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Geek and Gadgets Set Cross-US Speed Record
Brikus writes "And you thought your car had gadgets. In this story from Wired magazine, we hear about Alex Roy and his quest to break the record time for a cross-USA road trip. One of the biggest roadblocks to breaking the record: highway patrol officers, about 31,000 along the way. So Roy decked out his E39 BMW M5 with a thermal camera, radar/laser detectors, GPS devices, police scanners, and other high-tech gadgets and toys."
This guy's brilliant although he does have his share of rough spots with the cops.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Step 1: Speed across the United States while at the same time documenting your lawbreaking for all to see
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit???
...deck out your car in sponsor logos. I imagine every cop who sees this thing will follow them for quite some time.
Wow. If this guy doesn't get warrants out for his arrest because of this story I'll be really surprised.
:P
Congrats, Roy, I guess. Try not to drop the soap
(I woulda called the highway patrol on him too.)
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
How about: "Geek sets record by breaking the law and endangering innocent men, women, and children in selfish quest to do something pointless"
Seriously, this doesn't push any boundaries of technology or vehicle science. It tests two things: being able to stay awake, and being able to break laws and get away with it. Here they are tearing across the country in a car filled with distracting devices, sleep deprivation, fatigue, driving at unsafe speeds near vehicles filled with normal people trying to get to work or school.
Here in Europe each year we have a bunch of super rich arrogant bastards who also make the roads even more dangerous than they already are in their attempts to cross the continent as fast as they can in their supercars. They are rich enough to pay the bills, so they don't really care about those. Speed limits are there for a reason, so stick to them! Traffic tickets should be depending on income/wealth instead of being fixed like they are now.
-- Cheers!
32h07m divided by 31,000 highway cops means driving past one patrol officer on average every 3.7 seconds. How can the gadgets help under such circumstances?
There must be a safer way to compensate for your small penis than endangering people on the highway across the entire USA.
I have done my share of speeding on U.S. highways and have gotten my share of tickets too. But I don't claim to be anything other than an ass myself when it comes to driving. At least I did it mostly on a motorcycle and likely would only take myself out, which somehow to me seems a little more considerate.
If he really wants to break the record he should do it on a motorcycle. You can bypass any traffic situation entirely with ease. You can even split through traffic going 75+ at 90 if you want to, which I did on a long straight hot boring trip down highway 5 in northern CA on the way back from Oregon. Of course I got a speeding ticket too, from a rather irate cop who couldn't catch me for miles because I kept splitting through traffic (even though I wasn't trying to outrun him, I didn't even know he was there). Like I said, I am an ass too. And I know when when I see one. And that dude is an ass.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Don't mistake haemorrhoids for testicles. He might be a dick, but he's definitely an asshole.
If you want to do something gutsy, go skyjumping, base jumping, downhill mountain-biking. Something that doesn't run the risk of injuring or killing innocent bystanders who want nothing to do with you.
Wow. Troll +1. BMW is one of the top 10 best made cars in the world. Replace BMW with any American made vehicle and I might believe you.
Although I've only gone as far as NYC -> Kentucky, there are a shitload of highway roads where you will be alone. That and the fact that some cars on the road are more stable at 100 MPH as some not so well maintained cars at 50 MPH. I'm sure he could have gone down a few notches when he met with actual traffic in the road.
Hmmm... Pie...
And you're either being sarcastic or the real newb. If you bothered googling this guy you'd know he's done this sort of thing across the US and Europe multiple times in that M5.
What a fucking bastard.
To call him a geek is an insult to me and all other geeks i know of.
To endanger other people's lives like this is utterly despicable.
Obviously, he doesn't care if he kills someone along the way. If he did, he wouldn't do this.
Or what, is he a superhumanly safe driver is some non-imaginative way? Not fucking likely.
Put that asshole in jail(it would be OK to lose the key) right now, for showing that he has the obvious intent to go out try to kill people.
And why Slashdot sinks to the depths of publishing such a positively toned article about this psycho is far beyond me.
Baboons are cute.
"people who understood the idea of having a nice heavy pair of cojones"
Under 25 are we? Older, cooler heads realise there is a fine line between the couragous and the reckless. Had this reckless idiot managed to kill someone he would have found himself locked up for manslaughter and his cojones would be bouncing against the cojones of someone called "Ben Dover" for the next 5-10yrs.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Agreed, but he's also got a point. BMWs (at least the M5) are not built for this kind of stuff. Perhaps a Porsche 911 would've been more appropriate.
Don't let your fear of death stop you from living life.
Flame on...
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
The article forgot to mention that he needed to install blue tail lights so they appeared red to those behind him after Doppler shift.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Commence acceleration.
The Schwartz space ain't from Spaceballs.
Yeah but he wasn't driving on deserted roads. He's going through traffic at 100mph+.
I really hope this jerk is arrested for reckless endangerment to others. If he wants to play with own life, fine, but risking the lives of others for your own fun is not cool.
That entirely due to the fact that there are 100000x more retards running red lights than reckless assholes trying to set speed reckords. Neither of the numbers are precise but, back of an envelope-wise, this means that behavior of the speeding asshole is about 1000x more dangerous.
Except for the part where he stickered up his car like a boy-racer with OCD, making him STAND OUT to people looking for things that stand out - like police.
I mean, even not counting the reckless endangerment charge he'll hopefully be facing in at least a dozen states following his loverly confession.
Or not, who knows the vagaries of local law enforcement. It sounds like at least one officer picked him up on radar and pursued him, so the confession will be accompanied by at least one officer's sworn testimony.
Don't get me wrong, I love fast cars and fast driving - but not in traffic. That's just stupid.
I vaguely remember something similar. Looking about on Google I think it was either the The Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, or the gumball rally.
My probably fractured memory is that one particularly decisive win was not by a supercar, but by a Japanese king cab mini pickup. The drivers filled the be with a fuel tank and were able to drive straight through without ever stopping or breaking the speed limit. IIRC the win margin was tremendous.
The man is trying to be cute and generate publicity by using a method which might be intended to be viewed as "cool", but if he was really going for time this very well might not the right way to do it.
As a side note, Family legend has it that as a teenager my grandmother once participated in the north south trans U.S. speed record. IRC the average speed was something like 15mph and change. My father was born in 1925, So I'm suspecting this was around 1920 or so. High quality 20's vehicles such as Cords and Auburns could still comfortably do 70 or 80mph so I suspect the pickup method has merit.
You're 100x more likely to be killed by some retard running a red light because they're talking on their cellphone than you are to be killed by a trained driver going at high speed on a deserted road in a carefully prepared and well instrumented car.
Yes because him driving 120+ on a slicked rainy road while weaving in and out of dense traffic to avoid the police is a 'deserted road.'
Don't let your ignorance of rational thought stop you.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
....and this guy might just find out why places have speed limits if he's going to be driving that fast for that long with a near certainty of not running into any cops. Could find the alternative of slamming into stuff or off roads a lot less pleasant than getting a ticket.
The BMW M5 was previously the fastest production sedan in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_M5/
Read the end of the article, my friend.
I will laugh for a week STRAIGHT when I finally kill you.
That's an average speed of 87 MPH. Not bad.
You see if you're going to watch an action movie or read a scary book, you don't stop watching/reading at the point where the characters had almost given up then tell everyone as if you had finished watching/reading it.
They did indeed had a setback at Arizona but the weather cleared up and they made it at the Santa Monica Pier in 31 hours and 4 minutes, well ahead of the record by more than an hour. They had to do over a hundred from past Arizona though to make up for the time.
TFA was 6 pages, you stopped at 5 1/2.
The M5 is more a (fast) toy than an endurance car. I completely agree with the GP. It was an odd choice.
-- Posted from my parent's basement
Obligatory Han Solo parody: "This baby can do the Cannonball Run in under 2800 miles."
No - he did break the record, getting it down to 31 hours and 4 minutes. The initial description in the article was of a previous run, rather confusingly outlined in present tense. Page 5 onwards of the article details the record setting drive.
"Get off the cross - we need the wood" - Tori Amos
Funny that the main sponsor is the Italian Highway Patrol (Polizia Stradale). I wonder how official that sponsor is....
That's nice. Now, can we take away his driver's license and impound his car, please?
People need to read the whole article a little more carefully. This is only being publicized a year after it happened(2006), so I would venture a guess that all statutes of limitations have run out. 1 year on traffic violations seems about right. They were smart about it.
I remember that story about some GPS units by default finding a cemetery in the destination town. In this case it'd be totally appropriate :) :)
Plus, I prefer extra fast cross-country flight to a road trip. I mean if you enjoy the route there's no need for "OMG! We're JUST driving 5 miles above the limit!" and if you do need the speed then don't be an ass and board a place. More fuel efficient too
Hyperom.com
There was a move years ago that cars could be impounded AND scrapped on the spot. Laugh that one off as your 1 million dollar car is crushed.
Didn't work for long, this targetted the rich and rich people got power. Just accept that there is a law for the normal people and no law for the rich. There is no exception to this.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
And you thought your car had gadgets.
No, I thought my car *didn't* have gadgets, that's why I bought it. The only electronic thing in the whole car is the clock, and it doesn't work. There are no gadgets at all, and that's how I like it.
Kids these days...
Only 30.5 more hours than it took me to read this boring 6 page glorification of this maniac.
our new 90mph cross-country driving overlords.
Bravo, I have a family, my wife and I drive to work every day in the shittiest traffic the u.s.a. can provide. I fear the cell phone and the drunk one hell of a lot more than a professional driver with a spotter.
Panel F, Relay #70
" If"
:-)
Yes but he didn't. He says he's a fast safe driver, has a top flight street racer car in good shape andhas never hit any body, ever.
"If he hit somebody". Yeah. If a meteroite hit him. If a Gamma ray burst wiped out all of earth. If a T. Rex crawled up out of the river in my backyard and bit me on the ass. If if if.
While he was doing this mad dash and not hitting anybody roughly 100 Americans died in car accidents many of who were doing under or around the speed limit. Speed doesn't kill, inattentiveness does.
And boy was he paying attention.
As an aside... I watched a DVD tonight ("The Invisible" - mediocre) that had one of those Anti-Piracy blurbs in it (You wouldn't steal a car...) and it went on "Piracy is a crime". Ironically, the trailer right before this? "Pirates of the Carribean".
We glamorize the outlaw. But only when they're history?
I think it was cool. But I think the plane was cheating.
Need Mercedes parts ?
While traffic violations do cover a number of items, you can apply non-traffic-specific laws as well. How about "reckless endangerment" or any variety of other laws that might still be within the limitations?
I'm not a huge fan of the "think about the children" type arguements, but would we be cheering this guy on if he'd hit a pedestrian, wrecked some property, or something else that may have occured had he not been lucky?
This guy's not a geek, he's just rich enough to afford some expensive toys, a fast car, and not enough common sense or respect for others.
"Agreed, but he's also got a point. BMWs (at least the M5) are not built for this kind of stuff. Perhaps a Porsche 911 would've been more appropriate." "
Apparantly you own and/or maintain neither.
Despite all this rhetoric, he did it.
As somebody who has a stable of oldish German cars, one of them being a BMW (633Csi) and one of them having 700,000 kms on the clock that can still top 120mph (300SD) I'd argue vehemently that they are built for all day high speed runs. Not Italian cars and certainly not British cars. The Autobahn is partly the reason for this. German enginerring is another. They are meant for this sort of flogging, it's desinged in.
Given the attention to detail in the rest of the trip, my uninformed guess is the car was in as perfect a mechnaical condition as possible, quite possibly better than "factory new".
And as I said, the proof was in the pudding. He made it.
Need Mercedes parts ?
30% Offtopic
30% Underrated
20% Redundant
Not sure if the poster just has enemies, but I sure fail to see how the post is offtopic... If you RTFA, you see the YouTube video link (and thus the comment) is about him.
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
A couple of guys tried to drive unrefueled cross-country in a VW Rabbit (or Jetta?) diesel. I recall that they somehow crammed a 55-gallon drum into the car. The attempt ended when the driver passed out and got the car stuck in the median.
Their they're doing there hair.
Seriously, have you never driven on an interstate? I'd trust this guy more than the moron soccer mom weaving around at 45 in a minivan putting on makeup with 3 screaming kids running around the back seat.
which of the listed activities (skyjumping, base jumping, downhill mountain-biking) led you to believe the guy is incapacitated by his "fear of death"?
It's just that he (I, and probably many others) view this kind of speeding as utterly reckless. The guy wasn't alone on the road all the time.
Someone else could have just changed lanes in front of him, because looking in the mirror he went like "Oh, that car is still several hundred meters away".
And in the next moment it's these because monkeyman local geekhero is driving 200km/h...
So while I am not afraid of death too much, I still prefer to die of old age or my own stupidity.
I think this is a bit lame compared to our swedish ghostrider.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bikWRLKX_3w&mode=related&search=
There is alot more ghostrider movies on youtube.
Iron Butt riders do this during a yearly event. They have a course laid out with many extra stopping points that are worth bonus points. There really isn't anyway to complete the course doing the legal limit let alone getting sufficient rest.
See http://www.ironbutt.com/about/default.cfm for a big pack of loonies (yes I ride).
They do coast to coast in 50 hours which still isn't relying on doing the speed limit or getting all that much rest. There are coast to coast times two (going there and coming back)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
he broke the law, endangered his own life and countless others in a meaningless stunt, wasted a lot of money and filmed himself for the courts amusement.
..and I am meant to be impressed?
Nice try :) Let me guess - you or someone in your family worked for a large US car company in Detroit, and you now feel bitter about superior cars from across the pond.
but i just couldn't stomach the WIRED magazine writing style. That shit is for retards.
Depends on where you do it.
Perfect weather, empty road, not a town for at least 10 miles? Pedal to the metal, let the engine be the limit. If, and only if, the only person you could possible kill by going 300 is you, do whatever you please.
It's different, though, in rush hour traffic.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Yes but he didn't. He says he's a fast safe driver"
According to studies, most drivers think that they are better than average drivers.
"and has never hit any body, ever."
So we should congratulate him for not hitting anyone? Funny, I thought that not hitting anyone is the default. we assume that people don't hit other people with their cars. Congratulating someone for not hitting others, is like congratulating you for managing to put your pants on this morning.
And is your logic here that since he has not hit anyone yet, he should be allowed to drive like a maniac? Only when you hit someone, then you should start obeying the law? Uh, OK...
"Speed doesn't kill, inattentiveness does."
you can be attentive as hell, and still get yourself and/or other killed. That is a FACT.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
He's going through traffic at 100mph+.
Freeway much? As if he was the only one. Anyway that's what lane discipline is about, you know, the innermost lane is for passing only - oh wait yeah, in the US you all drive at whatever speed you want ignoring your fellow drivers. I guess you deserve to be rear-ended.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
yeah.. if you RTFA, you'll see that he isn't stopped by cops, but that he aborts, because he realizes that he cannot make the required average speed of 90mph.
i find your lack of faith in science disturbing!
and then he makes another try, again without being stopped by the cops.. :D
i find your lack of faith in science disturbing!
Yeah right, in the real world this does not hold up.
Driving with great risks gives a lot of seriously wounded, and a lot of material damages (if only the damage to the road/asphalt)...
...which the community in general ultimately pays for in raised ensurance fees.
Actually, his memoirs came out this month, coincidence about this articles timing?
Agreed, but he's also got a point. BMWs (at least the M5) are not built for this kind of stuff. Perhaps a Porsche 911 would've been more appropriate.
Huh ? What *else* is an M5 built for if not a high-speed cross-country road trip ? They're designed for cruising on Autobahns where 100mph is "average".
You misspelled "annoying obstacle".
PLEASE RTFA before trying to school people for not reading TFA.
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
First off, for all the negative posts that name-call this gentleman for being "unsafe" and "reckless", I hope you do some homework and inform yourself about the German Autobahns. For those of us who have driven on the autobahns faster than this man did at anytime in his journey, we know that safety is how you are paying attention and driving, not that you are following the laws of the US roads. The man planned with extreme detail, drove a car that was designed to drive this speed for much longer durations, and obviously from the videos it is clear they were "paying attention". Just because the name callers on these posts are not capable of driving the speeds and distances safely does not mean that that team could not do it. And they proved it.
So please stop whining about the "danger" to society. There are many countries with faster speed limits (or little or no enforcement which equals the same thing). And by the way, in this country if he were to have had an accident, he would have been sued into bankruptcy. But fact of the matter is who cares he did it safely!
Real men don't need signitures!!!
It's so sad that that's now the setup for a joke.
it sure sounds like them at least ;)
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I don't really see the point in trying to beat that record (or any record for that matter)
But doing 140mph isn't that big of a deal. Almost every european car max' out at that speed, some just take longer then others to get to it.
Also huge parts of german highway allow these speeds while year after year they are elected the safest highway system in europe.
Speed != danger
A 911 would be a very poor choice. I'm not sure about fuel consumption but I'd be surprised if a 911's wasn't a fair bit higher than the old M5's.
But primarily because of visibility - A BMW M5 is a wolf in sheeps clothing, it looks just like a normal sedan, and there are lots of 5-series BMWs on the roads to blend in with - a 911 looks like a flash sportscar and unless you live in Beverley Hills, sticks out like a sore thumb - (if you watch the videos on their you'll see the one they drove for the actual attempt was painted plain, dark blue, not the polizei design shown on the first page).
I would say the (old) M5 was a great choice for the trip, probably the essence of the executive performance tourer. If the time was to be beaten I reckon a lot of time could be saved with less frequent refuelling, I would probably tip a turbo diesel engine with a bigger second tank.
"Oh, that car is still several hundred meters away".
As someone who has actually driven 250km/h on an Autobahn: if you drive at these speeds you need to keep traffic in the eye at all moments. You know a driver in front of you will not realize that you'll be there very quickly and as such it is your responsibility to foresee what other drivers might do. A car that is 500m away is a potential hazard already, so you pay attention to it even if the road is clear in front of you. At the moment you even see it slightly veer to the passing lane, you hit the brakes.
Driving at these speeds is exhausting if you're not trained. I can't do it for much longer than 20 minutes, without falling back and going to a more reasonable 160km/h.
Speed doesn't kill people. Coming to a sudden stop: that's what gets you.
All these knee jerk, 'think of the children' prats: come up with some statistics that show driving in excess of the posted speed limits does cause more actual deaths.
In fact the converse appears true. I can provide statistics that show driving a high powered motorcycle is way safer than driving one that cannot break the speed limit.
The fact is most posted speed limits are nothing more than a tax, in the form of speed fines, for driving.
threadeds blog
For once, i am going to sacrifice some of my karma for a rant.
Here is a guy obsessed about going for something and using technology to assist his attempt. He's using a well prepared car with better braking systems than the average bear (pun intended). Since most of his travel is likely to be on interstates, he's hardly likely to bump into a pedestrian either.
We even, through the Darwin Awards, recognise those who didn't make it.
And here you lot are, denigrating something you normally approve of, and certainly would have a few years ago.
You bunch of limp wristed faggots (and I mean that in a non-homophobic sense).
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I'm all in favor of one's freedom to perform reckless stunts like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, but, like just about everyone else here, I'd like to see people who do stuff like this punished severely. No amount of self-glorification can justify putting others at risk. Indeed, it is placing others at risk that robs such deeds of all glory.
How in the world did this get moderated interesting? As another person pointed out, all 31000 police officers aren't lined up on this guys route. A little common sense and personal experience should help people realize the parent post is non-sensical (spelling?). Say you average 1/4 the speed of this guy, how many have passed a cop every 14.8 seconds (on average), unless at a FOP lodge?
It shoulda been a Daewoo or a Yugo driver. Hyundai is nice irony there, though.
Speaking of someone who has been rear-ended by a careless driver ... I say wait until you get into accident to bitch about people wanting others to drive safe. You're free to driver anywhere you want on public roads, provided you don't sacrifice *MY* safety (e.g., security) to do so. Someone please mod parent as troll and flamebait.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
So your independently wealthy. Guess that means auto insurance costs don't really bother you. Nor the occasional speeding ticket.
However, how independently wealthy do you have to be to get out of PMITA when your cell mate Bubba takes a liking to your nice white bald head?
One thing that has to be considered on cross country trips is the ramifications of traffic violations in the different states and what is does to your license back at home. Today, almost all states communicate with each other on traffic violations committed by non-residents. There are only 3 states in the Union that don't consider minor offenses from other states - CO, NY, PA (no points, no record - NY will assess points for Ontario and Quebec Tickets by special agreement). A few states (MD, WI, NV) will post the violation to your record but assess no points and most states will assess points for out of state offenses. Major offenses would be a different issue such as alcohol related. The offenses that could be written up include reckless driving and I am not sure how those states that don't assess points for out of state offenses would deal with reckless driving.
There are a few states that treat speeding very harshly such as Virginia (automatic reckless driving over 80 mph or greater than 20 over the limit), North Carolina (over 80 mph or greater than 15 over the limit earns a form of license suspension) to name a few.
Assuming Alex has a NY driver's license, he would not to worry too much especially if he has an attorney to plead down major charges. I myself have a CO license and have a share of out of state tickets but not doing something like 120 mph but doing something like up to 25 mph over the limit. In fact my last two speeding tickets were something like 10 mph over the limit in Missouri and Indiana. I have family back in the midwest such as Ohio, Indiana, Illinois so usually my tickets are received between CO and Ohio. We even got pulled over in Ohio for tinted windows.
On the reciprocity part especially with today's computers, if you get your license suspended in a different state, more than likely, you will get suspended at home. Your name will be posted on the National Driving Registry/Problem Driver Pointer System (NDR/PDPS) if you get suspended by your home state or a differnt state. The NDR/PDPS would be a tool to prevent you from getting a license in a different state. For myself, I have points in Missouri for a ticket I got more than a year ago (May 2006). Some states in addition to reporting the ticket to your home state will also open up a point file on you as well. This can snare poeple like out of state college students. Ohio does this as well. My brother went to school in Ohio, held an Indiana license back in the early 1980's. Ohio at the time didn't report tickets to other states. He was a ticket away from being suspended in Ohio but he had a clean record in Indiana. I got a speeding ticket myself in Ohio back in 1986 right before Ohio joined the compact.
Coming down the pipe unfortunately and the Real ID Act has something to do with this is the requirement that states communicate with each other - share databases. Don't know how extensive this will be yet since it is still being worked out. Another item is the Driver License Compact (DLC) and Non-Resident Violator Compact (NRVC) will be replaced by the Driver License Agreement (DLA) which is more harsher. The DLA will require states to share their whole databases not only with other US juridictions but also must share with Canadian and Mexican jurisdictions as well. In addition, there are no loopholes for blowing off parking violations unlike today with the NRVC. The sharing with foreign countries combined with identity theft was why the DLA was the most controversial element of the Real ID Act. The mandate for states to sign the DLA was removed from the final bill that was signed into law. Connecticut has signed the DLA and they will pull your license for blowing off an out of state parking ticket. In addition, some states don't like tinted windows
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
This is pretty cool. Always wanted to do this myself. Have made some trips from Detroit to LA in 22hour and 26 hour attempts and found that taxing. Also made some trips from Bowling Green, KY to LA, Ca in 26hours.
Definitely not easy, but sure a lot of fun.
Kudos go out to this driver.
Gator/Claria is Spyware.
"Sounds more like an UNPROVED ASSERTION to me."
No it does not. When you drive fast, you have less time to react. That is a fact and common sense. So what would you do if you were doing 100+mph and something suddenly jumped in front of your car? Like a moose or something. You might have been the worlds most attentive driver up until that point, but it would still do you jack shit. At those speeds you simply would not have time to react. At those speeds you simply would not have the time to scan your entire surroundings all the time.
"The only poeple to die in one of these high speed thingies is a couple who ran a stop sign."
Or it might be that they drove in front of the other car because they thought that it was obeying the speed-limit, instead of driving like crazy. Maybe they thought that the other car was driving sensibly and they would therefore have more than enough time ? And should we now say that "hey, these races are safe! Only two people have died so far!".
"Other than that, they've proven to be safer than the average major highway on a holiday weekend with people doing the speed limit."
Driving on public roads like maniac is safer than driving sensibly? Uh, OK... And before you say "a lot more regular drivers than racers die in accidents!". Well, duh! Three are maybe 1-2 racers for every 10.000 regural drivers! So is it any wonder that there are more regular drivers dying than racers? And that still does not prove that driving like a maniac is somehow "safe".
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
You've missed the point. Alex Roy was giving up the freedom of others to not be smeared down a freeway for his own freedom. Alex Roy was the guy giving up freedoms, only they weren't his to give up. Just as murderers don't have the right to kill people (even if it's their dream), people don't have the right to endanger others for their own indulgences. The PATRIOT act and talk of a "police state" has nothing to do with this. Nothing at all. People are upset about the PATRIOT act and the "police state" punishing those who are not hurting anyone else. Alex Roy endangered everyone he was near during his stunt.
Bollocks!
This guy was driving carefully. Even takeing into account the rain he was in. Aso most half decent hghways can comfortably accomodate speeds up to 140 - 160 Mph for well serviced cars.
If you care to know, I sometimes drive 150 Mph with my family in my family car. That's because I have a very decent (German) car that allows this and because when I do these speeds I drive in Germany on roads where this is egal. I take there is little difference between German and US highways in order to make 150 Mph not save in US.
IMHO speed limits on highways are in most cases little more than taxes.
In order not to be modded troll:
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Being a geek (in the sense of the word we use it here) is more about values than anything else:
I should point out this point includes ethical constraints: it's a greater accomplishment to do something better than anybody else, whilst doing it ethically. In fact, making intelligent decisions about which constraints matter and which ones don't is central to being a geek. When I was a young, rule-breaking hacker at MIT, we had a rule -- or rather a sense of style -- that demanded we do dangerous things safely and illegal things responsibly. If we were some place we didn't belong, we didn't interfere with the legitimate users' activities. Leave the place better than you found it, or at least no worse.
These values are not a moral philosophy in themselves, but they can inform whatever moral philosophy you subscribe to. Insofar as it is easy (observe the note of contempt here) to reconcile being a geek with being an ethical egoist, the particular stunt being done can be called a geek stunt. But it is not a hack.
Eluding the authorities whilst doing a hack can add to its stature, but only if what you are doing is strictly reasonable. Otherwise there is a good chance that you're not a hacker, you're just a scofflaw. Scofflaws use technology to avoid the authorities too. It's not much of an accomplishment.
Now, setting the record for crossing the country with the requirement that you don't exceed the speed limit even once -- that would not only be a hack, it would be an epic one. Naturally, you'd have to develop a technological method for documenting your feat, one that would convince a skeptical rival. That would be a hack too.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Compare to this incident: Oklahoma Police Kill 5-Year Old Boy While Shooting at Snake
Set your phasers on "funky"!
You know they only have to average just above 87mph the whole trip...
:-)
Radar, GPS - I have those (rx65, tt910), I think Alex has a few other cool toys too though
Josh
Just because it works, Doesn't make it right. - JTM
. . . diaper?
What?
does his car have Linux ???
Hear, hear! I hope they jail the SOB. These people aren't rebels or pioneers, they're dangerous sociopaths. They shouldn't be on the roads.
Since when does driving real fast qualify as sociopathy? And judging from the incredibly lengths he went to to defy authority while doing what he enjoys, yes, I'd say that at least in this domain he's very much a rebel.This is not my sandwich.
Reading the comments of outrage about this guy is interesting to me. When I was in college I would make 4 junkets from the Midwest to Texas, a trip of just over 1100 miles. I had a 1986 CRX, and I would fly. This guy was trying to do 2800 miles in 32 hours, averaging around 88 mph. In my dinky little CRX I was able to cover my route in under 16 hours once. Needless to say, I was breaking the speed limit, but I was on interstate most of the way, with little traffic. I was cruising just shy of 90 mph most of the time, and only stopped to gas up at my pre-determined spots. I of course tripped my triple digits on the long bridge in LA (and only when no one else would be in the way). My average speed, nearly 70 mph (this is in the early days of the national 65 mph speed limit). Was I endangering everyone else on the road? No more than the other people running in the 80s, some would even say less given the small vehicle I was driving. At least I wasn't like the kids would paced me for a while in MO and held up their bong just before exiting (I assume offering me a hit, I'll pass, I actually had somewhere to be).
I have no doubt this guy isn't driving intelligently, but I certainly don't think the speed limits imposed on our interstate system are anything more than a money grab. Safety isn't why legislatures have passed them folks, it's all about the green. If you want to talk about dangerous drivers, talk about those that don't respect the "left lane is for passing only" law (in some states, should be a law in all states if you ask me), talk about those who are going over 80 mph on the loops in the cities, talk about those going 50 mph on the loops in the cities, talk about the cell phone users, leave the long distance, sparsely populated highway, fast drivers out of it.
You're 100x more likely to be killed by some retard running a red light because they're talking on their cellphone than you are to be killed by a trained driver going at high speed on a deserted road in a carefully prepared and well instrumented car.
Got any statistics or research to back that up, or are you just saying that because you feel it in your gut?
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
There are tons of street races and drunk drivers on the road, since this guy actually had his faculties about him and was essentially a professional race driver, It shouldn't be considered as horrible for what he did, not that it wasn't extremely dangerous. I'd rather see more of him on the road vs. 10,000 drunk drivers after the big football game. I've had fancy cars pass me at 120 mph on the highway, and as long as they pass w/o hitting anyone, i'm more or less indifferent. It's the drunk, on drugs, randomly swerving, way too tired, hopelessly distracted, etc drivers who cause these guys (and everyone else) to wreck.
stuff |
Your safety, while important to you, isn't really all that interesting to anybody else. You are perfectly capable (assuming) and justified in taking any steps you feel necessary to protect it. However, you have no rights to regulate my behavior based on your assumptions about what is safe and what isn't.
I doubt the driver who rear-ended you was anything more than the typical inattentive moron that inhabits roads all over. They most likely weren't speeding, weren't trying to accomplish anything, but were just poorly trained and not really qualified to be operating a 3500lb vehicle at all. Generally, speeders are involved in single-car accidents with property damage, not multi-car pileups and fatalities.
"deserted road". Capiche?
I'm not condoning the guy speeding excessively in traffic, or in a built up area.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
I'll take those odds.
I hope you're run over by some inattentive soccer mom who is too busy putting lipstick on or drinking a latte to see what might be in the way of her hurtling SUV. Or maybe you could be crushed under the car of an elderly driver who has confused the brake and the gas pedal. While still small, your odds are a lot worse than mine.
I believe the idea is to catch the stray emissions when they're tagging other people so you know ahead of time.
But, yeah, if it's 2am and there's not another car within a two miles you're pretty much screwed.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
"Isn't this /.? Every day we get to read the hysteria about the "police state" and "big brother is watching", but for now it has been totally sublimated so that you can all hope this guy gets arrested for driving fast."
No, it is wholly consistent with an attitude of self-interest (though perhaps not always enlightened). People here are against government surveillance because they do not wish to have someone (government or corporate) rummaging through their personal information and communications. People here are against this kind of driving because they do not wish to have someone (government or individual) risking their lives and livelihoods as they drive daily down the road. Most people here have to endure the reckless endangerment of such drivers on a daily basis.
"Instead of giving up his dream, this guy did something about it and you all hate him for it."
Ted Bundy had a dream, too.
You've never seen an M5, much less driven one. It's perfect engineering on four wheels. While Porsche places a very high quality bar, I would not place the M5 any lower. It's German auto-engineering at its best.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
Thanks for posting this! There's nothing like a little attention to stroke the ol' ego and encourage more behavior like this!
How does he possibly have sponsors for this? From that photo you can clearly see 'T-Mobile' and 'Meguiars' stickers. Many others that you can't quite see from the photo. I don't understand that. If they're actual sponsor decals, what in the world were these companies thinking in sponsoring an illegal activity like this? What's next, Coca-Cola branded cocaine smuggling cigar boats? If they're not actual sponsors, then what's the point of having the decals? Is this guy so starved for attention and praise that he's just another 'ricer' but with a big bank account? The 8-ball says, "Signs point to yes".
If you go 60mph and something suddenly jumped in front of your car, you will still probably have an accident. Doesn't really make a difference. People get hit in parking lots when they step out suddenly and drivers couldn't see them. The key, like you sort of said, is reaction time. But let's stop pretending that every human has the same reaction times in every situation. If you believe that people can learn their own limits
The couple that died, if you read some of the other comments and links, really did run the stop sign. The person who hit them was only going 6mph over the speed limit (pretty normal). The victims' family went to court on the driver's behalf to prevent them from going to jail, because the situation was pretty clearcut.
Maybe you're a libertarian wanker gone too far. Or maybe you're just stupid. The arguments you're complaining about have nothing to do with "giving up freedom for security". This guy didn't go to the library and read some books that the government finds threatening. He didn't go on the internet and read about explosives. He didn't publicly protest something he didn't like (risking getting photographed and cataloged). What he did was deliberately risk the lives of everyone he shared the road with on his 3000 mile odyssey of irresponsibility. He fully deserves the condemnation he's getting in this forum. You deserve a dope-slap.
Ah, that must be why it's stood for 22 years. Let's see you do it.
90 mph average from NY to LA? Good luck.
It's amazing YOU don't get the fact that someone could have been killed by this asshole. A combination of skill and luck is all that prevented disaster. Yes -- I believe he should be arrested for endangering public safety.
Lighten up, Slashdot. Put away your moralizing Nanny State do-gooder hats for just a moment.
What he did rocks. It rocks because it was a challenge realized, unlike just showing up for his day o' cubicle like the rest of us. He rose above and took on something that for whatever reason seized his imagination.
That's a more spiritual, more intelligent, more meaningful way to live.
You're just pissed because you're in a cubicle. I know because I used to have the same impulse. Now I think the spirit of the action is more important.
Like most great challenges, this one was self-regulating because hitting anyone would really have slowed them down. 5 years of jail time and 32 hours of driving won't break a 32 hour record.
technical writing / development
Until I see the video I will give them the benefit of the doubt about being safe. Many people think driving fast equates to being irresponsible. It is not that simple. Sure the risk is higher the faster you go, but how many of you have driven well over 100 mph for 100s of miles.
Theoretically they could have completed this in a mini van. The obstacle was not traffic it was being caught. The rules they broke are arbitrarily set, and the parent poster is short chill-pills. IMHO, does not warrant a felony.
Many years ago in most western states the speed limit was 'reasonable and prudent.' The capabilities of the automobiles in the 50's to early 60's were just awful. 4 wheel drum brakes, bias-ply tires, and poor suspension.
Point is when the limits were highest the cars ability to brake, turn and stop were the WORST. Driving faster than the current speed limits is not harmful.
Montana defined 'Reasonable and Prudent' - now history
http://www.us-highways.com/montana/reasonable.htm
Well there are many I can. The 30 kph limit ? Are you in a neighborhood with kids ? See I can find reason. Speed limit of 30 on top of a climb ? You might not be able to see what's behind the climb. Go with 70 kph, and the cyclist which is behind get stamped. Go on 30 kph and you have time to brake or slow down or take him over. 30 kph where inhabitation are ? I lived near a place where 80+ kph was allowed. Needless to say there was NEVER a silence even at night. Then they reduced it to 50 kph on the freeway in the middle of the city, and 30 kph on the exit. That was a blessing. I bet you just started fuming at the 30 kph sign, without even trying to check why it is there.
Furthermore to all those which say that the speed limitation are there to get money from driver , that is on par with 9/11 truther. True there might be a very minor percentage of speed limit sign which are not readable (I would be surprised if it reach above the 1%, for all i drive I ever saw 2 of those). But the majority is clear and way ahead enough of the zone. The truth of those which say they have to pay ticket and fume at those sign cropping up, is that They are too dumb to udnerstand that jsut by slowing down under the limit they will not pay a fine. See I showed you a way easy enough to avoid paying a fine ! Slow down under the limit ! Incredible isn't it ?. You don't like it ? write traffic authorithy. But Nothing give you the right to speed over the limit and endanger the other. IMHO speed limit fine are yet not hefty enough that people feel entitled to break them.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I think that footage was faked.
Comparing this guy to a murderer "living his dream" is dumb because, well, murder isn't defined as "risking killing someone" it's actually "killing someone". There's a difference between risk and fact.
IF the Patriot Act actually ends up doing some good (I don't think so, but bear with me), then in reality all of the people protesting it will have, in hindsight, been a greater risk than this guy. IF the Patriot Act is ever shown to be good, even in a single instance, are you going to stand up and say "Hey guys you are free to give away your own freedoms, but don't give away MY freedom from terrorism!" Somehow I doubt it..
The speeding laws are outdated and only serve to let the police reach their weekly quotas. It is the police who keep them outdated.
In more logical countries it is not illegal to drive fast, but it is illegal to tail-chase other cars. This has shown to reduce accidents much more than speed-limiting laws, as tail-chasing is a very dangerous behavior, but simply speeding is not.
The next time when you drive slow enough but are tail-chasing the car in front of you ask yourself if you're not a reckless driver, just because the law says so.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
Well, I've got no objection to those stupid wreckless drivers; it's the reckless ones I can't stand!
The moon may be smaller than the earth, but it's much farther away!
Fight the man! Just one arrest is a slippery slope into SLAVERY! If you support public safety, you support the TORTURING OF INNOCENT SUSPECTED TERRORISTS! People should be allowed to drive as fast as they want! Anything less is UNAMERICAN should be UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
See? You're not the only person who can blow liberal caution out of scope, proportion, and context.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Automobile Magazine had a write-up a few months back of a previous roadtrip of Roy's, attempting to beat a package overnight from New York to Miami:
http://www.automobilemag.com/features/great_drives/0703_fedex_jet_vs_2007_bentley_continental_gtc/index1.html
It's a funny read, the author has a hilarious writing style.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Ever been to the 24 hours of Daytona? The pits were littered with blown BMW straight sixes by the end. A 911 won.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
I think it's stood for 22 years because most people wouldn't even consider bothering to do it. As for me doing it, no thanks. I have far better things to do with my time. I know people who've done very close to this speed, multiple times so no biggee. As I've said in other comments, talk to any member of the US military and you'll hear stories about people doing similar things fairly regularly.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
You could probably go 110 mph from the edge of NJ to Nevada but with all the sprawl in NY, NJ and Cali the rest of the trip would take a life time ;)
http://www.hawknest.com/
1) a non-6 page version of this article whose summary tells me whether he did it, and what his time was
2) a version of this race that has the following modifications:
a) a device with GPS and car monitoring sensors put in to keep track of everything the car does during the race; disabling or tampering with the device is a disqualification.
b) going more than 7 MPH over the posted speed limit is a disqualification.
c) getting any moving violation other than a speeding ticket is a disqualification (speeding is covered by the previous rule, which will be caught by the monitor).
Now tell me how long it took. This isn't the "grandma" version of the race, this becomes a race about navigation, finesse (how you get yourself through unexpected traffic jams, anticipating traffic problems, researching your route for construction problems, etc.) instead of raw speed. I'd find that much more interesting.
It's not the cars, it's the traffic and conditions. I've had my Corolla up to 110 and my friend's old Camaro over 130-140...
It must be lonely in your world....
The safety of others is on my mind when I drive. I guess that's what makes me a decent driver as compared to how I can imagine you drive. By your logic, looking out for pedestrians is not required, so what if you kill someone, if they were in the way they're at fault!
The guy who hit me wasn't speeding, he hit me while I was waiting to merge on to a busy road. He was in a hurry, and didn't stop properly. Even still I could have been hurt, and the car I was in [fortunately not mine] was written off.
I don't know about you but I lookout for more than numero uno when I drive. Sure I want to get places and avoid accidents, but not at the expense of others. I'd ditch my car, for example, before running over a pedestrian because I'm more likely to survive running into a ditch (the car may not) than a pedestrian getting hit by a car. And since the insurance would cover it anyways it's not the end of the world.
Oh well, guess I'm just responsible...
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
If breaking the speed limit is so dangerous, how come, in the states, they only give out speeding tickets towards the end of the month, presumably when they need money?
I drive about the same speed as everybody else. In town town that's about 50mph, on the autovia it's 80-90mph.
Common sense rules, and the police aren't too anal about it - I never saw anybody stopped for speeding in town and I've been overtaken when I was doing 125mph on the privately-owned autopistas which go between cities.
(...though they too seem to be looking at revenue generating speed cameras for the autovias lately, hope they don't go the way of the rest of the world with this one).
Speed isn't the issue, it's idiot drivers. I've driven in the USA and I think long hours on freeways with automatic gearboxes and cruise controls seems to produce more of them than the survival-of-the-fittest driving which goes on in Spain.
eg. After about 10pm here I can (and do) ignore red lights. The reason it's safe is because *everybody* ignores the red lights so we're all actively looking out for other traffic instead of blindly relying on the signals. The only red lights I pay attention to are the ones at major intersections where there's *always* traffic going through.
No sig today...
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
Go, friend! Please don't kill anyone while driving, it would make you look bad, and you'd lose precious time.
Frankly, that old "speed kills" line has to disappear into oblivion, fast. Here in Belgium everybody drives like a maniac, nobody cares, and we don't have more accidents per capita than in the US.
Slowing down cars helps no one, it only creates bottlenecks, frustration, and a slowed country with a slow economy. Responsible people know how fast they can drive in what area so as not to damage anything or injure anyone, simply take into account every possibility at every crossroads and you'll never crash.
Learn how to drive safe, you'll drive faster.
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
The PATRIOT act has nothing to do with some guy risking the lives of everyone he passes from New York to Los Angeles. His freedom to undertake a whimsical, meaningless, empty, contrived, arbitrary, pointless endeavour should not trump the freedom of those around him to stay alive, as staying alive is a bit more important than driving your father's money down the highway. The reason I don't like the PATRIOT act is the same reason I don't like people endangering others. It's because they have a propensity to harm indiscriminately, or at least to harm the innocent. The PATRIOT act will hurt a lot more people than it'll catch, and Alex Roy is very lucky to have not killed someone, who, statistically at least, thinks driving like an ass down the road at 150mph. Unless Alex Roy sought permission from everyone he would affect, which is his right to do, then he has no business guessing that those he passes don't care their lives are being risked. And if he feels he doesn't need to, then he's some sort of grade-A cunt.
He may be driving at 100mph...but I bet he's actually looking out of the window, not using his cell phone, putting on makeup and all the other stupid things that your imaginary "safe" drivers are doing.
I'd feel far safer on a road full of people who drive fast but pay attention to other drivers than what's currently out there.
Fast != dangerous.
Not even slighty.
I'm not saying that there aren't idiot speeders, or that idiot speeders aren't more dangerous than normal idiots (they are). I'm saying this guy isn't one of them. Go direct your misguided anger somewhere else.
No sig today...
I'm surprised at the moral outrage 90% of the posts here display. I'd much rather have an alert 30 year old professional driver going 130 past me that knew what he was doing then some 17 year old in her mom's minivan with a cell phone glued to her head. Those people are quite a bit more dangerous. As an aside, Will Wright won the US Express in 1980 - a similar feat but not as fast. Here's an interview with him for the documentary they're doing about this trip.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Yes, but he's not putting the people outside his path at risk. You shouldn't be looking at the aggregate odds of encountering a super-fast scofflaw. Those odds are always going to be low for as long as ditsy drivers in comically large (grr. Avalanche. How many times have you tried to kill me) vehicles vastly outnumber more conventional sociopaths. It's the odds of being in an accident after finding yourself in his path that counts.
The question is not how much risk he put people in general in. The question is how much risk he put a very small subset of drivers in: the drivers near his time-space worldline.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Many geeks have lots of money- science and engineering positions tend to pay pretty well. With money, it's possible to buy fast cars and attract women. Next you'll be telling us Bill Gates isn't a geek because he's rich, married, and wears a suit.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
The best way to break the record is to forget the gadgets and have a team of drivers who drove half a mile in front of me to spot/distract the cops.
It's not as cool... but it'd be fastest.
The USA is far too anal about "speed". Speed isn't the problem it's moron drivers, and highway driving in SUVs with auto-everything is the best way to produce them.
In Spain we drive through the center of town at what Americans would think of as "highway" speeds and nothing happens because we're used to it.
PS: Check this video of Team Polizei's encounter with the Italian police - the Italians have a healthy attitude towards driving.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbbtK90LZ9E
No sig today...
The higher your speed, the higher the probability that a tire blowout due to a metal shard you can't see on the roadway will kill someone. It really is that simple. We accept a certain level of statistical risk for convenience, and we are unwilling to allow for that risk where it really starts climbing up the steep curve. This is not rocket science to understand. The debate about speed limits is all about where we are willing to trade risk for convenience, and people in the US are more risk averse (which also explains much of the preference for larger vehicles).
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I don't remember what it says in the profile when your karma isn't "excellent". Time to find out.
Why am I not surprised that the majority of the comments here are personal outrage?
This guy did something that was BOTH wreckless and utterly effin' cool. These things aren't entirely incompatible. Anyone remember James Dean?
Okay, he greased himself in his Porsche. Bad example.
BUT maybe you can still get my point. Should he endanger others on the road, blah blah blah? Of course he shouldn't have. If you set down your righteous indignance and stop to read, TFA was about setting a record. Doing something that, because of our increasing nanny-stateness, would likely be impossible to attempt again, let alone beat. And he did it with style! Thermal imagers! Jammers! Mil-spec gyroscopic binocs! By all accounts, he's done such drives before; he's logged tens of thousands of miles of experience in avoidance driving on open roads. And I'm certain that he and his codriver knew that mistakes would make the kind of mess best cleaned up with a hose. Roy is not some kid with a poorly tricked-out import and 3 years of driving experience.
Get down off your high horses; I'm sure plenty of you are getting saddle-sores. Fer chrissake, a couple of the "that's so illegal" comments I read had the HD-DVD encryption key listed in their sigs. So if you are the type to commit selective rebellion, you have to admit to yourself that, even just a little bit, it was still really effin' cool.
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
Bow-ties are cool.
I would probably rather have someone PAYING ATTENTION but going faster than the speed limit on a highway, than some jackass NOT PAYING ATTENTION, and going over the speed limit anyway, and talking on his cell phone during the whole trip!
You need to appreciate just what it means to *average* a certain speed. Think about any time you drive slower, and think about what it takes to compensate. For every hour he spends in stop-and-go, he'll need to drive an hour almost twice the average to make up. Now tell me how many places in the US you can go 180mph?
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
What's wrong with you people?
This guy is obviously f**king nuts, but without the nutcases to show what's possible and make things interesting, the world would be a far duller place, and a far poorer one too.
Harumph!
...laura, who occasionally indulges in nutsness, just not this particular kind
Here lies the problem with all of these arguments; speed limits are set to the lowest common denominator by necessity. If they set the limit on the higway at say 70 mph (the limit around here), that means they have deemed it safe for soccer Mom with no avoidance skill and horrible attention span and reflexes in a 4500 lbs SUV to travel at that rate of speed. They are also stating that it is only safe for me, with professional driving experience and a high level of alertness, driving a 2500 lbs car with performance suspension, brakes, tires and tuning to travel at 70 mph. If it is safe for me to travel at that speed, it should be safe for her to travel at a maximum of, say, 50 mph, since even with equal reflexes and ability her vehicle will not be able to maneuver or stop in anywhere near the distance my vehicle can. Add to this her (or he, let's not be sexist) inability to pay attention and 2-5x longer reaction time, and she should be at 35 mph. Perhaps a sticker on the plate and a seperate idiot lane is necessary, or, conversly, a special tag and a high speed lane for those with the vehicles and ability to handle ourselves. I'm not saying that these guys are right for what they did, merely an all encompassing "speeding will kill others, you inconsiderate bastards" is entirely too knee-jerk of a reaction. Welcome to reality, it's complicated.
Just another ignorant American.
That is a major accomplishment in itself!
Having lived here almost my whole life I know how bad the cops are here, state highway patrol is EVERYWHERE, especially so much on the turnpike that it looses huge amounts of truck traffic to side routes, so they are concentrated there as well. purely amazing and I give them major props for making it through!
The greatest right given is the right to be wrong...
??? A M-Fcuking-5 ISN'T??
After taking your foot out of your mouth please go learn more about this machine! It's an M series, it's built for this.
I Like Pie...
If you want to speed in Nevada, you can do it legally at this event:
Silver State Classic Challenge http://www.silverstateclassic.com/
or in Las Vegas:
Las Vegas Motor Speedway Midnight Madness http://www.lvms.com/news/strip_news/514740.html
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
It was a Benz ('75 or '76 450SEL 6.9). He dubbed it with his Ferrari 275GTB after the fact. C'etait un rendex-vous
"
In more logical countries it is not illegal to drive fast, but it is illegal to tail-chase other cars. "
I can't speak for the USA but in many other countries we also don't have such a car-centric model that seems to dominate a lot of Americans thinking. Roads are shared with cyclists, public transport, and pedestrians, and roads have pavements (sidewalks) alongside them which might have a number of users that need protection from the minority of car drivers who are complete idiots.
"Simply speeding" is in itself dangerous when driving a car in these shared environments. You may be the best driver on the road but thank you very much, I don't want you driving at 90mph past primary schools, old people's homes, etc.
In the UK folks are talking about dropping the urban speed limit from 30mph to 20mph because of the numbers of lives it will save. Getting hit at a ton and a half of steel at 30mph far increases the chances of death over 20mph. Plus the lower speed gives drivers more time to take evasive action/hit the brakes etc when somebody walks out into the road without thinking.
Get better tires.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I grew up in New Jersey just 14 Miles from NYC. But have lived in California since I turned 18.
One thing I have alway found is anything above 120 Mph and the cops would turn on their lights and just disappear into the distance behind me.
When I was in High School in New Jersey we used to do this regularly to mess with the cops on Interstate 80, We would even pelt them with eggs as we passed them doing over 120Mph.
Just in case we had also taken some other measures such as the ability to monitor and jam police radio's.
I also had a US WW2 surplus Super high power flash tube designed for night airial photography.
This was capable of igniting a news paper near by, we placed in the rear window, fortunately never got to try it in traffic, but at the top of Garret Mountain facing New York City we could make the whole skyline light up. Let's not mention the bowling balls, super balls, and oh yea and the rail road flairs.
Ok, So maybe I/we were a bit out of control..
After I moved to CA, every year I used to take I-80 the whole distance to NY and back, to visit my parents. Always flat out pedal to the metal.
On my first trip I easily beat this record with a 30 hour driver using a beater. 1979 Mercury Montego Station Wagon with a souped up engine in 1987. I was hitting a top speed of over 150 Mph. The started motor didn't work, so I couldn't even turn off the engine because we'd never get the car started again.
I had stopped to rest with the engine idling a few times so some time was lost there.
In Nevada I was ticked for doing 130Mph, The same cop had chased me from Elko to the CA boarder, when I made the mistake of slowing down to 40 to appreciate the incredible view just before the California Boarder. I had even stopped in Reno to get some gas.
Photo from that trip right after cop ticketed me. http://www.dnull.com/~sokol/images3/welcome.jpg
My best time was 28 hours from Redwood City California to New York City around 3000 Miles in a 1990 Nissan Sentra in 1992, while listening to Ozzy's Mama I'm Comin Home. My wife has just left me and went back to NJ and I was a tad upset at the time.
The other big trick is to pick times that avoid rush hour when passing through larger cities.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
In one respect traffic cops are like roaches: for every one you see there're fifty or so you don't.
Baboons are cute.
Ahh, another day, another idiot who presumes that "doing 200Mph safely" has anything to do with your car.
First off, the M5 is electronically limited to 250kph, like most European vehicles that can go that fast.
Second, stopping distance is proportional to the square of speed. Your reaction time is not.
People who claim that driving at 125MPH is safe don't understand the problem. The problem is not whether or not you can control the car. The problem is what you do when something unexpected happens.
Considering that a pretty good fraction of our cars are manufactured in Korea, Japan, or Europe, I'm not sure what you mean by the "crappy suspension" that "we" put in "our cars". Wake up. Volvo, Jaguar, and Land Rover are owned by Ford. Until recently, Daimler owned Chrysler.
This expresses everything that's wrong with your attitude. You are driving on a public highway, putting everyone else at risk by the very nature of you being there. Good drivers cause crashes. Bad drivers cause crashes. You are not so skilled that you could not screw up. Even F1 drivers screw up.
This is the LAST place where you want to be testing the limits of your vehicle. And if you do screw up, it will be far, far worse if you are going 125MPH.
Note that this driver AVERAGED 90 MPH. Considering that he had to stop for gas and other necessities, he must have been going faster than 90 MPH for a fair portion of the trip.
I am so sick and fucking tired of these arguments. Somehow, it's always the OTHER drivers who are the problem. Somehow, YOU are "skilled" enough to drive excessively fast (note that over the limit doesn't necessarily mean excessive). Perhaps YOU have never made a mistake and caused an accident. That's not the point. Perhaps someone else will make the mistake. Perhaps you will slip up. IT HAPPENS FAR MORE OFTEN THAN YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADMIT.
We design and operate airplanes with significant safety margins, so that people don't die when mistakes or failures happen. The same logic should apply to motor vehicles.
Around here when they confiscate your car they sell it at auction and pocket the profit.
While the participants in this stunt definitely seem reckless, in my opinion this is a wonderful example of civil disobediance.
The fact is that most speeding regulations are just a form of crypto-taxation, in which artificially low speed limits are used as tools to enrich local governments (through assessed fines) and pad the profits of insurance companies (through point-triggered increases in premiums).
Further, there is plenty of evidence out there which shows that lowered speed limits do NOT actually reduce road-related fatalities. See http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits or http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/home2.html for references.
The prudent action would be to remove rural speed limits in most cases, and set speed limits at the 85th percentile speed in other highway cases. Urban and residential speed limits, however, should remain in force.
I assume you are talking about the Gumball.
You might have heard that someone was killed during that event earlier this year.
That was done by this guys team, Team Polizei. Look them up on youtube or something. They made a few hilarious videos, but in the end they are just very stupid and very irresponsible.
Interesting, it would appear that enforcement of that law would vary depending on the circumstances. My sister managed to roll her car when she was a new driver. This was before the wide spread adoption of cell phones, and it was the middle of winter in Wisconsin. She managed to flag down a passer-by and got a ride back to the house and called the cops. I know she got one heck of a tongue lashing for leaving the scene, but in the end they gave her an 'illegal right hand turn' for rolling her car 3 times into some farmer's field, and another ticket that I had thought was for leaving the scene. Thanks for the correction though.
Out of curiosity, do you know what the average punishment for leaving the scene is? I would assume points/suspension of license would be automatic, but is there a minimum fine and/or possible jail time?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I agree with you that people driving fast cars usually know how to drive them while that soccer mom in the SUV will gladly cut you off while yakking on her cell phone and sipping her Starbucks and not even notice she's done it.
While I'll admit to driving 100+ in my Firebird Formula on the Chicago expressways when they're empty, doing so in the middle of the day with commuter traffic is just plain stupid. Many of the drivers on the road are in the wrong lane, don't signal before changing lanes and don't check their mirrors or blindspots. They'll eagerly pull out in front of someone doing twice their speed and get creamed. I can only hope that the driver mentioned in the article cools it around traffic.
If you want to test your boundaries, then join the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) or one of the other organizations. Get your physical, buy some safety gear, attend driver's school and qualify for your novice license. Get a car that can pass technical inspection and then have at it with the other drivers. If you don't have the money to burn on a car, then go out for track days in your daily driver. Some of the tracks that I frequent will let drive during lunchtime on race weekends. So long as you can handle yourself and aren't endangering other drivers, the corner workers and control typically let you go as fast as you can.
You've got to be kidding me. I must honestly say that I've never seen (even on the news) an accident caused by a tire blowout. Mainly because WE DON'T USE INNER TUBES ANYMORE for at least two decades (I am not talking about bikes and trucks).
I did see once a Honda Accord that was driving a little faster than the car that I was in (we were at 105 mph) and it's tire deflated and was torn to shreds, but the driver didn't even realize until he looked in the side-mirror because the car kept going in the right direction at the same speed. That being said, there is a _HUGE_ difference between the quality of the tarmac in the EU zone and the US. In the EU there are no bumps and cracks and the whole road foundation is leveled a lot better, the turns are wider (except the milan-genova highway in italy, near genova) and the lanes are wider as well.
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever ones.
I read as many of the comments as I could stomach and came to an obvious conclusion: most of the negative comments are comming form Slashdotters who are simply so envious of somebody actually pulling off the tirp that they can't even thing straight any more. Get back in your tired old Geos and let the rest of the world have some fun.
Profanity - The sign of a small mind trying to express itself.
Interesting. I can see how this would be the case, though I haven't noticed a loss of depth perception at night. Moving bright lights would throw off the occlusion and parallax cues. Color intensity changes due to depth would be nonexistent at night.
Interestingly enough, our brains have so many specialized circuits for recognizing individual human faces that faces are one of the most important depth cues. The brain knows how big a face is, and can therefore instantly judge the distance.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
what would I do if involved in a fatal accident in a 3rd world nation?
Quit whining, and take some responsibility for your actions? You made the stupid decision to race in the third world nation, with full knowledge that racing is a risky venture.
The world isn't your fucking playground, rich boy.
You want to race on a closed racetrack? Fine, that's between you and the racetrack.
You want to race down my street? Fuck off. I'll hold you responsible for your actions.
I agree. As much as I like cars and motorsports, there really is no excuse for speeding on public roads. It's selfish, plain and simple, and no amount of deluded "but I'm a good driver" thinking excuses it. If you want to race, find a track. Or if you just can't help yourself, at least keep it to deserted roads in the day, under good conditions, where any fuck-ups are much more likely to just harm yourself and perhaps a poor farm animal.
One thing I've noticed is that many of these drivers have never had a real incident; unless you have lost control of a car many times, you won't have the same reflexes as a WRC driver.
It's no that simple.
First, I've hit 3 deer that came out of absolute nowhere. One at 50 one at 80. You're fucked either way. Note that 50 was *below* the speed limit where I was.
The claim that speed kills is an appeal to amotion. There's plenty of cases where you don't need speed to be dead. I live on a busy highway and I've seen people pull away from my place without looking behind the,
Even going the speed limit 45 mph here, a tandem traier logging truck is gonna ruin your day. He can't react, move or stop.
If it was my mum (oh, wait, it was) I'd rather have a safe high speed driver doing 140 barrelling down on her inattentive ass than a logging truck doing under the speed limit. The beamer can go around her.
Again, in spite of all your rhetoric the safety record of these rallies speaks for itself. There's only been one fatality when a porsche going 6 miles over the limit wiped out an old guy who ran a stop sign.
When yoy run a stop sign onto a highway you can be killed just as easily by a civic doing the speed limit, it was just happenstance that that it was a gumballer. An frankly he'd have a better shot at going around the idiot that ignored the stop sign than you or I - having a more responsive car and faster reflexes (good racers have faster reflexces than the average person).
Need Mercedes parts ?
All drivers think that all other drivers suck at driving.
Never argue with a man carrying a water buffalo
Even accounting for quick lane changes by fairly random drivers, even 120MPH or higher is pretty safe if you have a pretty good ability to suddenly break or swerve as needed - most of the trip would be areas without heavy traffic, where you just have one or two cars that are easy to go around even if someone changes lanes suddenly. You'd assume the person would go slower where they were held up by heavier traffic.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Actually, it's not lonely at all in my world. I take responsibility for my actions and get generally positive feedback on it. Sometimes there's friction when I expect the same out of others, but more often than not there are no issues.
So, speaking from your extensive experience of being hit at a stop sign by somebody who wasn't paying attention, you feel comfortable condemning a man who undertook extensive preparations for a risky venture where, ultimately, nobody was hurt. I'd think that being as risk-adverse as you make yourself out to be you'd be afraid of falling off your high horse.
And get off the pedestrian kick too. We're not talking about doing 90mph through a residential area or a school zone. We're talking about 120+ mph on a multi-lane divided highway in an extremely capable car. I'd feel safer sharing the road with an M5 doing 130mph than a Suburban doing 80mph. Which do you think is better at making an evasive move?
I can guess how you drive too, if you want to play that game. You're far too "careful" to actually make a decision and commit to it, which causes problems for everybody behind you, but you really don't notice. Most likely, the guy rear-ended you because you almost merged, thought better of it and slammed on the brakes, causing him to hit you because he was looking for whether he could merge. The law says he was at fault, but for all intents and purposes, you caused the accident. It's fun making assumptions.
Anyway, I'm glad you think you're responsible. I think you're risk-adverse, which is not the same thing.
read it again my dear friend.. he made the same trip twice.. with some team polizei babble in the middle.. :D
i find your lack of faith in science disturbing!
There's a difference between responsible speeding and excessive speeding. You can speed and be courteous if you pass on left, proper lane changes, proper following distances and don't go at speeds so much faster then the flow of traffic that others can't safely react.
Now people like in the article and the Great grandparent... well their cars should be impounded and auctioned off to help pay medical expenses for the victims caused by that kind of behavior.
I find drivers are a good way to access a persons personality (provided they are not a new or inexperienced driver). It shows the consideration that someone pays to strangers. Obviously its a generalization thats not always true. But I'd much rather be in a business relationship with someone that waves a pedestrian to cross ahead of them then someone who cuts off another driver. Cautious drivers afraid to pull out in traffic may have trouble making hard decisions. Plus see someone get cut off and you can see how they react, do they take it in stride, do they go into a fit of roadrage? But you can't get that kind of insight into a person when it matters usually.
The number of people killed annually by playing Russian Roulette is vanishingly small. That doesn't mean it's a perfectly safe game to play.
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"Assuming dry pavement, That M5 likely would stop from 100 MPH in in under 200 feet."
a=v^2/(2d)
v=100mph=147ft/sec
d=200ft
a=53.8ft/sec^2=1.68gee
Maybe that's possible on sticky racing tires, but it's quite unlikely with any street-legal tires!
Yeah you can use your tranny. But consider: brakes are a helluva lot cheaper and easier to replace than a tranny.
Onr thing though, if you do use your brakes A LOT on a big hill and there's a stop sign at the bottom, DO NOT sit there. The (potentially) cherry red rotors will cool down at a differert rate than the part of the rotor under the pads. Keep moving, albeing slowly so they cool down evernly.
If you've ever had warped rotors, dollars to donuts this is why they became warped.
Need Mercedes parts ?
I know that not all Americans are stupid, just like all Australians aren't bleach-blonde surfers with Sandman panel vans, but this guy is truly doing his bit to give you yanks the reputation that most of you don't deserve. This guy deserves the epithet "loonie" though, for certain.
Speeding on public roads is just dumb. It doesn't matter what gadgets you have to elude speed cameras, bypass traffic or pick the quickest route, speed kills. This is not pushing the boundaries of the pioneering spirit, like a speed record set on a salt pan, this is just your common or garden moving violation, endangering lives along the way.
He's a tosser. Toss him in jail.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
"If a meteroite hit him. If a Gamma ray burst wiped out all of earth. If a T. Rex crawled up out of the river in my backyard and bit me on the ass. If if if."
No human driving the meteorite, no human can initiate (or even predict) a GR burst and unless T-Rex is wearing a saddle and rider, no human control there either. In other words these things are not under anybody's control they are "acts of god", a car crash is rarely an "act of god" they are usually caused by an act of stupidity or negligence.
"I think it was cool."
Yes, and back in the mid 70's I was also "young dumb and full-o-cum" and would have thought the same thing. Over here in mid-70's Australia it was common to brag how fast you could get from Melbourne to Sydney. However when you are old enough to have lost a few friends and aquaitances who claimed to be "fast safe drivers" the whole "outlaw" thing just looks like a stupid waste of life. I don't wish that misery on anyone but if anyone deserves a Darwin Award for pointless dick-swinging it is the moron in TFA and those who emulate him.
"We glamorize the outlaw."
As this entire thread demonstrates, one man's villan is another man's hero.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"The claim that speed kills is an appeal to amotion."
No, it's an appeal for common sense. If you hit something doing 100mph, you are more likely to die, than if you were doing 60mph. Anyone who disputes that claim is an idiot, are you an idiot? And it takes a lot longer to brake to a standstill from 100mph than from 60mph. Again: common sense. Also, it's a lot easier to avoid hitting something if you are doing 60mph than if you were doing 100mph. Again: common sense.
seriously: this is not common sense.
"If it was my mum (oh, wait, it was) I'd rather have a safe high speed driver doing 140 barrelling down on her inattentive ass than a logging truck doing under the speed limit. The beamer can go around her."
Would you rather have a head-on collision with a car that is doing 100mph, or with a similar car that is doing 60mph? Remember: speed doesn't kill", right? By comparing a BMW doing 140mph to a logging-truck driving under the speed-limit, you are comparing apples and oranges. A valid comparison would be BMW doing 140mph or BMW going under the speed-limit. How about that comparison? Which would you rather have a collision with?
"Again, in spite of all your rhetoric the safety record of these rallies speaks for itself."
It's just statistics. If someone drives 140mph on a public road, and doesn't cause an accident, does that mean that it's somehow "safer" than obeying the speed-limit since there are lots of accidents that take place even though participant are obeying the speed-limit? No. The "races" are quite rare in the end. When compared to everyday-traffic these races compromise maybe 0.002% of all traffic on the roads. So is it any wonder that these races cause less accidents than the other 99.998% of traffic?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
"seriously: this is not common sense."
Uh, that was supposed to be "rocket science", not "common sense"...
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
" Ever been to the 24 hours of Daytona? The pits were littered with blown BMW straight sixes by the end. A 911 won. "
What year?
BMW won:
1976, 1983, 1988, 1989
http://www.usautoparts.net/bmw/racing/history/drivers.htm
BMW has won the 24 hours of Nürburgring race 16 times.
In fact, BMW won the event 12 out of 15 times from 1984 to 1998 in machines ranging from the BMW 6 Series Coupe to the BMW M3.
http://www.usautoparts.net/bmw/racing/nurburgring.htm
These are all modified race cars. In the real world BMW's seem to have a reliability edge over Porsches. At least that's what I've seen. YMMV.
Need Mercedes parts ?
On the other hand I suppose you could say that our society tolerates political protest for the greater good even if it occasionally causes harm.
Well, this just illustrates why analogies are good for explanation but not argument.
I've always wondered why on earth do American cars have 3,4,5 or even 6 liter engines, but after a trip to the gas-station I found out: the octane numbers for gas in California are 87, 89 and 91 (and in some places 93 seldomly 95). If you stop at _ANY_ gas station in Bucharest you will see 95, 98 and 99 or 100. In the manuals of most cars I've seen it says that you should use gas at least 95, preferably 98.
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_number
US 87 octane regular corresponds to European 91 octane regular, 89 to 95 and 91 to 98.
But in Europe most cars run on 89/95 stuff with some (especially the FSI/TSI/whatever direct injection engines) even requiring 91/98, while in the US basically everyting runs on regular.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yeah, and Porsche won Daytona 20 times? Thanks for proving my point. And the 24 hours of lemans, 16 for Porsche. Has BMW even won lemans? Don't know much about it but I am guessing the Nürburgring race is BMW only.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
These are all modified race cars. In the real world BMW's seem to have a reliability edge over Porsches. At least that's what I've seen. YMMV.
GT2 Porsches have won Daytona.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
http://phors.locost7.info/contents.htm
I've never heard of an accident resulting purely from speed, I have heard of accidents resulting from poor judgement. Good drives, I define as having good judgement and experience handling at the speeds they do.
Good drives slow down where they can not (within reason) assure safety, for them and the other motorists.
If you read the article, you can see these guys were majorly on the lookout, slowing for rises and similar. These men made the trip safely, they obviously exercised good judgement throughout the trip, and were obviously safe throughout the trip.
The example you show of your friends and their baby, is an example of bad drivers, they made an action with poor judgement.
If other people made bad decisions based on their driving, that is NOT their fault. Since poor decisions can be made at any speed, would you always place the blame on the indirect person, who drove safely?
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I'm going to go with the generalisation that putting innocent bystanders at risk without their consent makes you an asshole.
That said, I've gone through the last 2 or 3 years worth of worldwide base jumper fatalities at http://www.splatula.com/bfl/ and US skydiver fatalities at http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/ and whilst there are some unfortunate encounters with vehicles, aeroplanes, power lines, buildings etc. I can't find a single instance of a collision causing the death of anyone but a fellow airborne jumper/diver.
Compare that to over 40 000 road deaths in the US in 2006 alone (pulled from here). I know those numbers can't be compared directly, but if it's a choice between next to the Space Needle and next to a highway, I know where I'd feel safer standing.