On 22/2/04 9:24 pm, in article
[email protected],
"Tony Raven" <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Martin Family wrote:
>>
>> More of a combination of road and car. He wouldn't normally take the kit car out in the rain.
>> Inexperience, yes. Bad luck, yes. very very bad driving, not IMHO.
>>
>
> Ah so it was the fault of the road and the car.
Fault of the driver. I have always said that. It was the particular combination of road and car that
led to conditions with which he was not experienced and which were unlike others he had encountered,
ie not expecting the car to handle so poorly in the rain (indeed, I myself was extremely surprised
that the car slid under the conditions we were in).
Sometimes things are down to bad luck. It is still however the responsibility of the driver. No one
can behave in an entirely safe manner. Everything is a percentage game, even cycling. I take
calculated risks every time I get on my bike. I risk sudden diesel spills on bends, the car behind
me being driven by a f***wit who isn't looking where they are going, and so on. There is an element
of luck. Like being hit by a falling tree is bad luck (I have been hit by a falling conker twice
while cycling. I have had a conker thrown up by a bus tyre fly through the frame of the bicycle at
great speed as well.) I wouldn't consider his driving at that point to be 'very bad' (as someone who
was there at the time). Not perfect, obviously, but within the normal range.
On another occasion recently I was driving along the local ring road. As I came up to the roundabout
I eased off to gently brake and stop behind the cars waiting. I am quite laid back and do not have a
heavy right foot so was just braking gently and the car slid, perchance it was a diesel spill on the
road. Most frightening but because I am somewhat cautious, especially in the wet, I avoided a
collision by a few tens of centimetres. had I been driving 'normally' (by taking the norm of those
driving around me) I'd have hit the guy in front. Sometimes things occur which are well outside the
normal spectrum and not what could reasonably be expected. I expect roads to be a bit slippery in a
shower which is why I approached the roundabout cautiously (though I am now even more cautious). It
was however much slippier than one would reasonably expect for a shower.
> Silly me I should have known. The driver is just a passenger being let down by the behaviour of
> his car. Read just the other day of something similar with a BMW that killed a child.
Not at all similar except that it was on a roundabout. In the case of my friends crash, a roundabout
that we had driven round under many different conditions before.
> It was the wet road and the confusing control pedals at fault and not the driver in that case too.
> He was just unlucky too but not as unlucky as the child and her friend,
There is a difference you know. One was a prat showing off in a high powered BMW that left the road.
The majority of accidents could be avoided by small modifications to driving behaviour. There are a
very small proportion that are down to 'bad luck' with circumstances that are not reasonably
forseeable. e.g. sudden emergence of wildlife, other random acts of nature, idiots coming the other
way and crossing the centre line without warning.
having driven in slippery conditions for many years, I am well aware of how much technology goes
into making a tyre stick. I am also aware of how easy they are to unstick.
..d
