London man coughs to 172mph Porsche jaunt A 33-year-old London man has pleaded guilty to driving a Porsche 911 at 172mph on the A420 in Oxfordshire, the BBC reports. Timothy Brady, of Harrow, was snared in a routine speed check near Kingston Bagpuize, and admitted his high-speed escapade at Oxford Crown Court. He denied a further charge of aggravated vehicle taking, …
It seems to me that anyone doing 172MPH is shrugging their shoulders at the law and jail time already, so why pull over for the police? I doubt there's a cop anywhere that is going to pursue you at those speeds nor would they likely get your license plate as you went passed; even if they did you could have someone punch you in the eye after you ditch the car and claim it was 'jacked. (Don't try this at home kids, I heard this doesn't work.)
I dont know the specifics of this case
but sometimes that sort of speed isnt dangerous
i have a pretty fast car and have once taken it to 165 on the clocks
was around 156 on the gps
was a very straight stretch of the m4 3 lanes that where totally empty
id say 90% of people with performance cars push the car to the limit atleast once
you just have to be sensible when doing it
..do you think a professional racing driver would seriously consider driving on a public road at 172mph? No? Why not?
Maybe its the lack of safety equipment, no marshalls, no ambulance/fire personnel on standby, the stray dogs/cats,children, the fact traffic is 2 way or some other equally annoying danger. What pussies !!
If a pro wouldn't do it, a spotty faced boy-racer should leave well alone.
No matter how good he is at XBOX or PS3 driving games.
Well known FACT. Reaction times of the fastest people in the world behind the wheel (Top Fuel dragster and Funny Car racers) is 0.6 seconds... and they are just waiting for the green light, the processing work involved in recognising dangers, processing the ideal response to the danger and actually doing it is considerably longer (and is likely to exceed 1.5 seconds for anyone who doesn't have 20:20 vision and is super alert and concentrating).
..and on a related note:
Speed does not kill - it's the sudden stop that kills.
Regards,
Mat
(A 300kmh/180mph bike rider)
I'm no lawyer, but I believe that breaking the speed limit is an "absolute" or "technical" offence, in that provided that the facts are proven (it was you, and you were going at speed X) you are guilty.
Whereas dangerous driving depends on the PRECISE conditions (visibility, traffic, weather, car etc) and your behaviour at the wheel.
So, "speeding" may be safe (or not), but is still illegal. Dangerous driving is, by definition, dangerous.
The Safe Speed campaign probably reflects the law on dangerous driving, which is all based on circumstances. Exceeding the posted speed limit CAN be safe, and dangerous driving can happen below the speed limit.
To those who would condemn this man I say - you are probably right, but you can't be sure until you get ALL the facts, which you won't get from a Register article, or the BBC.
This is why we have a complex, expensive legal system, and not "trial by Register comments".
FWIW, sports cars don't generally stop significantly quicker than other road cars; most modern cars have enough brake and tyre performance to do ONE emergency stop from VMAX - or else the manufacturers would get sued for selling a product not fit for purpose. And if I was to choose a car for quick direction changes under heavy braking, it wouldn't be the arse-engined 911, PASM or not.
John
This post has been deleted by its author
dude was only going 172mph ? get that f##king roadblock of the outer lane.
I need some breathing space for my bike.
stupid idiet. should get something with nuff horsepowers that he doesnt look like a sand-dune on the move.
aawww... cant giddid.
and whats the problem with speed you buggers have ? where is the problem ? if you are pantsies, keep to the slow-buggers lane. stay outta the way.
the rest of us will be laughing off our arses all the way from london to gumball finishing gates.
If the average speed on a motorway is 60 and you do 172 then if someone moves into the fast lane in front doing the average speed how are you likely to slow down?
You can talk about performance brakes all you like, you can't drop 112 mph in a second safely, road surfaces are uneven, hit a bump and you're in a spin.
You can get caught out with a sudden change in speed on the motorway doing the limit (accident ahead etc..).
for the anon poster who thinks 1.5secs is ages, try it. face a complex 3 dimensional relative speed problem and come up with a viable solution in that time. pilots don't consider it a long while and have a far clearer "road" and far more training. 1.5 is nothing to think properly, plan and act. you cannot rely on instinctive reaction not to kill someone. if someone want to take the risks themselves, great, get a track day and have fun (that where i take the bike and regularly clock 150+), but on a road the other users aren't given the choice whether they want to risk dying. stop being a selfish b*****d. i have no problem with saying it to someones face. if someone i care about was to even suffer a scratch because of an idiot like this i would want them 6 foot under
>> There is nothing wrong with doing 150 down the M4, M5 or M1 (that is, if you can get all the blind and unaware people out of the outside lane) or wherever providing the conditions are right.
Okay so you are travelling at 67 metres per second down the M4, how exactly are the "blind and unaware people" (i.e. those without radar and ESP) going to be able to see you?
Has it occurred to you that the reason people don't see / are unaware of you might have some to do with your excessive use of speed (+bends in the road +other traffic)? These people aren't blind they are partially sighted - you may be able to see them from say 2 seconds/135 metres away (out of your windscreen), but do you think they can see that far and assess your speed using only their rearview and wing mirrors, whilst also concentrating on all the other traffic around them?
BTW by "unaware" do you mean "don't move over when an idiot approaching at 110 mph behind them, stops six feet off their bumper and flashes them because they are travelling at a safe distance from a queue of traffic which is stuck at 65 mph because someone twenty cars ahead is half asleep?"
>> There is nothing unsafe about it - as long as you are in control of your car, and can stop if you need to.
And in control of every other vehicle on the road (and every piece of debris and moving part on your car).
Can a Ford Ka stop in the same distance as a Porsche with full on high performance brakes? No.
>> Can a Ford Ka stop in the same distance as a Porsche with full on high performance brakes? No.
The Ford Ka clearly can't stop in the same distance as Porsche. Can a Ford Ka change lane in a massively shorter distance than a Porsche can stop? Yes.
"Use to be in Cali doing 100 mph on the freeway would get both you and the car hooked and impounded. Now cops write 100+ tickets so often its now just a ticket. I've have had friends that got a warning for doing 100 in a 75."
True that. Californians love to haul ass 8-). Around 2002 or so I was driving a 1985 Chevy Celebrity with 2.5L 4-cylinder. It only had an 85MPH speedo, but on flat ground would top at about 112MPH. Well, going across on the I8 to San Diego, traffic slowed from 100MPH to about 85MPH for the curvy bit within San Diego that was marked 35MPH. Going up on the I5 (marked 65 or 70MPH), I was doing around 105MPH in the slow lane (full throttle, but not perfectly flat) and EVERYONE was passing, probably doing 110-120MPH. I certainly didn't mind, it took like half an hour to get up to southern Los Angeles.. but then another hour at least to go the last 10 or 15 miles. (Yep, traffic drops from 100+MPH to 5-10MPH once you get into LA proper...)
Road Safety issues aside - obviously, one's "rate of progress" on the highway should be more closely related to "actual conditions at the time (the road, your car, how awake you are etc)" rather than some arbitary "limit" imposed in the mid 1900's and nothing pisses me off more than these idiot middle lane junkies and outer lane hogs that the roads attract these days.
I never got a chance to really test my old GSX1100E (a gorgeously well maintained old classic that died in a garage fire a few months after purchase) and the best speed I ever managed was only a poultry 155mph (clock speed). T'was many many many years ago, on a 2 mile straight up north on my mate's Ducati (Mk5 Le Mans)... and at circa 155mph all I could see was a dot where the road turned over a mile away, and a big grey woosh tunneling towards it. I say anyone who can achieve these sorts of speeds and stay on the road are of "above average" capability... but in hindsight, probably not particularly "forward thinking". At 155 I saw a side road... all too easily that would have been that.
But this creates a bit of a dilemma... if I drive now at an environmentally consciencious 55mph I am constantly tailgated by HGVs, cut up by caravans and run serious risk of unwittingly causing an accident. Even at 70mph there is a constant woosh of traffic overtaking. At 80 I am starting to keep up with the majority and at 90 I run the risk of a ticket.
And over 100 I start to grin.
@tony trolle: I know that bit of road well. Always nice and empty (and well lit) at about 2 in the morning for that kind of stunt.
"I know someone who got stopped doing 138mph in a capri (lazer)."
That's about the limit for a 2 litre Capri (unless the engine got rebored). You can get more out of a 2.8i however...
'Brady's impressive velocity rap "is thought to be the highest recorded in the UK for such an offence", the Beeb notes.'
Not so. Nick Harrison was caught (but not convicted) doing 173MPH on the M25 in 2003. He got off on a technicality (the police lost sight of his Porsche briefly and therefore couldn't prove he was driving at the instant they clocked him).
From what I hear (he's a friend of a friend), his brush with the law hasn't dimmed his enthusiasm for high speeds.
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