What do you think the answer is .....

[igor]

I strongly disagree to 'power to weight' ratios being used in order to limit what cars P platers(like myself) can and cannot drive. Look at it this way, my father is 50 years old, he drives a Mazda Tribute, he doesnt know what oversteer,understeer, compression lock etc etc mean. He has never driven a high performance car, he has just as much chance as losing it as the 18 year old P plater if they both got into a high performance car. The loophole is that my father IS allowed to drive it and the p plater is not. Real effective law isnt it?? When i get my car (either S15 or r34) i will take a advanced drivers course, i dont care for how much $$$ they charge, if it saves me from damaging my car and/or hurting someone then its all worth it.

Do you seriously believe that your father has less chances of avoiding an accident providing you know what understeer, oversteer etc are? You are kidding yourself. Your father is 5 times more likely to avoid an accident NO MATTER WHAT CAR HE OR YOU ARE DRIVING. The 30+ years experience alone is worth more that a year of driving courses put together for you.

Another thing to consider is traffic experience. How many times have you had a car pull out on you? How many times have you had a car braking in front of you? How many times a car tried changing lanes into you? How many times have you tried to changed lanes into another car?

All these things add up. Take it slow and learn.

[adznight]

Wow can people say power restrictions won't work???

How many accidents have you heard of that involve people loosing it sideways and hitting gutters, poles etc? Most of these aren't even high speed accidents. They are caused by wheelspinbreaking traction. How do you break traction? With power!

[Amaru]

How many times have you had a car pull out on you? How many times have you had a car braking in front of you? How many times a car tried changing lanes into you? How many times have you tried to changed lanes into another car?

I personally fail to see what relevance the above scenarios have to driving a high performance car. Those things happen all day every day, it doesnt matter what car youre in and in my opinion, contribute absolutely nothing to the skills "required" to drive a high performance car.

There is no answer, plain and simple. You can put restrictions on paper of what people can and cannot drive, but its never going to stop whats happening.

Quite a long time ago they put in place laws to stop muders, did all murders magically cease and there has not been one case since the laws were introduced?

Not trying to be pessemistic but were human, we all have choices to make, and if youre unfortunate enough to be cleaned up by a young driver in a high powered car, then theres not a whole lot you can do about it.

[Goon]

being a p-plater myself, when i say this, i am not biased.

I think power/weight ratio is def the way to go. there should be stages, starting out with a level one, and progressing until a 3. You can only progress a level if you have no major accidents, large fines etc.

Level 1: cars on the slow side to start with, drive that for 2 years.

Level 2: upgrading to mildly powered everyday cars, drive for 1 year.

Level 3: turbocharged, 8s+, rotaries

Now i realise everyone is going to say although someone will get a "Level one" car (eg. Corolla), they can still modify the ass off it so it goes quicker. but hey, really your average teenager isnt going to bother with that. Although this would be a very difficult concept to police, as they cant estimate the "level" a person can be at as they drive past. it is only when they check licenses when they pull the driver over that they can determine if the car falls into the catagory. but hey, there will never be a concept that will please everyone.

[Remix-]

I find this interesting, as quoted in Performance Forums by the user st00ge:

"With regards to that 14 death pictures from the Daily telegraph, the bottom right hand pic, Daniel O'neil, what does falling asleep at the wheel have to do with driving a high powered car???

Also these are the fatal accidents of P platers in the last 12mths. How many other non P platers have died in the past 12 months? I would say easily ten times that amount. Heck more than 14 people die in one long weekend on our roads.

Someone is not really looking at the big picture."

[Remix-]

Wow can people say power restrictions won't work???

 

How many accidents have you heard of that involve people loosing it sideways and hitting gutters, poles etc? Most of these aren't even high speed accidents. They are caused by wheelspinbreaking traction. How do you break traction? With power!

Heard of a handbrake, taking a corner to quickly or hitting a ditch?

Maybe some of our lovely Multinova money should be spent on fixing up our roads.

[adznight]

Oh for gods sake be realistic....

[Remix-]

Realism at it's best Adzmax!

Powerful cars are not the problem. Uneducated drivers are.

[Lozza150]

But would you agree that Powerful cars *can* play a major factor in feeding stupidity/recklessness because they have the ability to break traction/slide go really fastt in a short distance as opposed to other lesser powerful cars.

Lets not forget people that the ability to reach high speeds in a short distance in some of the "High Power" cars is VERY easy.

[redline2003]

I wasnt talking about accidents caused by not being careful or due to heavy traffic, i specifically said 'losing it' due to the car being of a high powered nature. My father would probably slam on the brakes, i would back off and 'try' to counter steer it. I 100% agree that older people are less likely to have accidents from people merging, failing to stop at red lights etc, but what relevence does that have to do with high powered cars??? I do agree that high performance cars do lose traction easier and accelerate much faster, but thats the problem of performance cars, not the age of the driver. Like i said most people of any age wouldnt know what to do if they were in a high performance car and they lost traction, so then we should ban all high performance cars shouldnt we?????

[R32Skyliner]

I think the restrictions placed on P platers should include a power restriction. Most people on this forum will understand that if it's wet, then you don't want to be boosting mid corner or the car will go sideways. This has happened to me on many occasions and I've just corrected for it and continued on. Less power would prevent this from happening and extra training would help this as drivers would understand how to correct this.

I have done a driver training course, and the main thing I learnt from it was awareness, not how to control a car (I reckon you can get this by practising in an empty carpark or closed quiet street). The drive that my course went on involved driving a stock commodore around the streets and pointing out things such as "there's a child playing on the side of the road 200m up who could step out onto the road, I miust be prepared to stop". Stuff like this is why there is a 50kmh limit on suburban roads. To be doing 200kmh on such a road is plain stupidity and unawareness of the potential consequences. It all comes down to maturity and being aware, don't speed just because your mates want you to and think about what could happen.

That kid might just step out in front of you and you have to be prepared to stop, otherwise its off to jail for you. Alternatively, you must be aware of that dip or crest in the road which will unbalance your car and send you into a pole, then its off to the morgue for you.

My solution is restrictions and extra training. Lectures demonstrating the consequences of speeding may also help, possibly with victims of car crashes (those who survive) speaking.

[Remix-]

At the end of the day, if someone wants to do 200km/hr in a 50 zone there is not allot you can do about it. It is human nature to take risks, some learn from mistakes, some don't get a chance to learn from them. This is and has always been the way of life.

You cannot change evolution and try to conform the young generation to a perfect driving world, there is no such thing. They need to grow and experience for themselves, like we all have.

Education is the best alternative in my opinion. I think allot deeper now before i put my foot down after seeing some real photo's of people trapped in their cars in a car accident.

How much i wish they never released that stupid movie, Fast and the Furious.

[PHATR32]

hey, the bottom left corner shows a honda not a commodore.

steve

[Kaido_RR]

There is no answer to question:

realistic; power restriction dont work, if u really want the power. Ok All powerfull cars are ban (skyline,s13,180sx,s14,s15,ceffy,hsv,ex6,rx8,rx7 etc etc) wat is stopping any P plater from going out buying a ae86 and dropping a sr20 into, he add some boost and he can run 200+rwhp in a car which weight less than 1000kg.

I guess i am agaisnt restriction in away as i learnt to drive (yes on my L's) in my turbo skyline, i am now on my P's and have not had a crash or anything yet (thou i have spun out 2times and have learnt from those events) i do have 2 speeding fines one i wwas just like 6km over the other was 20km over (which yes was very stuipd, but i learnt from it and now find it hard to speed 10km over the speed limit). But i can see that if restrictions where made law, i wouldnt have a problem with it my sister is having a baby and my gf is just starting to drive, i dont want some dickhead p plater to kill them just cuz he couldnt controll his turbo car.

maturity, i think is really the KEY, if someone isnt mature enough to see that there actiong are just plain stuipd then there is nothing any laws can do to stop them.

[NXTIME]

Another WRX has crashed and split in two by a P-plater in Bringelly, in Sydney's west. Driver is in critical condition according to 9 news.

[krzysiu]

Yeah i also drove my modified skyline on my L's and now on my P's. I agree with the stages that people have stated such as gradually increasing the power of the car they are allowed to drive. But as they want to do, as in ban high performance cars for P-Platers all together is not going to work. What is the difference from driving a slow shitbox till your 21 and then buying a skyline. You still dont have any experience in driving a turbo car and also have pretty much the same chance in stacking it. I know if they banned high performance cars for P-platers i would still drive my skyline because i am aware that this is not infrorcable because too many people would not give a shit. I have yet to be pulled over for anything in my skyline, probably the day will come. But it would not be for driving like an idiot or for speeding.

[Guest mark32]

Some p platers do stupid things whilst driving its all part of being young, you cant put an old head on young shoulders nor would you want to. But they're only a small percentage of the problem, in the main it is the attitude of drivers whether they be 17 or 70, i don't know how many times i have seen people driving along at 80+ km/h tailgating someone on parramata rd doesn't matter if it is wet or dry, doesn't matter what age they are. In my opinion these dickheads should have never got a licence in the first place but how can you test for this behavior in a 10 min driving test if indeed at all. Then there are the people who are so unskilled that they can't negogiate a simple corner at more than walking pace and this should be picked up by the driving test no matter how inadequate it may be, but somehow they slip through the cracks or use some other means of getting their licence.

Problem is these people are just as dangerous as a p plater in a powerful car which the media have been demonising lately, the government will bring in some quick fix by limiting p platers in some shape or form which will appease the majority but will not do what really needs to be done and that is better training and a much harder driving test in which you will have to be fairly skilled to pass. Also driving records should be looked into more as well if you have a really poor history such as numerous neg driving/excessive speeding/accidents then maybe you don't deseve a licence at all

Retesting drivers every 5 years will be a joke, if it's anything like the one i did 25 years ago then i could do it with my eyes closed, you just have to show them what they want to see and thats not much, (bring the vehicle to a complete stop at stop sign, reverse parking and whatever other crap they want to see but it sure as hell wont be your skill as a driver) unless it is a more comprehensive test it will be a waste of time

I'm pissed off because like the over use of speed cameras limiting p platers will do very little in tackling the real problem which is just too hard/expensive (i suppose they could use some of that revenue they been getting for years from the cameras)

[blind_elk]

It's easy for me to sit here, WAY past needing P-plates (actually, they didn't have them when I got my licence, we still had the man with the red flag LOL) and say that P-platers shouldn't be permitted to drive hi-po vehicles. But it does need to happen, as part of a package aimed at reducing the overall road toll.

They have done it for bikes (250cc max), why shouldn't they do a similar thing with cars?

But the major component of the package has to be aimed at the skill and attitude level of the people we accept to share the roads with. IMHO, it is far too easy to get a licence. You are basically taught how to get the licence, not how to DRIVE the car.

IMO, it should be necessary to have passed an advanced driving course to get your off 1st tier Ps. Then perhaps an advanced driving course, or equivalent experience (such as club level motorsport) to get off your Ps totally. It would be easy enough for government to sponsor this, paid for by the savings in trauna treatment.

When I got my licence, there was a school holiday course for L-drivers. I attended, even though I had my licence. All my driving life, I have done what was necessary to improve my ability as a driver, to the point where i can proudly state that I have not been involved in a collision for more than 20 years, despite being an habitual "exceeder of the speed limit". I have trouble activating the ABS in my car, because I was taught how to "threshhold brake". I read the road by looking several cars ahead so I anticipate situations that might require sudden application of the brakes.

If driver training is not part of the solution to this problem, why is it that police forces around Australia and the world insist on putting their people through various stages of advanced car control.

The other part of the solution lies in what we are controlling - CAR = Concentration, Anticipation, Reaction. Without one, you can have none of the others.

[GRUNTN]

Performance car's hey .All i have to say is that alot of cars can do this speed 160-190 , maybe not as quick to get there but if u are stupid enough to push it on public roads with( KIDS) electric poles-pedestrians mums dads auntie's uncles' sisters and brothers on these roads is tragic 2 all .as 4 the age of drivers the media is allways gunna attack the younger drivers, lets face it they dont really want 2 know or hear about the old fellows down the club, pub,rsl's drinking and driven because they know all the ins and outs of there drinking hole's and r probably dicussing the next story over a beer themselves and driven around the corner home ......and you will have the same laws for drink driving that we have now ,that dont mean shit to the public.

[shif_tea]

People i am a 23 year old p plater. Only because i was lazy - and lived on land so i've been driving since i was about 10. I own a skyline and i'm very responsible. Personally i think its totally about education. Teach these losers to drive so that they don't need to show off and speed. I've never felt the need to show off by speeding.

I mean you can speed in a honda civic and kill yourself