago when i had an MR2 turbo. long left hander coming off a roundabout, hard in 3rd, but under estimated what a slightly wet drain cover would do with 300horses trying to get the ground. it stepped slightly sideways, but quite sharply. the car was held and just rode out the rest of the corner with a few degrees of opposite lock, but thank god the roads were clear. wouldnt have been able to do that without a fair bit of space lol in short. shouldnt have done it!
Wakes you up doesn't it!! I did something very similar in my E30 going to the Pizza shop in the rain. It's a great story to tell in the pub afterwards though - if you live! - lol
the mr2 turbo was sideways a lot. the turbos have LSD and go sideways a lot better than the non turbos. but it did it at big speed. the world slowed down momentarily as you added the situation up. the conclusion was 'this is tricky, its fixable, its just like any other time youre sideways.... but youre doing xxmph, if you dont get it right its going to be really nasty' so its the pressure that comes with such an error of judgement that put me off really silly antics lol hence the golf is quite cool because you cannot go fast enough to get into big trouble
My mate had an MR2 turbo and it was LETHAL! Just think too many drive on the road not even knowing whether their car is front, rear or four wheel dribe (as an example) therefore having no idea how to use the power effectively. They just have a pedal that makes them go faster and another that slows them down. While I could probably drive almost anything now, I'd still be nervous in an absolute monster of a car yet many drive silly cars with far less skill than humble old me (which really is VERY little skill). Not just experience though - Makes me mad when taxi drivers (for example) harp on about being great drivers having had a license for 20+++ years yet they drive like complete muppets. It's attitude that counts - Always wanting to learn more, always being willing to accept when you have made a mistake, always giving others who drive badly the benefit of doubt before going pysco on them!
did his have silly power? if you think they handled 'badly' yuo should try an NA one. they were not nice. they would go sideways but were very hard to gather back together due to lack of LSD. was wierd.
His was kicking out about 280bhp I think (Jap import) - Very quick in a straight line. Not saying it handled really badly but it was very easy to get it wrong. Not sure if it had an LSD but it stayed on the road enough to make me think that maybe it did have one.
was a lot of fun to hussle but you had to be sensble with the throttle. i dont get why/how people expect to drive normally with an on/off throttle with the turbo, you werent balancing the throttle response with your right foot, it was the turbos response. would be by feel and sound and tiny inputs. not a car that was easy to just in and drive fast (like scoobys, i hate scoobys for being so boringly simple to drive quickly). my friend had one that he spun on a wet slip road at 70 odd in 4th because he was being lazy. theyre just an involving car to drive....
Driving standards have reduced considerably in the last 20 years. One of the principle reasons for this is the modern disease of 'apathy' which in this case manifests itself as a total disregard for anyone else on the road. As the sheer volume of traffic continues to increase, this will only get worse. Although more traffic might suggest a trend toward more careful and considerate driving, the opposite (due to that typically modern attitude that is 'me first') has become apparent. Another reason is that modern cars cosset the driver to an extent that, with their ABS/TC/impact protection etc, they consider themselves to be something bordering on indestructible. Young drivers, who have been raised on a diet of 'you crashed, restart the level or quit ?' often seem blissfully unaware of the consequences of careless or inappropriate driving, far more so than when I started driving and that was only back in 1994. Sadly, whilst its fair to say older drivers can be a danger on the roads, young people (as has always been the case) are more willing to take risks in order to impress their peers. Given the choice, I would rather be driven by a 70 year old in his Honda than a 17 year old in his 'blinged' up Corsa. There are of course, exceptions to any rule ... but generally (and there really is nothing wrong with a generalisation now and then) younger drivers are of a poorer standard, due to their total inexperience if nothing else.
the test is too easy as well. society has changed. the cars are safer, people seem to inherently take more risks to redress the danger balance. therefore, the test should provide for when driving situations are not perfect. how can you not be allowed on a motorway as a learner and then once you pass the test, drive home on a motorway. i have a friend who is scared of both b roads and motorways and cannot drive on either, maybe because she never had to prove her proficiency when she took the test
I agree. How you can be allowed on the roads when you have never been given any instruction on how to control a skid for example, is beyond me. It would be entirely possible, if you were to take lessons/a test in summer, to pass your test having never driven on wet roads ... as for the motorway, again I couldnt agree more. I once knew a girl who, after quite some time driving, still hadnt driven on a motorway. In the end, myself and another friend had to force her into doing so and even then, with us in the car, she was terrified.
