Is the Porsche Carrera GT Too Dangerous? 961
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "CNN reports that the 600 horsepower Porsche Carrera GT is notoriously difficult to handle, even for professional drivers. Known as the car actor Paul Walker was riding in when he died, there is no suggestion anyone was to blame for Walker's crash but Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson says drivers are on a 'knife edge' handling the car and described it as 'brutal and savage". 'It is a phenomena — mind blowingly good. Make a mistake — it bites your head off.' Todd Trimble, an exotic car mechanic in Las Vegas, says the Carrera GT is a 'very hard car to drive.' It's (a) pure racer's car. You really need to know what you're doing when you drive them. And a lot of people are learning the hard way.' The sports car has a top speed of 208 mph, a very high-revving V10 engine and more than 600 horsepower says Eddie Alterman, editor-and-chief of Car and Driver magazine. 'This was not a car for novices,' says Alterman. Having the engine in the middle of the car means it's more agile and turns more quickly than a car with the engine in the front or in the rear so it is able to change direction 'very quickly, very much like a race car,' adds Alterman. The Carrera GT is also unusual because it has no electronic stability control which means that it's unforgiving with mistakes. 'Stability control is really good at correcting slides, keeping the car from getting out of shape,' says race car driver Randy Pobst. Alterman concludes that learning to drive a car like a Carrera GT can be extremely tricky. 'Every car is sort of different. And this one, especially since it had such a hair-trigger throttle, because it changed directions so quickly, there is a lot to learn.'"
How safe is it driven within the law? (Score:5, Insightful)
How safe is the car when you follow all driving laws like speed limits especially through turns?
When you have a bad driver ... (Score:3, Insightful)
... even a tricycle can become deadly.
Stop blaming the car.
The problem is the driver.
That Porsche may have 600 hp, but in the hand of an excellent driver, it would be still a very safe car.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like this guy was actually a professional race driver, or at least part of an amateur racing team. He shouldn't have been trying to push the envelope on a public road though. It's horrible and sad news, but obviously the driver was being an idiot on public roads, and the type of car he was driving shouldn't really be relevant.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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The professional race car drivers seem to disagree with you.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the problem is the only qualification needed to drive one is having the money to afford it.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Informative)
Can anybody give me a reason not to have stability control where that reasons does not contain “fun” or “because”? (which might be sufficient – just looking for any other reasons.)
'Cause, uh, it's a sports car designed for racing?
Mid-engined cars are designed solely to get around corners fast, and they're extremely unstable compared to your average Ford or Honda. The problem is that many are bought by people who have no clue, and end up in a ditch the first time they take their foot off the gas in a corner.
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That's what happened when the first generation Lotus Elise started hitting the second-hand market, coming within the financial reach of young FWD hot hatch drivers.
Re:Stability Control (Score:5, Informative)
Because it is designed to be a simple car, and traction control is != simple.
And a car of this caliber, if driven in a fashion typical of how most sane people drive, would be operating so far below its limits that traction control would be unnecessary.
Furthermore, in its purest form, traction control only helps grip on acceleration, and the only actions it can perform is reducing engine output and/or selectively applying braking. It does not help grip when in a four-wheel drift. It does not help grip when braking. It does not help when ... [I could go on, but why?].
Re:Stability Control (Score:4, Informative)
Furthermore, in its purest form, traction control only helps grip on acceleration, and the only actions it can perform is reducing engine output and/or selectively applying braking. It does not help grip when in a four-wheel drift. It does not help grip when braking. It does not help when ... [I could go on, but why?].
While that's true, most cars are now required to have yaw control, and not just traction control and ABS. And the traction control system is part of the same system that handles yaw control, typically built straight into the PCM.
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Well, no you don't want to skid in most races, your lap times decrease. You also reduce and have to regain traction. rarely do you see if ever in modern F1 and group 3 racing anyone skid.
time lost can be in excess of .01 to .03 of a second per incident and if you are doing 3 of these per lap on 53 laps = 1.59 seconds in the entire race on the low end ( I don't care to guess what the total would be uuhhgg )
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Some people aren't really familiar with slip angles or trail braking either and the role of weight transfer in terms of taking a corner. Most people on this discussion probably have zero HPDE experience let alone seat time at a local autox/rallyx.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but not they don't!
I as an enthusiast car driver wish I could buy cars with less safety equipment. There is actually a demand for that sort of thing because they're faster, better handling and yes, more fun. The drawback is, you must know what you're doing. And if you say there's no need for something like that, remember, I like to take cars to track days at race tracks where it's perfectly legal to do all that. And it is nice to be able to drive there in a car, race it, and then drive it home.
Somebody buys a car like this, they should already know what it can do. It's not like they went out and bought a $20,000 family sedan. This car is famous for being hard to handle. The buyer must be aware at some level what they're purchasing. Christ, the thing costs what half a million dollars? You'd think buying a sports car like that you'd have the sense to learn how to use it as it might be able to get you into trouble. I can't afford cars like that, but I do ride motorcycles. I ride a 750cc Suzuki GSX-R, it's a damn fast bike. It will do 80 MPH in first gear and gets there in about 3.5 seconds. You screw up, and you're dead. Period. It's unforgiving with no safety equipment. Should that stop being sold because it's unsafe as well? Hell no, the purchaser should be responsible and know what the hell they're buying. It's not like it was labeled in such a way to make it appear safer than it actually was, it was put out as a hardcore race car, and it behaved exactly like you'd expect a hard core race car to do. Yes, there should be something done if it was being sold as something it wasn't, but if your upfront that something is dangerous, then what's the problem?
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I as an enthusiast car driver wish I could buy cars with less safety equipment. There is actually a demand for that sort of thing because they're faster, better handling and yes, more fun. The drawback is, you must know what you're doing.
The problem is that if you're driving an unsafe vehicle on public roads, you're not just putting your own life at risk, but that of other drivers (and pedestrians) as well. You might be willing to take the risk of not having Electronic Stability Control and anti-lock braking, but why should the other people on the roads have to put up with the unnecessarily increased risk that you'll crash into them?
I'd like to be able to switch it off at will. (Score:4, Insightful)
I, along with most other "enthusiasts", wholeheartedly appreciate all the electronic gear and realize that a lot of it does make for outright faster lap times - but at the same time, I'd like to be able to switch it off should I choose. There's something to be said for hanging the ass out with a healthy jab at the throttle and shrieking around a parking lot trailing smoke, or slip-sliding around a corner on an empty gravel road in the boonies. OTOH, with extensive winter driving experience, there's also something to be said for having every driver aid known to man spinning a set of Blizzaks in the middle of a wicked nor'easter - all that skulduggery has gotten me home with far less stress than my reflexes and skills alone. There's a time and a place for everything, but a lot of manufacturers these days are eliminating the choice.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Other drivers are putting my life at risk because they simply can't drive and are inattentive. No amount of gadgetry makes up for that.
I'd rather have a competent driver in a bare-bones sports car on the road with me than a clueless housewife in an Escalade with all the "safety" gadgets, putting on makeup and reading her texts while trying to keep the kids quiet.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Many older vehicles don't have ESP or ABS at all... Should these vehicles be made illegal?
Lower end vehicles often don't have such features either, should these also be illegal?
Such features are never even used except under exceptional circumstances, and those circumstances usually mean the road conditions are dangerous (eg ice, snow) or you are doing something illegal like speeding or tailgating.
Chances are that even without ABS, the Porsche can stop quicker than most vehicles due to larger brakes and better grip from the wheels etc.
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I should add that there are lots of lowend cars out there which have little or no safety features, but also little or no performance...
It is only the combination of high performance, few safety features *and* a poor driver which makes such cars dangerous.
And just because a car is capable of high performance, doesn't mean you have to drive it that way, or that you should drive it in such a way when the conditions are not safe to do so. There's nothing to stop you plodding around town in a high performance ca
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It doesn't require 100% accurate flawless decisionmaking all the time, it requires skill when driving it on the ragged edge WHICH SHOULD ONLY BE DONE AT A TRACK, they died because they pushed a car too hard on public streets which is Darwin having his way with idiots.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:4, Insightful)
City roads are not a fucking race course. There are thousands of places where your car interfaces with other vehicles, pedestrians, and stationary objects and these interfaces are not blessed with unlimited sight distance. In places where your vehicle and others potentially intersect, it may be simple to visualize and ensure clear right-of-way at 35 MPH, but utterly impossible at 100 MPH (say, for example, crossing at a 2-way stop sign where the driver can only see a few hundred feet down the road due to curves or curb-parked vehicles). It doesn't matter if you're the most incredibly skilled driver on the planet, you can't predict the future and you can't go from 100 MPH to 0 in the space of a few tens of feet.
The kind of logic you and the GP are spouting is the kind of logic used by douchebags who use public roads as raceways - "hey, *I'M* a great driver, this is perfectly safe! If I ever get into an accident it's some other idiot's fault!" That's obviously fucking wrong on so many levels when you put even the tiniest bit of thought into it, to the point that anyone who spouts false logic like that is clearly the idiot and should have their license revoked for lack of ability to understand the physics and geometry of public roadways.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention that they make very nice rich boy toys, just like all of the other super cars.
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This is no d
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, the Carrera GT was manufactured in 2004, when car electronics where simply not that good. I completely understand why it wasn't included. On new cars, it should really only be an option. But if it was an option, I would select it every time on a road car. You simply cannot predict what will happen when you're driving home on a cold night and maybe a little tired.
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Wikipedia tells me a Honda Civic from 1995 (18 years ago) weighs 2,319 lb, 2421 as a sedan 10 years ago, and 2608 now.
I would go farther back, but it was too different of a car then (tinier and tinier) and everyone can see it's exterior dimensions get larger with each successive generation.
While I'm sure the mandatory smog and safety features also add weight over time, I'm sure the older ones get lighter as time passes, as other car parts such as engines (per hp) did, and personally I'm glad they're there.
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If you are producing a production road car that people are going to drive on public roads, yet it is so unstable that the slightest mistake causes a violent crash, then yes I'd say some stability control is necessary to meet basic safety standards. By all means have a button to turn it off when you are at the track, but for day-to-day use you probably don't want a vehicle that crashes due to minor human error.
Most high end car manufacturers off that. Ferrari won't even let you drive some of their cars on th
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Stability control and anti-lock brakes are two very different things.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Stability control and ABS are two totally different systems. Although some modern cars use the brake system to aid in stability control (also in place of proper differential, the cheap mans diff) where the vehicle will selectively apply braking to 1 or more wheels. They are not the same.
Stability control monitors wheel slip and in some cases lateral gravitational movement and adjusts power/braking/gearing to compensate for when the vehicle breaks loose. It is a pain in the ass, and can in many cases put you in danger in the event that you are in a situation where you may have to accelerate quickly to get out of a situation, say turning left and someone in oncoming traffic is not paying attention to the red light since you have a green left arrow and almost tbones you, if traction control kicked in, which I generally turn off, or atleast put into sport mode) I would have been in the intersection instead of 2 feet further and would probably have been killed.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:4, Insightful)
No. You wheels would've stopped turning sooner, but your car wouldn't have stopped. If you'd stood on the brake pedal with no ABS, you would've skidded further than it took you to stop with ABS. That's why ABS is there. The simple fact is, you were driving too fast for the conditions, and, on that slick snowy road, no braking system on earth could've gotten you to stop in less than 100 yards. You can't cheat physics.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought snow was like gravel, in that you will stop faster by locking up the wheels and piling up some snow in front of them, rather than trying to stop the wheels from locking up? On the other hand, slowing down slowly can be safer than slowing down more quickly with no directional control, so it is rarely a better way out of trouble. Additionally a snowy road very quickly turns to ice once a few cars have packed the snow down hard, which changes the physics substantially.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Informative)
The point of ABS is to give you control at the cost of stopping distance.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, every *novice* race driver claims that they can stop faster without ABS.
This has been debunked even on 20 year old ABS systems. In Finland - with professional rally drivers. Yes - on perfect conditions when the driver has the power to start whenever he likes - the non-ABS braking distances were a little bit shorter. But when you introduce even 1 unknown variable (not knowing when to start braking, unknown traction below the wheels, distraction during braking) even the professionals failed to stop faster on non-ABS car.
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That is correct. In deep snow you want to build up the snow in front of the tire which causes excessive drag on the car slowing it quicker, with ABS it doesn't allow it to happen. This is pretty much the only situation where non-ABS will be better than ABS.
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I thought snow was like gravel, in that you will stop faster by locking up the wheels and piling up some snow in front of them, rather than trying to stop the wheels from locking up?
Some modern ABS systems can detect snow, and will actually add in a "lock the wheels for a second" every so often just for this reason if they think they're on snow.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Interesting)
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This is a known drawback of ABS -- longer stopping distances in snowy conditions.
In any conditions really. But once the wheels lock up, you have no steering control that you might need in a lot of situations. It is a trade off.
All the driver's aids will actually slow down the car, not allow them to go faster, but they do allow less skilled drivers to push the limit. When driving properly for the conditions these aids, including ABS, will never be even seen operating. I only get my traction control to come on if I intentionally try to spin my tires.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Informative)
That is incorrect. There was never a reason to ban an aid that allows a vehicle to go faster, it is racing after all, the point is to go faster.
The primary reason many of the driver aids were banned was to level the playing field between race teams. It literally all came down to money, where some teams (like Williams back in the day) had 10 to 20 times more money for R&D. Other teams just did not have the finances to develop all the advanced functions that some teams were coming out with. Traction control for example was banned, which is a shame as that would have saved Senna's life (traction control is different from stability control). At the time the cost of the system put it out of reach for many teams, so FIA decided to ban it.
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As a specific example of intentionally slowing cars down in racing, consider F1 - they removed the turbos from F1 cars because they were just too damn fast. The body counts were getting pretty high and they needed to make it safer.
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That is incorrect. There was never a reason to ban an aid that allows a vehicle to go faster, it is racing after all, the point is to go faster.
No.
In racing the point is to win.
Case in point, there are motorsport leagues where they race Geo Metros and "classic" minivans. "Fast" doesn't even come into play, it's all about skill (and swappin' paint).
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have cars that are performance cars and they can handle this easily. I've driven them all my life, I know HOW to handle them too.
Well, just say you've never been in a situation where you couldn't handle them yet.
Call it survivor bias or Dunning–Kruger.
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then why would she be able to say no?
I think you missed the part where he said "since we don't have to deal with baby carriers anymore".
he who makes the gold, gets to make the rules.
He who knows the meaning of the word "alimony" will listen to his wife.
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If you look at pictures taken of the accident scene, you can clearly see the telltale fresh signs of cutting donuts and drag racing in nearby parking lots. WITH A PORSCHE TIRE PATTERN AND SPACING.
This was not the fault of the car. This was two idiot joyriders doing idiot joyriding things.
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Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Weight.
In a race car, every fraction of a gram counts. Hence the reason why real racing cars don't have things like stereos and air-con.
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Why not use fun? It is just as valid a reason for buying a car like this with and without features you wish to have.
I mean, it isn't like anyone is buying this Porsche model for their family daily driver, family truckster, pedestrian utility vehicle.
You buy this car for ONE reason....fun.
Re:When you have a bad driver ... (Score:4, Informative)
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WRONG. DEAD FUCKING WRONG.
http://www.design911.co.uk/blog/index.php/2012/06/27/pasm-psm-or-sport-what-does-it-mean/ [design911.co.uk]
My 944 had it, and that's WELL THE FUCK BEFORE 2005.
It wasn't known as ESC, it was known as PSM on a Porsche.
Have you even driven a Porsche, n00b?
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Re:How safe is it driven within the law? (Score:5, Interesting)
You certainly have a point, but supercars at this level can be dangerous even at legal speeds.
At low speeds, these cars have two particular challenges for the driver; a huge amount of torque in the lower gears and a lack of the downforce that they rely upon for stability. You need an absolute feather touch on the accelerator or you will spin out - and this is much more likely to happen at 40mph than 140mph.
This isn't a touring car like an Aston DB series or a lower end Porsche. Those are designed to be a pleasant high-end driving experience - not to provide maximum performance. The Carrera GT is effectively a road-going version of a full-fledged race car and, as such, needs a lot of skill to drive safely under any conditions. Personally, I'm not sure why you'd even want to take one onto normal roads; the concentration and restraint needed to keep it under control must surely make it much less fun than taking out a more normal high-performance car and letting it rip.
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So skip first (and second, and maybe third) gear -- problem solved.
Re:How safe is it driven within the law? (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if the car is "unstable" or not, if the driver can't control himself and his right foot.
Anecdotally, I've driven my share of twitchy, torquey, mid-engined, high gear-ratio, non-traction-control-assisted cars on snow and ice: The speeds are lower than a Carrera GT in warm weather, but the dynamics are the same.
It becomes an interesting exercise in self-preservation, and isn't always immediately intuitive: For instance, sometimes the most stable way 'round a banked turn is to be going faster instead of slower.
If way too fast, the car will drift up the banking and into the ditch. If way too slow, the car will drift down the banking and into the other ditch. If at the correct speed, the banking of the road combines with the centripetal force of the turn, and results in neutral handling.
This can mean driving at a reasonably slow speed on the Interstate (to avoid being blown off the road by wind), and accelerating before a curve (to achieve neutral balance), and then gently reducing speed again once the road straightens out (because cross-wind).
Yeah, it's touchy and it's delicate. With a ridiculous amount of torque and a limited-slip diff, it'll get away from you if you're not paying attention.
The answer, then, is to pay attention. It doesn't matter what kind of car it is, or what the speeds or conditions are: If operating the vehicle at the edge of grip, and you lose concentration, Bad Stuff is likely to be in your future.
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Well, OK. I guess I can sort-of accept that.
I was driving a car once that had sudden loss of power steering fluid. It was a very sudden handful.
But then, I was driving at a reasonable speed at the time, so it was really NBD: Mostly, it was just shocking to have cold (~-10F) PS fluid all over my feet. I continued down the road and drove the car like that for a few weeks until I could get it fixed.
If I were being abusive to the car at that particular moment, my story could very well have been different.
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well, depends. do you have a brick under the accelerator? because the point of the danger in having no assists is that you can get it sideways while going 40. and be in 60 under 3.5. and 60 to 0 in a little over 30 meters. but who the fuck has reactions to deal with figures like that. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that a slight tiny mistake makes you to drive it illegally(reckless driving tends to be legislated to be illegal in the west).
on the other hand, duh, it's a very powerful exotic sports c
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Technically quite dangerous. Imagine you are riding a powerful motorcycle well within the speed limit, if you crank the throttle too much when cornering you will slip as many novice riders will tell you is their worst fear. Without ESP and without any other help that Porsche basically lays the same power into your hands. It could probably even spin on the spot like the old 911s did if you let go of the clutch too quickly. A "hair trigger" gas pedal and "it bites your head off" for mistakes means this car ne
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I liked an idea floated around a while back about a special license being required to drive supercars on public roads. If you can afford the car, you can afford the license and special training.
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I used to race motorcycles (for fun, at a local track) - doesn't qualify me as an expert, but I've seen accidents on a track that people get up from without injury that would have probably resulted in all sorts of trauma on the street. The reasons are several - no obstructions around the roadway; everyone going in the same direction; everyone involved understanding that speed is the goal; areas surrounding the track are set up so as to minimize injury.
These factors are
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How safe is the car when you follow all driving laws like speed limits especially through turns?
I'm from England and currently live in NY state. I don't even think we have speed limits on turns in the UK (or if we do they're rare). Here in NY, loads of turns have speed limits on them and they're almost all unrealistically low or pointless. I have a large wagon and I can easily take these turns safely at twice the posted limit (e.g. doing 30 MPH through a 15 MPH turn). Many of the turns with posted speed limits are trivial, gradual, turns on roads that aren't particularly busy. In general US roads hav
No question? (Score:5, Insightful)
"...there is no suggestion anyone was to blame for Walker's crash..." unless you follow that link which says that the police suspect that speed was involved. No question that anyone not in the car was to blame is a different sentence indeed. Looking at the pictures of the scene its hard to imagine that they were driving anywhere close to the 45mph speed limit.
Re:No question? (Score:5, Insightful)
An actor that made his millions staring in films about illegal street racing dies in a high speed car crash. Poetic justice I suppose. I wonder how many impressionable youths or their innocent victims have died trying to emulate him.
Re:No question? (Score:5, Interesting)
"...there is no suggestion anyone was to blame for Walker's crash..." unless you follow that link which says that the police suspect that speed was involved. No question that anyone not in the car was to blame is a different sentence indeed. Looking at the pictures of the scene its hard to imagine that they were driving anywhere close to the 45mph speed limit.
And later they estimate the car was going 40-45mph. http://www.nbcnews.com/entertainment/paul-walker-was-real-hero-daughter-heart-soul-his-charity-2D11683842 [nbcnews.com]
How about waiting until the investigation is complete before jumping to conclusions? The police comment on random shit just to comment in cases like these. For some reason nobody considers "I have no idea, we're still investigating" an appropriate answer.
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For some reason nobody considers "I have no idea, we're still investigating" an appropriate answer.
Actually, almost everyone involved in some official capacity gives that answer. But that is not what the press wants, so they keep asking (Reporter: "Do you suppose speed could have been an issue?") until someone says something else that the reporter considers interesting (Tired cop: "It's possible") and uses that quote, or some mangled version of it. (Press: "Speed may have led to fatal accident").
I've been horribly misquoted by reporters and stopped talking to them about a decade ago.
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"Looking at the pictures of the scene its hard to imagine that they were driving anywhere close to the 45mph speed limit."
To be fair most the damage from the picture is simply the fire damage. The impact damage will be the dent in the car and it's surprising how little speed is required to make quite a hefty visible damage impact.
I had a crash at only 20mph once, I lost all braking ability on a downhill in icy conditions and couldn't stop for a junction and even with the car hitting me at only 20mph it bent
I bet Mad Max could drive it (Score:2)
But then again, he was a cop with a lot of driving experience.
Sports cars (Score:2)
Any car is dangerous if you drive fast and make a mistake.
No, it isn't (Score:3)
However, it is a car designed to allow a driver to use its "flaws" to wring the absolute maximum of performance out of it.
Needless to say, this requires a driver that learns how to drive, and not the driver's ed that most get in high school.
FWIW I learned to drive in a Porsche (356c coupe) and when Dad bought a "replacement" in '88 (a '84 Carrera 3.2 factory turbo look) he immediately took a driver's course at the Sebring race track. Even the 356 with its whopping 75 horsepower is a performance car, and the rear engine design will let it get away from you if you are careless and drive it like it is a Buick.
Re:No, it isn't (Score:5, Informative)
The Porsche has a very counter intuitive trait which helps to make it dangerous in the hands of an untrained driver. They exhibit oversteer when you lift your foot off the throttle. This means that as you begin to slide taking your foot off the throttle is exactly the wrong strategy as it will make the slide worse leading almost immediately to loss of control. At the point where the tires begin to bite again you will either dart quickly in a random direction or roll the car.
Re:No, it isn't (Score:5, Informative)
Lift off oversteer isn't exclusive to Porsche - pretty much any car that adheres to the laws of physics will do it. It stems from the weight transfer off the rear wheels when you lift off the throttle (due to less forward acceleration pushing the body of the car "back"), this decreases the normal force on the rear tires, causing the total grip to decrease in the rear (while the exact opposite is happening at the front end), and shifts the grip balance towards the front.
The only reason most "other" cars don't exhibit this behavior as strongly is that they aren't setup (from the factory) with such a neutral balance - they're setup to understeer so strongly that the balance window you play in goes from "more understeer" to "less understeer" - not "understeer" to "oversteer".
Wrong subject (Score:5, Insightful)
Cars don't kill people. Stupid people driving cars kill people.
Re:Wrong subject (Score:4, Insightful)
I saw this on a gun control bumpersticker:
Ban the Fools, Not the Tools.
I wasn't born yesterday (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, some of us remember driving cars that didn't have airbags, antilock brakes, traction control, rear view cameras, auto felch, auto transmission, etc. Neither then nor now were those cars "too dangerous".
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auto-felch? hmmm, this thread is getting very technical. I'll check in the dictionary what felching [urbandictionary.com] means.
erm... OK... no chance I'll be buying this car!
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Some of us remember, but there would be even more of us to remember if cars back then had had those safety features... well, except the auto felch maybe..
Rear View Mirror (Score:3)
You know, some of us remember driving cars that didn't have airbags, antilock brakes, traction control, rear view cameras, auto felch, auto transmission, etc. Neither then nor now were those cars ''too dangerous.''
In 1972 there were 54,589 traffic deaths in the U.S., population 201 million.
In 2012, 34,080 traffic deaths, population 314 million.
In 1972, 4 deaths per 100 million miles travelled.
In 2012, 1 death per 100 million miles travelled. List of motor vehicle deaths in U.S. by year [wikipedia.org]
Porsche (Score:5, Interesting)
Every car behaves differently once it's over the edge.
Porches are notorious for "biting your head off" when you make a mistakes (of course not all of them). But the road is not the place to pull this stunts and if you want an "easy" handling car you should do your homework first.
Besides the Carrera GT is an iconic car and should be kept on a pedestal and not driven on the edge on the roads. Especially if you don't have the skills and the focus required to drive above the edge.
Oh the irony (Score:5, Funny)
Fast and Furious actor gets killed in a car accident... Sort of like if Arnold Schwarzenegger got crushed by an industrial robot.
Sounds like an ad (Score:3)
In aviation (Score:5, Insightful)
...we have a fair number of accidents involving wealthy men in airplanes that exceed their training and skill level, which they bought on the assumption that "If I can buy it, I can fly it." This would seem to be similar.
Re: (Score:3)
Two words: Beechcraft Bonanza. The early version became known as the "fork-tailed doctor killer" for precisely that reason. The people who can afford them often don't have time to keep their skills current.
We should ban it... (Score:5, Insightful)
...so someone doesn't accidentally buy a $335,000 600hp sports car without realizing IT MIGHT BE DANGEROUS.
In other news: the government has banned running with scissors.
Most are missing the point (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Most are missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
And blaming the driver. A little background. While not professional drivers Walker and the driver were on a race team together and did plenty of circuit races. The guy driving has a GT3 so is more than familiar with the class of cars in question. Each had many more hours logged racing than any pilot would have flying before being able to get his flight license. It's easy to blame the driver, and it could rightly end up that way. However, the question of whether the car malfunctioned or should not be considered street legal should also be asked. Point being, if you believe these guys had no business driving this car then nobody shy of an F1 driver should be able to by them, hence they are too dangerous to sell to the general public.
They had no business racing that car on a public road. If you want to race, do it on a race track.
Re:Most are missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, I think most people are looking at a picture of a lump of scorched metal that used to be a car which was going fast enough to be completely wrapped around a small tree, and blaming the driver.
You don't need to know the technical specs on the engine or the portfolio of the driver to spend a whole lot of time coming to that conclusion.
He was a pro-am, that makes it WORSE. (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at the pictures, it's pretty freakin' obvious the driver went "Lemme show you what the car can do - I got skillz yo, no worries!" and pegged it on a public street. Regardless of any risk to others, it's insanely moronic to drive like that off-track simply because there's zero margin. You fuck up, you die. No nice kerbs or runoff or gravel pits or SAFER walls to hit...just trees and lightposts. At 45mph, that car was perfectly safe, probably safer than anything else on the road that day because it's designed to go, and crash, much faster.
But it wasn't exactly going 45 now, was it? Even IF something in the car broke, and that was why there was a loss of control - there was a loss of control at MASSIVELY EXCESSIVE SPEED. The gearhead-hooligan in me is sad, but the Responsible Adult is pleased these idiots sanitized the gene pool.
Re:Most are missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a distinction here that you're missing. We're blaming the driver, not because he was lacking for skill or training, but rather because he was lacking for the common sense that says you shouldn't drive a car dangerously on public roads.
While his inability to control the car under extreme conditions certainly had a role in all of this, the fact is that he never should have had those skills tested in the first place on a typical street. The only reason he did is because he chose to drive it dangerously, contrary to the posted speed limit and other rules of the road. Go look at the photos of the crash. Read the reports. It's apparent he wasn't following safe driving practices. This isn't about a driver losing control of a temperamental car under normal driving conditions. This is about a driver pushing things to the edge when he had no business doing so, and getting himself killed as a result.
Put differently, the problem isn't that the car is too dangerous: it's that the car attracts dangerous buyers.
Should have been driving a Tesla (Score:4, Insightful)
And they would have gotten out alive, or at least not burned to a crisp. Tesla's don't burn their occupants in a massive fireball when they hit a street sign (and a tree, and a light pole).
And 600HP is nothing. I've got a good friend from college who gets almost 1200HP in his GTR (1192 WHP / 1402 crank, actually). I don't see him wrapping it around vertical objects.
Three shall be the number of the counting (Score:3)
oblig: (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
As someone that's driven 1,000+ HP cars, worked over a decade around high performance cars ... yes.
There are some cars that have a reputation of trying to kill you, but the Carrera GT is on the far side of that spectrum. Clutch engagement range compared to a light switch and no ground clearance makes this car difficult to drive on the street.
This isn't a 911, or anything remotely streetable. Many crazy high performance cars come with very advanced stability controls and AWD for a reason.
Overwrought analysis. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget, we're dealing with wholesale ignorance on the part of the media.
Having recalled stories from back when the Carrera GT was introduced there weren't many reports that the car was particularly dangerous. This is a track-oriented high end sports car. Most cars in that performance category are challenging to drive near the limits. I do have to admit a caveat; most in the automotive press gush over every new model that comes along, saving criticisms for when the car is well past it's prime. But the fact remains that there are a multitude of performance cars out there that are notorious for being difficult to drive.
Just because a car handles well doesn't mean it does the driving for you. Unfortunately, this is where the vast majority of people display massive ignorance, because they do believe that a car will save you from mistakes and incompetence. And they're convinced that the better it performs the better it will do the job.
The two guys in that Carrera GT were supposed to be more competent than most given that they have race cars. But given that they weren't career racers doesn't mean they were actually competitive, let alone any good at it. There are gentleman races all over the country where rich men bring high priced toys to the track and many show an embarrassing lack of skill.
But let's assume these guys were decent. That still doesn't change the fact that they were on an unpredictable public road, engaged in a dangerous activity. These guys crash all the time at tracks, even when they're good; they aren't pushing hard enough to win if they aren't risking a crash. So take that mentality to the open road and problems ensue. There's a reason why car insurance rates are higher for race car drivers.
All this doesn't consider the possibility that the Carrera GT might have been modified by Paul Walker's shop. I don't think that's particularly relevant, because the stock car was fast enough. But if it were the car would likely have been even more difficult to control.
Unfortunately, we've got all this ridiculous analysis when the reality is actually quite simple. A couple of guys went out for a joyride, wrecked and died. It's no different than when some kid does the same in a Honda Civic.
I've Driven One (Score:4, Interesting)
Driven under normal conditions, other than the extremely touchy clutch at launch, there's nothing difficult or dangerous about it. The vehicle belongs to my uncle, and in the proper settings is a blast to drive. But, you have to know that when someone hands you the keys to 600hp, and more torque than anyone rationally needs, you have to respect it. My daily drive is a 470hp Charger SRT8, but even with that, I was amazed what a kick in the pants the Porsche is.
The "news for nerds" on this.... (Score:5, Informative)
Since Slashdot is supposed to be a place for nerds... and nerds like to know the technical details more than just sensationalizing the latest headlines (or at least like to think so).... here's some technical information on why cars like the Porsche Carrera GT is so difficult to drive. I unfortunately don't have time to write out all the details here, but here are some basic principles of automotive suspension tuning to keep in mind:
As you can see... the more aggressive you tune a chassis (which the Carrera GT was designed to be very aggressive, as that's the market they were after), the less compliant the car will be, and the more apt it will bite you if you make a mistake. Is this unsafe, or just a fact of the physics involved that you can't drive an aggressive sports car and expect it to handle like your Camry?
Mid engine... (Score:3)
All mid engine cars have another quirk, when you are in a hard turn and you are having under steer, you actually have to hot the gas and not slow down for the turn and then you have to know the car very VERY well, because the point of no return where the rear let's go is like a knife edge.... grip,grip,grip, slide and if you are not ready for it the car will spin out. so drifting in one is for 10,000hour driving experts only. I know this,as I own a 400hp RWD mid engine custom car that is set up very much like this car.
Re:Bashing European Made Cars? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would call this a case of driver error, not car. If you slap a bear, don't act all surprised if it mauls you.
Re: (Score:3)
he says that about every car that's reviewed to be likely to spin easily, actually.
but really if you look at the damage the car had and take into account that there wasn't an autobahn in thousands of kilometers....
some say that the driver couldn't control the car because the skidmarks were straight, but I've got doubts about that meaning that the car was non functional.
Re: (Score:3)
You'll regret it if you're stupid enough to take it for fact.
Jeremy Clarkson and the entire Top Gear program is a comedy show for men's inner 14-year-old boys, loosely based around cars.
If you look at the show that way, it's actually pretty enjoyable.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Porsche should be sued (Score:5, Insightful)
If you operate a vehicle in an unsafe way (including speeding) then it's your own damn fault. If you want Top Gear Jeremy Clarkson is a master of exaggeration. He called the 19'inch wheels on a mercedes AMG "the size of neptune".