Close call

[Roy]

Well two trips to Mudgee (i live in outer Sydney) in 3 days means im all driven out.

1st tank of gas saw 612kms before filling up, and 2nd 590kms before putting more Optimax in it today. thats between 70-120kms better then my usual conservative driving.

Both trips i did Bells line of Road at sunset, and dawn (overnight trips). Been a long time since driving up to Lithgow, but a great drive in that when sitting only 10km above the speed limit you are having an absolute ball (110 into posted 75km corners... i know some go quicker, but any faster and its not relaxing)

Now i normally dont do a lot of country road driving, so never knew about the whole dusk/dawn/wildlife thing. Anyone with an R32 will know how lousy the headlights are. See where this is going?

Anyway 130km/h on a country road between the Power Station outside Lithgow and Mudgee, @ 4.30am, car is happily cruising along with high beams on, when out comes Skippy. I swerve just getting the outside tyres onto the dirt (no curbing just dirt and lots of trees). I missed him by about 2 feet, I wish i had a video in the car, as she was one hell of a slide and it was over before it started. I dont think i dropped below 100k/hr

My poor old brother went quiet for about 5 minutes. During which time im thinking i did a f*!@king brilliant job keeping it in a straight line and off the trees, but not wanting to say anything. (You know im a lone wolf and nothing bothers me, this happens when i go to get milk.)

Plus it wouldnt surprise me to hear that i looked like Steady Eddy behind the wheel for that fleeting moment (ie hands everywhere)

... after the awkward silence out comes "you couldnt drive a greased stick up a dogs clacker". It turns out he was also more then impressed with my reaction, telling me people at work lose a car a month on that road due to Kangaroos and wombats. (Now he tells me... and sorry i know im bragging)

I still think luck (and god had already taken one family member this week) had more to do it with than driver skill. But i believe the advanced driver course combined with my trips to the track helped my car control when skippy decided to play chicken. It had to have helped to a degree.

Anyway the rest of the trip was spent on 100k/hr and so paranoid that every dead tree by the side of the road looked like wildlife ready to pounce.

... oh and now more then ever looking to do something about those crappy Nissan headlights.

Moral of the story, just because Police arent around, and the road is clear and free of bumps, and you perceive the speed your travelling at is safe... well S*#t happens and id rather be travelling at 100k/he then 130k/hr next time its thrown my way.

[red900ss]

are you going to change your undies as well Roy?

[Roy]

Undies can easily be changed, the smell is a little harder to remedy

[PranK]

Good story Roy! very good point!

Sorry about the family member too.

[R33NT]

You lot have it easy, you should try driving the Stuart Hwy around midnight between Alice Springs and Tennant creek.

I was happily driving (not going to tell you what car i was driving needless to say it wasnt mine and wasnt a Skyline) and i see a roo sitting on the left hand side of the road facing towards the left. I thought not a prob. Then as i get close it gets this brilliant idea it should do a U turn and head across the road in front of me. I pumped the brakes and drove around it, needless to say the passangers in the car (one of whome was pissed) got the shock of their lives. But they where suitably impressed. Then of course there are the cattle that have thousands of hectares (i am not kidding here thousands) and they think standing in the middle of the stuart highway at night is the most comfortable place (might have something to do with heat radiated from the road and cold nights down the track).

I have also done a defensive driving course where among other things they teach you to apply your own ABS on a wet stretch of tarmac. Highly recommended exercise to learn how to handle a car.

[fatz]

rta did a study on defensive driving corses

if you do one you r 3times more likely to be involved in a crash

pete

[rs73]

is it becoz some bighead morons who did the course became over confident with their ability then got into a crash and then RTA came and assess these ppl.... forgetting about hundreds of others who took the course but never had a crash afterwards?

I'll be doing my 2nd level mid April. Did 1st level and it was great fun.

And Roy, I tried replacing my headlight bulb with Narva 50plus, it doesn't help as bright as HID light conversion, but it gives better visibility compared to normal bulbs. Try that one. But I won't recommend the ice blue Narva though, as the bulb is slightly tinted to give that white illumination, but in brightness term, not as bright as the Plus 50.

I'm not sure if they have more than Plus 50 sold but might be for a bigger bulb not the 12v55w ones. Skylines uses 12v55w bulbs.

[Duncan]

Heh, Kanagroo's are for wusses....we had a cow on the side of putty road yesterday!

Glad you got thru in one piece roy!

[2rismo]

Roos are dead set the MOST unpredictable and stupid friggin' road side creatures in existance. Never EVER expect them to do anything logical. I've had mexican stand-offs with them before where i holiday, stopping and getting out to yell at them to fark off before driving on...

I hate roos...

[nemz]

I bought my r32 in Brisbane, and had to recently move back to Sydney due to family issues, on the way down, got booked by a cop doing 150 in 110 zone,my friend got done driving unaccompanied twice ( very irresponsible, and apologies to everyone who dissaproves, it was an urgent matter) and defected twice, to top it all off, doing about 120 just past coffs harbour, and you guessed it, skippy thought he'd say hi, i just smacked into him, id rather have a ****ed car thats unrepairable then to have an accident on that stretch of road, and the result is (maby people have seen the pic of my front bumper-or lack of during previous posts) . I guess im just saying those roads are trecherous at night , with the wildlife crossing more often then pedestrians in the Sydney CBD, so just be carefull, because id rather see more Skylines with no front bumpers then to see less Skylines. Take care guys.

[nemz]

*in local and residential areas i dont speed, and if it was a person id have stopped as best i could, but with 1 second notice, all you can do it ' try stop?' or 'keep it on the road', and i meant *repairable* before.

[flagger]

nemz, i guess you have an excuse to get a gtr bumper now!! or some other nice bumper

[R33S2]

I've hit 3 Roo's so far, one was standing in the middle of the road and as I approached I slowed down and moved to the shoulder was doing about 30k by then and he stuck his head in my headlight:rant: body smacked into front mudguard. Second one jumped of a bank above me and landed about 5mts in front, just enough time to brake hard but not to miss him, he bounced off into the scrub, hope he died. The last one jumped out of the bush and went for the headlight again but missed and got the front wheel straight over his head, that one died.

Minor damage both times but if your driving at dusk/dawn beware they're out there.

[oscar32]

Come on out, I'll show you heaps of roos

Glad to hear the r32 survived

[Messiah]

fit a bull bar :slap:

[readyGO]

i was born in lithgow!! now im a brisbane mt gravatt boy......

[benm]

Going back about a year now a mate of mine and 2-3 of his mates were in his dads company car heading out along the Northern Rd (western sydney - Oran Park etc) to another mates place late at night. A truck was heading towards them coming around a corner, next thing a fat cow smacks them in the front right of their VT Commodore and it rolled over off into the paddock on the side of the road and was a right-off.

A farmer had left a gate open, cow wandered onto road late at night and stood in the path of an oncoming truck. The truck driver didn't see it until it was too late and the bull bar smacked the cow straight into the front right of my mates car.

They called the cops/ambulance etc and the farmer came out with his tractor to remove the cow (still alive). He put a chain around its neck and attached to the tractor and then slowly started to drag him off the road. Only thing was his body was too heavy for the tractor so his neck stretched about 1m long without the body movingbefore.... *pop*

..cow was in 2 pieces...

[someonestolecc]

(You know im a lone wolf and nothing bothers me, this happens when i go to get milk.)

ROFL

[Kor'axis]

We had a coupe mazda 626 a while ago (great car - quad-cam) anyway, we were in the bush and skippy jumped out right infront. Dad manged to swerve but only enough to hit the side of the car on the kangaroo. It did a bout $2000+ worth of damage. We couldn't even get out of drivers side door. It was that bad!! We stopped and took a look back at the kangaroo and see it lying on the floor after a few seconds it gets up, shakes it's head and hops off... $%^&*^% kangaroo.

Then a few years later we're driving with a few friends in Landcruisers with bull bars kangaroo jumps out and the landcruiser in front of us hits it head on! Damage to car = 1 dint in steel bull bar. Kangaroo... dead on the floor.

Moral: drive Huge Mofo 4x4's in bush.

[croat]

Me and a mate were driving in his calais turbo down to jervis bay for surfing trip. It was about 5am and the roads were dark, headlights below average when skippy decided to pull out. Only problem was skippy didnt give us much time as he jumped right into the cars front left and totaled my mates front bar, just missing the month old FMIC and headlight. skippy died.....