P-plate Laws and Recent crash

[Marco-R34GTT]

I'm not for this at all..

All though I do believe that defensive driving should be a MANDATORY component of attaining a drivers licence. I think everyone is forgetting the crux of the issue here. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, people should quite simply not drive like a pack of wankers, well, not on public roads anyway. It is the these guilty parties that need to be targeted specifically, once they are caught then they must be charged by the full weight of the law. Same thing goes to parents, you buy your kids a 300kw supertaxi, don't cry on television when they've wrapped themselves around a powerpole trying to impress a group of school kids.

I got done for hoon laws in a 97rkw VL hommodore, my next car was my R34 GTT, haven't lost a single demerit point.... What changed??? More power? A turbocharger? No, my attitude changed, I did my six months penance, I took my punishment on the chin, served my six months on foot, got my licence back and got my new car.. Ask any of my friends or anyone on here that knows me well, I've not done a single skid/burnout/donut in my car on public land... It comes with an attitude adjustment, maybe I'm a lucky one, but do I want to see others suffer for my own lack of judgement, no I don't. I wasn't at all happy about copping six months but I did, and I swear I literally didn't drive anywhere on a public road for six months.. That should be my own punishment to serve, not someone else's, that is just wrong, unjust and simply unacceptable in my eyes..

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY..

Blame game must stop..

Likewise governments must stop using 'speed' and 'power' as excuses for accidents, I'd most certainly rather be in my Skyline than the VL in a road accident if I had the choice... 210kw vs 97kw??? So, the Nissan is just a much better car, beter grip, handling, balance ect... If speed and power were so fatal... I dare ask the question, why isn't the entire population of Germany not yet dead??? Autobahnen must be more fatal than organ failure by the sounds of it...

[fire_angel]

Have you seen some of the accidents they have on the Autobahn? Scary...

[Marco-R34GTT]

Have you seen some of the accidents they have on the Autobahn? Scary...

If I may ask Coz... How frequently would they actually occur??

[bubba]

Changing attitudes is a lot harder for the government to do than applying new laws in an attempt to counteract what they perceive as a blight on society.

Yes, attitudes need to change. Yes, the government needs to do different things. But, the things the government does needs to be able to applied to everybody.

I agree that attitude and maturity play a big part in all of this but they are very difficult things to change and maturity is not something you can force on people. Therefore it needs to be approached in a broad way which means targetting new drivers.

There are a lot of older drivers out there that are either just plain stupid or have no clue but the powers that be have to start somewhere. That somewhere is with all NEW drivers.

[Marco-R34GTT]

Alienating the 'motorcar' is a sure-fire way to make the entire plan fail..

We are turning into Switzerland, next thing we will ban motor-races, ban carwashes, and go to prison for minor speeding offences..

The big cheeses in parliment (both national and state), Grant Dorrington, Karl O'Callaghan.... Just have not idea... What many of these people have done and also failed to do it utterly contemptable... HPT, biggest joke ever...

[bubba]

Mark, you're advocating harsher penalties and for people to just accept their time. I have no problem with that.

I however am advocating slight restrictions on new drivers (which is actually quite sensible) and more education/training.

How am I "alienating" the motorcar?

I love cars, a lot of people love cars and nearly all of us rely on cars day to day. They are going to be around for quite some time.

What we need to do is start properly educating and training all the new drivers that come through. We should probably look at some sort of training for existing drivers but that is much harder and longer to implement. For the now, put the restrictions on the new drivers that come through and also teach them more/better.

[fire_angel]

Marco google for stats and let me know. Switzerland is cool, they have snow and chocolate!!! And snowmobiles....

With the price of petrol and cars going up, pretty soon most p platers won't be able to afford more fuel hungry cars anyway. Most of perth really...

Bring back the old 120Y!!!!!

[Marco-R34GTT]

Mark, you're advocating harsher penalties and for people to just accept their time. I have no problem with that.

I however am advocating slight restrictions on new drivers (which is actually quite sensible) and more education/training.

How am I "alienating" the motorcar?

I love cars, a lot of people love cars and nearly all of us rely on cars day to day. They are going to be around for quite some time.

What we need to do is start properly educating and training all the new drivers that come through. We should probably look at some sort of training for existing drivers but that is much harder and longer to implement. For the now, put the restrictions on the new drivers that come through and also teach them more/better.

lol.

In terms of the "alienating" I was more making reference to the pollies and coppers..

I do kind of agree with what your saying, I just hope that it is reasonable, in the sense that you can't have both a pod filter and an intercooler (Like the two intake modifications law in Vic, which = gheyness), I would rather see the government introduce a compulsory pit passing law which each car has to pass the pits bi-anually in order to stay road worthy, that gets the old pieces of shits off the road whilst also keeping us performance junkies in check.. They do this in the UK and apparently it is quite effective in getting all the old, unmaintained sheetboxes off the roads.. In terms of power, I can't see there being a realistic solution... I wouldn't like to see Cooper S's being banned because of a supercharger, or a Golf tdi/fsi, they are all pretty safe cars to drive, and handle very well, when you start talking about 307kw V8 HSV's and GTR's then I start to agree, but in turn I also think FWD cars need to be given a heck of a lot of scrutineering as well. Proportionally if such a power/weight ration figure came into play, then FWD's should suffer an exponentially greater power penalty than RWD cars, with 4wd suffering the least penalty (not performance ATTESSA stuff, more like Subaru's symmetrical AWD system)...

[bubba]

bi-annual pits is ridiculous (not with the money and time it currently costs to go over the pits) and I think mod laws should be left out of this thread as it is a completely different topic.

I do agree however that any power to weight laws should be based on driveline format. A 200hp FWD can be a lot more dangerous than a 200hp RWD but, it depends on the level of experience and the situation. It would be safer for a 200hp FWD inexperienced driver in the wet than an inexperienced driver in a 200hp RWD car in the wet.

Understeer is safer for the inexperienced driver.

[bubba]

Oh and my take on AWD's is that you just tend to be going a whole lot faster when sh~t goes pearshaped!

[Marco-R34GTT]

Oh and my take on AWD's is that you just tend to be going a whole lot faster when sh~t goes pearshaped!

Having grown up out bush and driving of gravel roads... I do be to differ..

[bubba]

Having grown up out bush and driving of gravel roads... I do be to differ..

I'm not talking about bush and gravel roads.. most people that grew up around that stuff were driving in paddack bashers a long time before they got their license.

My AWD statement is in regards to sealed roads and highways. They'll tend to hold on a lot longer than a RWD under the same conditions so that when you do come unstuck, it's generally at a much higher speed

[s13rb20pplater]

as said before its the drver not the car, people kill people, not cars,

im still a P plater and my last car was a 12.2 second wrx that i built up myself, and my new car is a s13 13.6 sec car, ive had my license for bout 1 year now but been practicing driving 2 years prior to obtaining my license, so IMO the should make all new drivers have their Ls for a further 2 years before the can drive unsupervised, ill admit ive given the cars abit, but the moment i think ill lose control i back off, its all to do with reflexes AND HOW MUCH OF A DUMB f**k YOU ARE TO PUT YOUR BEST MATES LIFE AT RISK just to show off....

[Rucker34]

we def need restrictions on P platers... ffs, who in their right mind would allow a new driver to get behind the wheel of anything powerful or worked is just beyond me... RIP to the passenger

Parents these days just have no friggen idea... or don't care? I just don't get it.

+1!

and what are people talking about when they say it does not matter what car you drive because you can still speed and have an accident. no shit!

Does not change the fact that the majority of P platers are stupid immature little pricks. And then you want to let them drive around in a car that has more balls than they would know what to do with seeing as theirs have only just dropped themselves. It Sh*t's me to tears the number of P plate Di*k heads i see speeding in busy built up areas. I have had so many little tirds trying to show off and almost clean me up. They don’t have nearly enough time behind a wheel to understand how a car handles and just how dangerous they can be if not respected. If they have the sort of attitude where they are going to show off they will do it no matter what car they drive yes, but the difference is if there showing off in a 1.3L Barina they are far less likely to get them selves in a situation that they are not yet capable of controlling where as you chuck someone in a car with some grunt and it is going to be far easier to get in out of your depth. Plus I don’t know about you guys but if I am driving around in a little Barina or something I am not likely to try and draw any attention to the fact. Where as in some nice big v8 or hotted up turbo powered car you are going to want to show off.

I dont think it should efect the people who are already on P's but believe there is no reason not to inforce these restrictions on any new drivers. It is in every ones best interests at the end of the day. Not just for the driver but for the (16 year old girl) other people whos lives are in the hands of the yound driver sat next to them who has no idea what they are doing.

Edited July 29, 2008 by Rucker34

[bubba]

Eugene, we all acknowledge that fact BUT not every P plater is like you. Therefore the government has to cater for ALL P platers.

More training, less powerful cars for a longer period is just an attempt to control something that is in essence uncontrollable. It still has to be done though.

[s2k12]

Understeer is safer for the inexperienced driver.

I have never understood why people think this..

My car has snapped into oversteer a few times now, isn't that hard to pull it back in though.

Mums car, has understeered to the point where I was on full-lock left and it was still going straight. That was alot harder to pull back into line lol, but also would have had much worse consequences than oversteer. Understeer is also more common in the magna than oversteer is in the zed.

On the subject of performance cars.. A friend of mine has an NA Z31 and an 87-ish excel. The zed gets thrashed very rarely, while the excel gets thrashed every second corner lol. While the zed isn't exactly a performance car, it is in comparison to the excel lol. And I'm the same though, I can't drive mums magna slow lol, it's too painful. But my car, easy. A mates R33 turbo that I drove once? Yeah, I babied that too. I think it's about being able to respect the car, and when you have no respect for it, like in the case of a daily, you go nuts with it.

I also think I drive better in manual cars for some reason. More driver feedback perhaps? Oh yeah, that's another thing, I hate that modern cars have no feedback!

But yes, as I said before, restrict the f**k out of us just to kill some ego's. I don't think it will do much for the road toll, and it will inconvenience me alot, but as long as some of these new drivers stop thinking they own the road then it'll be worth it. Yes, I know it's not only P-platers, and I would even go as far as to say most of the bad drivers aren't P platers. But the government isn't going to try fix the driving habbits of fully licenced drivers, so this is the next best thing.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, red P's suit my car better lol.

[bubba]

If you had the magna full lock while going straight (and I've done this many times in the various FWD's I've owned), then you obviously still had your foot into it.

For an INEXPERIENCED driver, not knowing how to countersteer effectively is what makes RWD's dangerous as opposed to just not going round the corner.

[seul_avec]

I personally think that its the attitude of drivers these days. There are heaps of drivers driving dangerously regardless of having a P

plate or not. I dont think that it would make much of a difference if the government ban them from driving powerful cars, because

they still can do stupid things in a not so powerful car. And honestly its not only the P platers who are driving recklessly these days,

just a handful of P platers think that they are supeheroes, driving as if they own the road.

[Kaido_RR]

if it saves one life, its better than nothing....

[bubba]

if it saves one life, its better than nothing....

Exactly.