Dumb Niece - What would you do ?

[ColinJ]

I was cooking a meal for my step-daughter once when I heard an anguished scream and then the sound of weeping coming from the other room. She'd just had a call from a friend whose little sister had been killed by her drunken boyfriend crashing his car at high speed on the way back from the pub the night before.

The 4 of them had been to the Leeds Festival together a month before that. Apparently, the boyfriend was in the habit of high-speed drink-driving and they all thought it was "a bit of a laugh".

They didn't do much laughing at the 16 year old's funeral...

If you know anybody who drives dangerously - report them!

 

[Fnaar]

Yes, a friend of mine's daughter was killed in a crash which had a fair amount to do with the lad driving trying to impress with fast driving.

 

[661-Pete]

Another example, very near my workplace (and a place I pass by almost daily). Car going at high speed along a lane which is narrow and winding even for cyclists, slams into a tree killing a young lad passenger in the back seat. It was on a Good Friday. According to evidence given in court, the victim's g/f and the driver's g/f had both been screaming at the young (male) driver to slow down, even threatened to jump out of the car. To no avail. The driver got acquitted in court, on some technicality.

I only wish the public could report driving .Cos this morning i saw two belters .It's now snowing heavy in Meanwood .I was coming back from the shops walking .A very large van going down Stonegate Road .Driver both wrists on wheel while he is messing with his ipod or phone he had headphones on .
Second one a belter an Asian lady with a headscarf on putting her mobile inside the headscarf next to her ear .Priceless what a numpty .

Don't you have anything equivalent to our local Operation Crackdown? This link is useful only in Sussex I'm afraid: I believe there's a similar site for the Met. If Yorks. police don't have any equivalent, maybe you could write and suggest to the Chief Constable?

 

[biggs682]

will they take any notice of you if you talk to them , i doubt it but got to be worth a try

 

[ComedyPilot]

Don't envy your position Fossy, damned if you do, damned if you don't and (perish the thought) if something should happen, you will be called a clever barst for predicting it.

 

[Coco]

 

My general rule for speedoes is 2mph over for every 35. (Most seem to run 70 on the road as 74 on the dash). Parallax affects it as well.

Speedos are made to over-read:

Vehicle construction and use regulations require a vehicle speedometer accuracy to be in the range of -0->+10%. The implications are that it must never under-read - for obvious reasons - but may over-read. As the cost of manufacturing a speedometer with -0% error would be very costly they all over-read by a few percent without exception. Even if speed is measured correctly the display may not be accurate, so a speedometer error is allowed. Because of this, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) have an official formula for calculating a speeding offence. It allows a leeway of 10% plus 2mph. In reality, most speed traps are triggered at higher speeds than this because if they were set bang-on those guidelines, the sheer amount of paperwork generated would overrun the police speeding departments.

Full story here




Back to the OT. Hope you've given them cause to think Fossy. Even bad drivers have families who will miss them.

 

[buggi]

Bollocks was it at Santa Pod! i could be wrong but I've just been on the website and it doesn't look like the sort of place where you can just turn up and use the track in your own car, you have to book it as an event and that means BIG money. She's just said that to calm her mom down. I think you should come down hard on her and when you see her bollock her, tell her you took a copy of it and that you are still considering going to the police, and let the police investigate whether they were at the track. Really go for it and make her realise that hers, his and other people's lives are at stake and a car is not a toy.

Don't worry about telling her you do not believe that she was at Santa Pod because (a) if she wasn't she will know that she can't pull the wool over your eyes and (b) if she was, she will certainly think twice about transferring that sort of behaviour to the road, and she will be able to prove she was

When you have reduced her to tears tell her you will hold on to the video and if you hear anything similar again then you will have no hesitation in going to the police. Give her a rollicking that my dad would be proud of (the sort of rollicking that makes me scared of my dad!).

I think you should invite the boyfriend round and bollock them together. Make him feel downright ashamed that he put your niece's life at risk.

 

[cyberknight]

Bollocks was it at Santa Pod! i could be wrong but I've just been on the website and it doesn't look like the sort of place where you can just turn up and use the track in your own car, you have to book it as an event and that means BIG money. She's just said that to calm her mom down. I think you should come down hard on her and when you see her bollock her, tell her you took a copy of it and that you are still considering going to the police, and let the police investigate whether they were at the track. Really go for it and make her realise that hers, his and other people's lives are at stake and a car is not a toy.

Don't worry about telling her you do not believe that she was at Santa Pod because (a) if she wasn't she will know that she can't pull the wool over your eyes and (b) if she was, she will certainly think twice about transferring that sort of behaviour to the road, and she will be able to prove she was

+1

I would report it to the plod though , anyone endangering my family would make me inclined to use a hammer on their knee caps but i would calm down and use the law instead .

 

[GrasB]

I'd be suprised if a Corsa could do over 100 at Santa Pod within the 1/4 mile, even tweaked slightly.

To get around 100mph over a 1/4 mile you're looking at a sub-14s time or about 210bhp/ton... let's put this in a bit of context - BMW 1 Series M Coupe, Ford Focus RS, Impreza STI, Porsche Boxster, Lotus Elise 111R. That's one heady group for a 1.2l Corsa to play ball with, you're talking forced induction &/or nitrous with some major internal work to the engine. It you were going to put the sort of money into the car to get it to that level you'd have no problems starting with the highest performance model.

Speedos are made to over-read:

Vehicle construction and use regulations require a vehicle speedometer accuracy to be in the range of -0->+10%. The implications are that it must never under-read - for obvious reasons - but may over-read. As the cost of manufacturing a speedometer with -0% error would be very costly they all over-read by a few percent without exception. Even if speed is measured correctly the display may not be accurate, so a speedometer error is allowed. Because of this, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) have an official formula for calculating a speeding offence. It allows a leeway of 10% plus 2mph. In reality, most speed traps are triggered at higher speeds than this because if they were set bang-on those guidelines, the sheer amount of paperwork generated would overrun the police speeding departments.

I've noticed that most speedos over read significantly more once you get much over 80mph, in my Alfa it's holds around 3-5mph over read up to 60mph, from 85mph up it rapidly increases by the time it's at a genuine 152mph (laser trip speed trap) the speedo is off the 180mph clock! Other high performance non-exotic machinery showed similar over reads at speeds over 130mph.

EDIT: You should report them no matter what, a car like that just can't cope with those kinds of speeds properly with a skilled driver at the wheel & I doubt a driver with true handling skills would be doing those kinds of speeds on public roads.

 

[thomas]

My niece is a nice lass, young (18), bit dim and seems to have a decent boyfriend.

Like all lads he's car mad.

She's recently posted on Facebook a set of mobile phone pics and a video of her and said boyfriend doing 120 mph on either a road or motorway (no private race tracks round here) - it's a minute or so long, and video's the Rev counter and MPH dials rising as he bats along (this in a 1.2 Corsa).

I couldn't even manage 120mph on a race track in a much better car than a Corsa....certainly not for a few minutes!

 

[Cardiac]

Bollocks was it at Santa Pod!

Just for info - you can do this... http://www.rwyb.co.uk/

I took my dad's Vauxhall Victor down the strip in the late 70's just for a laugh - looks like you still can (but not the Victor, sadly). It was cheap to get in and you could do as many runs as you like in those days. These days, it's a good idea to cover or disguise your number plates so your insurers don't find out what you've been doing (even off-road, such use may invalidate on-road insurance). I am reliably told they sometimes have spies at tracks where road cars or bikes may be used,

 

[darkstar]

Why wouldn't you report them to the polis?

Because it's family, and a fairly trivial offense in the grand scale of things (so long as the motorway was fairly empty), not worth getting your niece in trouble for, imo.

 

[PBancroft]

Send her a couple of videos on Facebook of high speed car crashes. Something like this or this. I'd then take her to one side, and tell her what a stupid, stupid thing it was to do, that not only could he have killed himself and her, but also any other luckless individual who happens to be nearby. If they both regularly come to yours, take him to task too.

I'd be tempted not to go to the police immediately, having been involved in a fairly major family rift lately. People take sides in very odd ways.

If he doesn't give two hoots, or talks back, let him know with no uncertain terms that you will not let your niece be hurt, and that you are prepared to show the video to the police. Tell him that it is only because of her that you haven't already, and that if he loved her he wouldn't be putting her life at such great danger. Let him think on that.

 

[ufkacbln]

It was speedo 120 - so 10-12 mph out.

I've even clocked my own car using my Edge 705 (my son had it in his hand) and me doing 70 was actually 65.

That mounting system will never work on a bike!!!!

(OK - Maybe on a Tandem)

 

[Renard]

Because it's family, and a fairly trivial offense in the grand scale of things (so long as the motorway was fairly empty), not worth getting your niece in trouble for, imo.

The first bit of non hysterical advice on this thread. We were all young once