Why are cars built to go so fast?

[dragon]

Because its fucking awesome, obviously. Anyway, I have a feeling it has much to do with the neccessity of being able to accelerate to highway speeds fast enough not to be plowed into by a cranked up semi driver on the often ludicrously short onramps to many US freeways.

I doubt that has anything to do with it my car has a top speed of 150km and I have no problems driving in here in Germany where in some spots there is no speed limit. And when you consider theres 80+ million people here in the area the size of Montana means really high traffic density.

[Death from the Sea]

it is called "private property" which includes race tracks, parking lots or any other privately owned land. so yes. If I can drive as fast as I want to on private property, then why should the gevernment regulations stop me from doing so?

The government has every right and the responsibility to regurlate what happens on private property.

You sure as fuck can not legally build a nuclear reactor in your backyard, nor can you host a racetrack on your private property.

ok, when it comes to the topic of national security, then yes the government can step in and stop you. but the last time I checked driving fast does not fall under that realm. anyone can build a racetrack on their private property, but by doing so and allowing people to use it they do accept some liability for when an injury occurs. So that is the trade off. with out proper insurance and having people sign waivers, you are open to huge lawsuits. but it is still legal.

[Xon]

Not in Australia, which is the legel framework I know.

[Glocksman]

Because its fucking awesome, obviously. Anyway, I have a feeling it has much to do with the neccessity of being able to accelerate to highway speeds fast enough not to be plowed into by a cranked up semi driver on the often ludicrously short onramps to many US freeways.

I don't speed very often, but I do like a car with quick acceleration for just that reason.
One time I pulled onto US 41 south and merged into traffic at the speed limit.
Then I heard this *BLAAT* behind me and when I looked in the mirror I saw this fucking semi coming at me FAST.
I mashed the accelerator to the floor and jumped from 45 to 80 real fast.
If that 74 Nova I owned at the time had been an anemic 6 banger instead of the 350 (5.7L) 4 barrel V8 that it was, I probably would have been part of the grillwork on that semi.

[CmdrWilkens]

it is called "private property" which includes race tracks, parking lots or any other privately owned land. so yes. If I can drive as fast as I want to on private property, then why should the gevernment regulations stop me from doing so?

The government has every right and the responsibility to regurlate what happens on private property.

No the US government only has the right (I can't speak for others) when it can demonstrate a compelling state interest with a narrowly tailored means. Without those conditions being met the government CANNOT infringe on your right to act as you see fit on your own property without violating the 4th amendment.

Before you start arguing about all the things the government can regulate just think about whether such an aciton falls under the compelling state interest statement I just made (and then remember narrowly tailored means which is why many if not most states allow parents to give their children alcohol on the premise of their house).

[Sephirius]

Snip the usual Republitard bullshit

Oh look, a fucking idiot whose idea of an argument is to exaggerate the living fuck out of it and then declare that it's a valid extrapolation through the power of Black and White fallacies.

But Wong, do you really believe speed limiters are the answer? Or should we all be driving SMART cars?

On another note, I think someone needs to watch more Top Gear

[Meeper]

Not in Australia, which is the legel framework I know.

In Australia, there are still tracks that are open to the public, that are private property, with no legislated speed limits. They're not exactly backyard operations, but I'm thinking places like Willowbank Raceway and Mt. Cotton Driving Centre in Queensland, which allow private cars on certain 'track days'.

Also on the topic of the German Autobahns, from what I've been told, the large majority of accidents happen because people become used to driving at the fast speed, don't slow down enough for off ramps and go through a concrete barrier at 200 km/h. Any Germans on the board that can verify this?

[need4spd]

if you have to ask you'll never understand.

[Ghost Rider]

if you have to ask you'll never understand.

Here's a warning.

When six of your seven posts are spam, you begin to annoy the higher ups.

So think before hitting the submit button.

[LordShaithis]

Snip the usual Republitard bullshit

Oh look, a fucking idiot whose idea of an argument is to exaggerate the living fuck out of it and then declare that it's a valid extrapolation through the power of Black and White fallacies.

Leave aside the "pass" thing then, as it was just me being a facetious prick anyway. You wake up tomorrow and find yourself king of North America. One of your underlings comes to you with a proposal to ban the inclusion of sound systems in automobiles so as to reduce traffic accidents. So as to be informed, you request a study of how many deaths would be averted each year by such a ban. How high must the number be in order for you to support the proposal?

After all, it's not as if anyone has a constitutional right to listen to music in their car. Certainly the number of lives saved by such a ban would be non-zero. And if someone had the idea to start equipping cars with a cappucino machine and an HUD that would display television programs on the windshield, pretty much anyone who wasn't a libertarian nutjob would oppose them.

Note that this is NOT a smartass question where I would try to claim "victory" if you didn't supply an exact number and some sort of logical justification for why that number is perfect. The appropriate relationship between "freedom" and public safety is, to my understanding, largely subjective. This is just... a question.

[Darth Wong]

Leave aside the "pass" thing then, as it was just me being a facetious prick anyway. You wake up tomorrow and find yourself king of North America. One of your underlings comes to you with a proposal to ban the inclusion of sound systems in automobiles so as to reduce traffic accidents. So as to be informed, you request a study of how many deaths would be averted each year by such a ban. How high must the number be in order for you to support the proposal?

To be honest, I would expect that the number of deaths from drivers falling asleep without stimuli would exceed the number of deaths prevented by the removal of the potential distraction.

After all, it's not as if anyone has a constitutional right to listen to music in their car. Certainly the number of lives saved by such a ban would be non-zero. And if someone had the idea to start equipping cars with a cappucino machine and an HUD that would display television programs on the windshield, pretty much anyone who wasn't a libertarian nutjob would oppose them.

Are you saying that no amount of lives saved would justify any action of this nature, leaving aside the fact that your particular example is probably bogus?

Note that this is NOT a smartass question where I would try to claim "victory" if you didn't supply an exact number and some sort of logical justification for why that number is perfect. The appropriate relationship between "freedom" and public safety is, to my understanding, largely subjective. This is just... a question.

Of course it's subjective. And no, I can't just pull a number out of my ass for this. One person per year wouldn't be worth it. Fifty thousand probably would.

[Dahak]

Also on the topic of the German Autobahns, from what I've been told, the large majority of accidents happen because people become used to driving at the fast speed, don't slow down enough for off ramps and go through a concrete barrier at 200 km/h. Any Germans on the board that can verify this?

For one, we don't usually have any ramps on autobahns, as they usually are ground-level.
But what happens is that some people loose the feeling for speed, so when they have to slow down for the exit, they leave the exit tangentially. Mostly, that's only embarrassing and mildly destructive to the car, since a) no ramps and b) no concrete walls, so they just plow the car into the lawn next to the exit way. You sometimes see the marks in the lawn.

[LordShaithis]

To be honest, I would expect that the number of deaths from drivers falling asleep without stimuli would exceed the number of deaths prevented by the removal of the potential distraction.

Ah, this could be true. In particular, long bouts of freeway driving do tend to get oddly hypnotic.

Are you saying that no amount of lives saved would justify any action of this nature, leaving aside the fact that your particular example is probably bogus?

No, I was just saying there's a point where anyone who's not a complete anarchist would have to agree that some restrictions are reasonable. The TV/cappucino was simply a made-up example of such a point.

Of course it's subjective. And no, I can't just pull a number out of my ass for this. One person per year wouldn't be worth it. Fifty thousand probably would.

Just to swerve back toward the original topic, I'll put this question out there to anyone who cares to answer:

Two seemingly identical cars. One can reach a "natural" top speed of 120mph, while the other is artificially limited to a maximum speed of 90mph. Will there be any noteworthy difference in their acceleration up to 90mph? I'm not terribly knowledgable about how this works. (Max possible speed does need to exceed the legal limit at least somewhat, or else you'll never be able to put any distance between yourself and that asshole riding 2 feet away from your bumper on the freeway.)

[Darth Wong]

Two seemingly identical cars. One can reach a "natural" top speed of 120mph, while the other is artificially limited to a maximum speed of 90mph. Will there be any noteworthy difference in their acceleration up to 90mph? I'm not terribly knowledgable about how this works. (Max possible speed does need to exceed the legal limit at least somewhat, or else you'll never be able to put any distance between yourself and that asshole riding 2 feet away from your bumper on the freeway.)

Electronic speed governors just kick in at a certain speed and have no effect whatsoever below that speed. Ideally, in some utopian future where every car has a built-in GPS system, it would know the speed limits appropriate for your current location and limit your speed accordingly. You could even program in a certain "fudge factor" for highways, with zero tolerance for school zones.

[Dahak]

Two seemingly identical cars. One can reach a "natural" top speed of 120mph, while the other is artificially limited to a maximum speed of 90mph. Will there be any noteworthy difference in their acceleration up to 90mph? I'm not terribly knowledgable about how this works. (Max possible speed does need to exceed the legal limit at least somewhat, or else you'll never be able to put any distance between yourself and that asshole riding 2 feet away from your bumper on the freeway.)

As Mike pointed out, there's no difference.
As said before, many cars produced by several German car manufacturers are equipped with a speed governor for the German market (voluntarily), which kicks in at 250km/h.
Though, if you want, "chip tuning" is quite easy and one can deactivate the governor...

[His Divine Shadow]

Quite. I can do it for example, I got a chip programmer and an old laptop with the right programs and a homemade chip in my car. Right now though it's only the latest factory settings and I also ran diagnostics and put them through a program that gave me new fuel/air ratios to use at certain RPM/speeds. I think the car might be running a bit lean though.

Ofcourse my car was one of those without a speed limiter so I have never needed to bother with that. My friend has an older Camaro RS though, it as a 105mph limiter. You can disconnect it physically but it's going to damage the car. Raising the value to 200mph would suffice though. But he doesn't care about that.

[Darth Wong]

CyberianKnight's bullshit about how youth, high acceleration, and aggressive driving actually reduce accidents has been split to here.

[Alyeska]

We also have far too many cars with acceleration power WAY out of where you need it to be. The ability to go from 0 to 100 in ten seconds is NOT a constitutionaly protected right over here, but people cry on like it is. Frankly I think people who have only been driving for a few years SHOULDN'T be allowed to drive certian types of cars, period.

In a free society it shouldn't be up to people to justify their rights. It should be up to the government to justify taking away the rights and proving that a significant danger is risked by the population and that restricting the rights is worthwhile to benefit the public. If accidents directly related to overpowered cars is a serious risk, then you have moral justification to restrict freedom for public good. But just demanding people justify their personal freedom desires is not a good position. It reeks of a nanny state where the government decides everything that is good for you. It comes from the same position as forcing people to justify why they like to play computer games, why they like to go hiking, etc. However, if a problem is noted, restriction of rights is acceptable for the public good. Case in point Canada and hate speech laws.

[Alyeska]

CyberianKnight's bullshit about how youth, high acceleration, and aggressive driving actually reduce accidents has been split to here.

Just a suggestion, but maybe put a link in the Parting Shots thread back to here for people who don't know what this was about.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Sometimes, acceleration can help avoid accidents, but the only sources I have seen for it tend to mention it as a minor factor, particularly dealing with highway on/off ramps. The sources are usually from car sellers or safety organization groups, so take it with a grain of salt. I don't know how reliable it is.

http://www.suvsafety.info/carguide.html


Acceleration. Emergency acceleration can sometimes help avoid an accident. Most cars are acceptable in this regard, but those with very poor acceleration might be avoided.

Pretty general stuff, and most cars are ok. Typically, they mention the above on myriad sites as a way of avoiding a crash, but it must be so minor as not to be worth mentioning as a major strategy. Obviously, you have to have some accleration capabliites.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Edit:

Experts also say it is advisable to buy a car that can easily accelerate from zero to 60, in under 11 or 12 seconds, so you can manage tricky merging situations in high traffic areas.

I don't know what that is in Km. I wish I knew the metric system

http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/safety ... ticle.html

That doesn't seem exceptionally high acceleration required. I don't know. Just good enough.

[Darth Wong]

Mind you, they don't make any claims that significant numbers of accidents are actually prevented by powerful accelerative capabilities, or caused by inadequate accelerative capabilities.

Still, that probably took you less than two minutes to find, and it nevertheless constituted more actual evidence, as inadequate as it is, than CyberianShithead produced in a whole day.

[Stile]

Edit:

Experts also say it is advisable to buy a car that can easily accelerate from zero to 60, in under 11 or 12 seconds, so you can manage tricky merging situations in high traffic areas.

I don't know what that is in Km. I wish I knew the metric system

http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/safety ... ticle.html

That doesn't seem exceptionally high acceleration required. I don't know. Just good enough.

1km=.621 miles therefore 100kph=62.1mph

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

I think that once you get to a certain adequate level of acceleration, it probably doesn't matter all that much how much more you have. You probably need some, definitly, but I looked on the major government satefy websites, and it doesn't seem there, so it's minor, if anything.

They are probably taking the common-sense approach wherein any idiot knows that basic acceleration is needed, but I never heard of ueber accleration being a factor.

[Darth Wong]

I think that once you get to a certain adequate level of acceleration, it probably doesn't matter all that much how much more you have. You probably need some, definitly, but I looked on the major government satefy websites, and it doesn't seem there, so it's minor, if anything.

They are probably taking the common-sense approach wherein any idiot knows that basic acceleration is needed, but I never heard of ueber accleration being a factor.

That's obviously because the majority of accidents are caused by cars attempting to go where they don't belong, not by drivers identifying some kind of threat and lacking the horsepower to get out of the way in time.

Seriously, anyone who thinks significant numbers of accidents are caused by people lacking horsepower is an idiot who plays too many fucking computer games and lacks real-world driving experience.

Does it really take a genius to figure out? Go look at any accident; it was almost always caused by some idiot putting his car where it didn't belong (either by excessive speed or overly aggressive maneuvers like trying to cut somebody off or push his way into a spot that was smaller than his car or just plain not looking where you're going), not by failing to make the hot moves in some reproduction of a computer-game scenario where you have to dodge obstacles and attackers.