Can you ever see a time.. (discussion)

[Boomy]

..that all these high performance kit cars will be simply outlawed or made to run at much lower specs?.

I won't lie, i didn't search so sorry if you covered this before.

I was just thinking that they banned rally cars for being too quick yet here we are spanking about doing 0-60 in the blink of an eye and all people want is more speed, more power, more grip...and they are achieving it.

There also seems to of been quite a few examples lately of younger (and older of course) drivers wrapping cars around trees, hitting kerbs etc etc, all on public roads.Of course i realise people prang all sorts of cars all day long, but will someone somewhere from parliment suddenly sit bolt upright in bed one night and think "this is all wrong!!.People in cars faster than Ferraris paying almost no insurance and going sideways everywhere".

I was comparing it in a sense to the fact that you used to be able to pass your test at 17 and jump into a 25 foot long 7.5 ton fully laden truck with air brakes and drive it out of the test centre.

Madness.

I just hope we are never singled out due to the nature of the cars, but could it happen do you think?.

Nothing this good lasts forever maybe?.

[Lordbenny]

You think cars are bad, what about bikes, If you've got the money for the insurance a 17 years old can jump on a 200mph hyabusa for well under £10,000.

[Mid life crisis]

I think I read somewhere that the Lotus seven was not able to compete in race series at one time because it was too fast.    Mind you the Ford Anglia was a popular car then.        

[Barry Ashcroft]

You think cars are bad, what about bikes, If you've got the money for the insurance a 17 years old can jump on a 200mph hyabusa for well under £10,000.

If under 21 you are limited to a 33bhp bike for two years then you can have what you want if over 21 you can do direct access test on a 46.6bhp machine then ride what you want.

[Perywinkle]

Unfortunatly I can easily envisage this nanny state government we have at the moment imposing some ludcrous legislation on us kit car drivers.

They seem to revel in knee jerk reactions to the dim witted multitudes popular beliefs, just look the way the have tried to demonise straying over the speed limits rather than condeming dangerous or incompotent driving.

[Boomy]

I best get hold of Pezza on MSN, it seems someone quite serious has hacked his account here

[Perywinkle]

lol I can wax lyrical with the best after 6 or 7 beers

[Blatman]

Governent decisions and legislation is usually based on statistics and case study. Chances are, neither Westfields or Caterhams will ever feature as high risk vehicles simply beacuse they won't ever make a dent in any of the figures that may be used to guide Government thinking... IMHO of course...

[Carl]

What worries me is that soon we will be taxed very hard for having two cars. I suspect this will be done under the guise of saving the environment.

Look what's happening to the 4x4 brigade.

[Hammy]

Things seem to be changing at an ever rapid pace -  last time I played with cars (rebuilt MK1 RS2000  in the 80's) the Internet didn't really exist let alone forums, my Dad can remember having electricity going in, I used a  slide rule at University and I had a  Ford Anglia once in the 70's (Daytona yellow, 1500GT, bean tin sized drum brakes, bucket seats  lots of gauges.. did 60 in the 10's)

I've used my time machine to look ahead ( i.e my opinion) ...I can see climate change really changing life in the next ten years, for the greater good, with severe restictions going onto all vehicles, air flights being cut no holidays abroad -we might survive but with very restricted  mileage, emmissions etc ( after all they are looking at lawn mowers).    Petrol/oil will be far more expensive due to the countries that supply it and will be the cause of more wars.    Speed limiters on cars, speed loggers, GPS tracking, noise limitations

Could see a real growth in Electric cars for "fun"  - electric Westfields that are fast but can only do 100 miles or so.

The rate of change is increasing -get your fun while you can, if it stops raining..........

[Blatman]

The airlines will find a way to fuel planes without producing CO2. They just haven't been suitably motivated yet. Same for the oil companies. As long as crude is stupidly expensive, there's profit in it and therefore no incentive to change. It wouldn't take very much to have all cars running on ethanol/bio ethanol or somesuch (Indy Cars have used ethanol for yonks), the only by product of which is H2O...

[Hammy]

I think you are thinking of Hydrogen, which only produces water.  Alcohols (hic) contain carbon ( e.g  C2H5OH is ethanol which produces CO2 and H2O on combustion).

The end is nigh

[nikpro]

just look the way the have tried to demonise straying over the speed limits rather than condeming dangerous or incompotent driving.

Whilst I agree with this comment it is very hard to Police Dangerous and incompetent driving and unfortunately speed is usually the major factor in both of these elements.

I'm a keen biker but it always used to annoy me how bikers constantly blamed car drivers for their accidents; there were always quotes of 'he just pulled out on me', well unfortunately if you are approaching junctions at 100+mph then the chances are they will just pull out on you as they are not expecting a vehicle to do that sort of speed.

Although it is grossly out of date the Police drivers manual 'Roadcraft' has some excellent chapters on Observation and vehicle accident statistics and it makes interesting reading.

If you have an accident (fault or no fault) you are twice as likely to have another accident in the next 12 month period.

It goes on to explain that in any accident there is always fault on both sides and it is the refusal of the person who believes they are not at fault that makes them more likely to have another accident. It goes on to say that even if the accident was believed by you to be someone elses fault there is always something that can be done to change your driving that may have  prevented that accident.

[KerryS]

Blatters for PM

Kerry

[Hammy]

Spot on  nikpro

Doomed Mr Mannering, we're all doomed