Book 'em, Dano!

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Strike
[B]Not to get off on a rant here but....

Let's be realistic.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by rstark
[B] I think high speed racing is blatantly stupid.

 

Colin,
I hear you on the skow drivers and driving in the fast lane comment. I don't even live in Hawaii, but I always experience this on the roads there. When I was in Maui, we would drive from the Wailea area to Lahaina. We would pass all kinds of cars since people would be going really slow. I think it's just a part of the island's laid-back lifestyle. We were definitely the impatient people from LA.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Colin
[B]

For those who live on the East side, you have only a few lanes to drive on and a whole lot of stoplights.

 

Without any doubt DUI is a much greater problem than racing/ speeding in terms of morbidity and mortality--ask anyone who works at your local hospital's ED or OR. These two factors are frequently combined with tragic result but IMHO DUI is clearly the bigger problem. The legislature's knee- jerk overkill response to the recent tragedy should surprise no one who follows politics--a "get tough" stance is good publicity (n.b. next year is an election year here), and politicians seldom appreciate the practical impact of their actions. In an effort to protect children from pedophiles teenagers who have sex with younger girlfriends are imprisoned and permanently labeled as sexual predators. To combat substance abuse, recreational users are put in drug infested prisons under draconian mandatory sentencing laws. Now they want to throw kids in jail for speeding while drunk drivers usually get off with a slap on the wrist. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

So why not crack down on DUI too? IMO its because the legislators feel it would be politically risky and because many if not most of them do it or have done it in the past. Case in point: two years ago a City Councilman sideswiped a parked vehicle and drove off without stopping. The accident was witnessed and his tags were reported to the police who later confronted him at his home. He said he thought he hit a utility pole (right, one that looked incredibly like a Nissan Pathfinder) and that the accident occurred as he was driving straight home from work. This week he held a news conference at which he confessed that he had stopped of at a bar/restaurant and had "only one" drink with friends prior to the accident. He stated that he wants to "...do the right thing..." and "..accept full responsibility..." for his actions. The fact that this incident has dogged him since then and that he is thinking of running for Lt. Governor in '02 has nothing to do with his statement, of course.

What I find remarkable is the thinking that by admitting to this now he thinks that by next year people will have either forgotten about it (unlikely unless his political opponents are brain dead) or forgiven him for his indiscretion. Obviously he and his political advisors must feel that DUI will not be seen as a big deal the public; much better to admit it early in the campaign than to face whispered rumours about lying later on. In their minds "DUI--OK, lying--bad." It's no wonder that the DUI problem is given low priority.

Our Governor made a statement this week that new laws are unnecessary since penalties for such illegal actions already exist. I don't know offhand what these are but I do know that if confiscation/forfeiture is OK'ed by the legislature it will be abused. As Colin Sato noted in another post, the police cite speeders not to make the roads safer but to raise revenues for the government (if they truly wanted to deter speeding they would make themselves as conspicuous as possible rather than setting up speed traps to nail as many motorists as they can and to meet their quota of citations). The proposed new law will quickly be seen as a lucrative source of revenue similar to the drug forfeiture laws.

Higher insurance premiums is no deterrent; it is estimated that in Hawaii as many as one-third of the drivers are uninsured (something the Hawaii Visitors Bureau doesn't mention in its ads).

This has turned into quite a rant, so...Disclaimers: 1)I and my family have never been cited for speeding or had any adverse encounters with the PD 2)same thing re: substance abuse 3)I'm not involved in politics, the City Councilman refered to above is not from my district (city council is non-partisan)

 

plus there would've been about.... oh.....5 MILLION other threads about fauly seatbelts and the law suits to follow.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Gasman
[B]Without any doubt DUI is a much greater problem than racing/ speeding in terms of morbidity and mortality--ask anyone who works at your local hospital's ED or OR.

 

I'm starting to see the "mechanics" of the accident and this is how I envision it. The van was travelling 50 mph in the fast lane. The racers were blocking the road from the Punahou/Bingham area, so the van could have got on the freeway at University or King but it appears they were already on the freeway. The freeway in that area goes slightly downhill and then curves to the left (slightly but it's important) before rising upward (also important) where the impact occurred.

The Prelude was traveling in excess of 100 mph when he rounded the left bend. He would be in the left lane cause that's the fast way around that corner. He probably rounded the corner or crested the rise and found a vehicle going less than half his speed in his lane. To avoid, he swerves and hits the median and gets the car in a lazy spin and with the car now 180 deg. around, he hits the back of the van with the rear of his car. This impact forced the van to swerve and hit the median in the front and this caused the front end damage to the van.

Imagine coming around a corner at 50-60 mph and finding a car stopped in your lane. This is the closure rate the Prelude encountered: a 50 mph speed differential! (I'm sure he looked like this -> ) The big difference is the amount of braking power needed to slow a car going 110 and the amount needed to slow one at 50 is very different, not to mention the way a car handles in the High speed braking maneuver.

This only demonstrates that no matter how well you do in Gran Tourismo 3, handling a real car at triple digit speeds is a skill most of us do not have! You should never try to aquire this skill on public roads

 

Check out this article: Stupid biased article

This is rediculous, in case you don't want to read the whole thing here are some quotes:

[QUOTE]Replacing stock intake and exhaust manifolds with high-performance ones can add between 5 and 30 horsepower to a car engine

 

I don't know how the media is on the mainland, but the media here SUCKS!!