[comfortfreak]

A personal perspective,

1) When you are young and romance is in your blood, its fun to speed. The sense of acceleration, Gforces while taking curves, weaving through traffic. Makes you feel quite the dude, capable of taking on the world. Young people often need something like that to boost their confidence while trying to come to terms with the _real_ world with no safety nets.

2) When you are having a stressful time in life, running around trying to sort out problems, you tend to get very angry and impatient with road blocks that suddenly represent all that is wrong with your life. You just want to blast through traffic and punish everyone who is blocking your way.

I've been through both the above situations until eventually settling down to a slow comfortable speed that ensures I get home safely to my family every day. Now I tell my driver I don't care about being late for a flight or a meeting because I don't want to take any chances. Too much to lose.

However, when I'm driving by myself, I do enjoy having the ability to flick through bunched up traffic on highways to get ahead into open road. Having a fast driver friendly car certainly helps.

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by Jr Godzilla

if you want to check speed try it on some deserted road or some straight stretch after having calculated the injury to others is a Zero and if anything happens it only has to be YOU with the pain to your family members.

Well said Jr Godzilla. More or less sums up what others have called 'defensive driving'. The problem is that to many people defensive driving represents cowardice. And how can I possibly be a coward!? Get the idea?
As someone said earlier, we pretty much grow up learning from what we see around us. And ALL the wrong signals are being sent to your 'little' mind at those very formative stages.

[Torqy]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

C'mon Torqy! That was sarcasm!
Now try doing a poll asking how many people have had accidents.
Hardly any! You know why? Because a lot of people have justified it in their minds as not being their fault, and so it wasn't really 'their' accident, not their fault!
As for funerals, they don't happen to skilled drivers.

Originally Posted by anupmathur

Well said Jr Godzilla. More or less sums up what others have called 'defensive driving'. The problem is that to many people defensive driving represents cowardice. And how can I possibly be a coward!? Get the idea?
As someone said earlier, we pretty much grow up learning from what we see around us. And ALL the wrong signals are being sent to your 'little' mind at those very formative stages.

Do i see a contradiction in these two posts?
Are you FOR or AGAINST fast driving on public roads by skilled drivers?

-- Torqy

[thefreak]

Phew! Interesting read this thread.

My 2 cents:

To drive fast is not foolishness in itself. To drive rashly is. There is a marginal but significant difference in the two which most expierienced riders/drivers would understand.

As for the obsession with speed. Well what is the harm? As with any other obsession in life this too is not bad on a standalone basis. Add foolishness in and you have the recipe for danger. Add intelligence in and you have the skills of a good driver. And overdo the obsession and you have the ingredients for disaster.

Take your pick. To each his own!

[VBV]

There are a couple of aspects about this issue:

1. The rule of the land: By law, we're stipulated that we do not cross speed limits. And that there are certain authorities designated to fix these limits.

2. The respect for the rule: Be it speed limit or anything, in a democracy there is a requirement for all of us to respect the rule (I confess I have not been doing it consistently, but I intend to)

Now, if anybody has a problem with the rule, the right way to go about it is to get the authorities to change it. It is definitely not right to just take the rule into our hands and decide on our own. The rule is negotiable but not the respect. It will lead to anarchy.

In India, usually it is far easy to get away with disrespecting the law than to get the law changed (there are both systemic and psychological reasons). So people end up doing a lot of illegal stuff and the sad part is that automags even publish that they were doing high speeds but do not get prosecuted. Such stuff leads to more lawlessness.

If people are really interested in high speed driving, they should either get the speed limits changed or get a new set of roads for themselves.

[ballkey]

Vasudev, if it makes you feel any better, we Indians are not alone in this

The Pedal-to-the-Metal, Totally Illegal, Cross-Country Sprint for Glory
This dude *averaged* over 90 mph across the entire breadth of United States!

[vasudeva]

Originally Posted by ballkey

Vasudev, if it makes you feel any better, we Indians are not alone in this

The Pedal-to-the-Metal, Totally Illegal, Cross-Country Sprint for Glory
This dude *averaged* over 90 mph across the entire breadth of United States!

I did read about this in today's newspaper.

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by diabloo

Just because you paid lakhs of rupees more, should your car do 0~100 in couple of seconds less? What will you do with those 2 seconds?
Note: If you feel those 2 seconds matter, then you are in wrong place. You should on a race track, instead of passenger road.

actually those two seconds translate to around 200 feet of gap that you may want to maintain between yourself and a trailer truck doing 70 mph coming from behind when merging on a highway. read reviews of slower cars in US and this is the biggest advantage everybody cribs about. i have not driven on the new expressways in india, But I am sure this will be applicable there too.

If the authorities want every vehicle on the road to adhere to the speed limit of that country, then all vehicles sold in that country should have speed limiter, which will not let the vehicle go over the limit.
Otherwise it will like giving a chocolate to a kid and ask him to eat half, throw the rest away. What the kid will do is eat the other half hiding from you.

Yes, that's what i said, adding that it will be a big cost to the taxpayer. may by year 2050 we may have cars that limit the speed based on posted speed limit on that route.

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by Torqy

Do i see a contradiction in these two posts?
Are you FOR or AGAINST fast driving on public roads by skilled drivers?

-- Torqy

Torqy Torqy Torqy, this is not contradiction, this is sarcasm

You don't expect him to put a "PS:" in every post saying it's sarcasm, do you?

[anupmathur]

________________!!

Thanks Vivek.

[Torqy]

Originally Posted by vivekiny2k

Torqy Torqy Torqy, this is not contradiction, this is sarcasm

You don't expect him to put a "PS:" in every post saying it's sarcasm, do you?

Originally Posted by anupmathur

________________!!

Thanks Vivek.

Ok.



-- Torqy

[vabs78]

I didn't (couldn't) read the complete thread, but I have a completely different view about this issue.

IMO driving car (any vehicle) at its limits gives you much better understanding of the its behavior in panic situations. If you practice driving at limits (speeding, breaking, etc.) you will have a better chance of controlling/avoiding damage in emergency situations. I have seen many accidents where the driver couldn't control the vehicle in emergency situation.

This, combined with the fun you can have by fast driving is reason enough for me to justify high speed driving.

Yet, being sensible is also very important, drive fast but don't be reckless.

[Hyundai.Lover]

Originally Posted by vivekiny2k

road rage again.

It is for fun and a naughty thing to do on the road, not for satisfaction of the hot blood. Infact it will not harm anyone.

[Hyundai.Lover]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Speed never kills anybody... Its the stop

you are right. on the ring road, Dhaula kuan, New Delhi. Last night at around 11 pm i was trying to check the thrill of running the car slow at night.
I was driving my car at 45 kmph. Approx what our govt. had set for Delhi Roads (50 kmph max).

in less than 10 min. time... more than 50-60 cars passed me and that was Scary. Really..!! Very close cuts, trucks, call center cabs, racers, family people. 3 cars almost had my side mirror off. #%#&#7

Come on man how can we drive at 60-70 kmph on a highway. It is too dangerous when cars and trucks running at high speeds.

It was hard for me to drive that car as if i'm cramped up on the road. Cant take lefts and rights because of the fact the upcoming traffic could had hit my car. and last night itself opp. to Hyatt, Ring Road, New Delhi (R.K Puram), A taxi maruti van was hit by a call center cab Innova infront of me.
Maruti guy was too slow (around 30 kmph) and too a left instead of going on the flyover. and that cab was at around 50-60 kmph. Maruti Guy's lazy car almost had his head off the road. It was maruti guy's fault. he was too casual and had a left without any indicator. When i stopped the car to see if they need any help (me being a doc), lol they were fighting Maruti guy was saying "I was too slow but you are too fast, and i don't need indicator because i was slow and you were driving very fast at 100 kmph" haha innova was just at 50-60 kmph. if Van would had been atleast 50 kmph then this would not had happened.

Really scary 10 min. for me at 45 kmph.

[Hyundai.Lover]

And Don't worry guys, TATA new 1 lakh car is just 600 cc and 16 bhp car. We can see a lot of accidents and very very slow moving traffics on the roads. Be Ready Guys. haha