[Russell Mania]

..its a question all parents have..what do or dont I give my child? .. it could be as simple as giving them money to go to a movie and they never return.. let's not be too harsh on these teens, rather let's hope they rest in peace.. no matter what something like this or worse will happen again and again and again..may God help us!!

[urnuts]

Originally Posted by Majikthese42

Natural Selection didn't eliminate all of the stupid genes here. Someone else purchased the alcohol (and the M5).

I'm not a parent (I'm 42) so I won't get too nasty; but let's just say that mommy and daddy will have a lifetime of guilt and responsibility- to which they are entitled.

[fizzle]

this should be stickied on every regional forum to stop the stupid threads about racing....parents get the kid an M5 for christs sake....an M5!!! that is more horsepower than the 3 BMWS ive owned! lol i feel bad and my condolences go out to the fam but cmon this is like giving a crack head more crack and saying STOP DOING CRACK. your giving a young kid a license to kill himself.

[myfirstbmw335i]

Originally Posted by bobbo

Yea God works in mysterious ways. Explain this one.

God gives us "Free Will". To make our own choices, good or bad. Unfortunately the driver of this BMW used his "Free Will" to kill 4 other people.

That's what makes God great. He gives us the option to be complete idiots and loves us anyway.

[myfirstbmw335i]

Originally Posted by fizzle

this should be stickied on every regional forum to stop the stupid threads about racing....parents get the kid an M5 for christs sake....an M5!!! that is more horsepower than the 3 BMWS ive owned! lol i feel bad and my condolences go out to the fam but cmon this is like giving a crack head more crack and saying STOP DOING CRACK. your giving a young kid a license to kill himself.

Just because some parents have money, they seem to thing their children need to "keep up with the Jones" as well.
I was at my dealer last week, when an M6 was being delivered to an 18 year old boy. His father bought it for him. Here's the kicker....The boy's license was suspended at the time and he couldn't even drive it home.

[spacedogg]

Yeah...unfortunately when you're 18 you think you're a driving god. Even I thought that. Thankfully, I never owned a vehicle with over 120 hp during that time period.

As I have grown older, I've come to realize that I'm a fairly average driver. And I probably was less than average when I was 18.

VERY few 18 year olds are good enough drivers to handle the speeds their hormones dictate they drive at. They just don't have enough experience.

I took a BMW driver's training course not too long ago. One of the instructors of the training program was 18 year old Adrien Herberts. I had the pleasure of having him ride in my car for a few sessions teaching me the finer points of car control. He drives in the Champ Car Atlantic Series and is the youngest Canadian driver to win a podium place for an open wheel car event. To say the least...he is a very capable 18 year old driver. Why? Because he's been involved in motorsports since he was 9 years old.

I remember asking him what he drove on the streets. I can't recall exactly what he said, but I recall being surprised because it was a P.O.S. It was either a Chevy Cavalier or a Toyota Corolla.

[MadDog]

Another accident involving a BMW, from the San Jose Mercury News:

*********************************
Medical examiner identifies victim in Sunnyvale crash that killed two
Bay City News Service
Article Launched: 01/26/2008 10:37:26 PM PST


The Santa Clara County medical examiner's office has released the name of one of two men killed early Friday morning when their BMW slammed into a tree off of Central Expressway in Sunnyvale.
Sean Armstrong, a 24-year-old Santa Clara resident, and a San Jose resident also in his 20s, were found dead at about 2:30 a.m., officials said.

The Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety did not receive any calls reporting the crash and investigators are still not sure exactly when it occurred, spokesman John Pilger said.

By the time a patrol officer happened upon the scene, both men were already dead, Pilger said.

The driver had been ejected from the vehicle while the passenger, who was wearing his seatbelt, had remained inside the vehicle. Both suffered extensive trauma, Pilger said.

The BMW was completely destroyed and appeared to have been traveling at speeds well above the posted limit when it struck the tree in the center median, Pilger said.

The roadway was wet and has a soft shoulder, which would have made it impossible for the driver to control the vehicle once it left the pavement, especially if it was traveling at excessive speeds, Pilger said.

There were no obvious signs that the driver had been under the influence of drugs or alcohol, Pilger said, but investigators are waiting for results from toxicology tests before they rule anything out.

*********************************


I saw the tree they hit, and the lower 3 feet of bark was completely knocked off.

[shiyan]

I had a lot of trouble trying to get insurance for my car here in Belgium (due to being 25 years old). Most insurance companies would not insure me for anything faster than a Mini Cooper (base 115hp model), and I almost cried when I heard that.

Basically until you're 26 years old, the insurance companies here won't insure you for anything with a bit of power.

I can sort of empathize with their reasoning now.

[Hawkeye]

Originally Posted by HyperM3

I dont care what you drive and how good a driver you think you are. If youre under 25, you dont know shit about car control.

Talk about ignorance. There are plenty of professional drivers < 25 years old. I raced stock cars from 17-19 years old, I doubt you are any better than me!


Well, I feel bad for the friends and the passengers but not the person driving or his parents. What do you think is going to happen when you buy your kid an M5... or even a 335 for that matter. If they can't afford it they probably won't appreciate it.

[Hawkeye]

Originally Posted by T Bone

The driver was an adult and apparently had a bit of disregard for the rules of the road. The parents of the driver......where were they when Josh got the tickets? Was the form of punishment to provide the M5?

In any case, the adult driver is responsible for the whole enchilada.

For once I agree with TBone.

I am 23 and I take back highways on my bike at 120+ mph. I know it is dangerous and I know that it is stupid. I know.

I think buying an "adult" a 500hp car is stupid and asking for trouble, but the kids knew what they were doing.

[adc]

Originally Posted by HyperM3

I dont care what you drive and how good a driver you think you are. If youre under 25, you dont know shit about car control.

There's this 23 year old guy driving some fancy Benz, goes by the name of Lewis. You may have heard about him...

[HyperM3]

Originally Posted by adc

There's this 23 year old guy driving some fancy Benz, goes by the name of Lewis. You may have heard about him...

Theres always less than 1% that bely the fact Im trying to convey. I know you were trying to point that out but you understood what I was saying also.

Good driving skills come from repetitive situational experience. I started racing auto-x, import drag racing and went to skip barber school right after getting my license. I know for a fact that it still didnt put me in situations for the real world.

So yeah, blah blah, youre an awesome racer or you can point someone out who is. Most of the kids out there on this forum are not in that league. So, yeah, youre still not experienced drivers.

[MadDog]

Originally Posted by HyperM3

I dont care what you drive and how good a driver you think you are. If youre under 25, you dont know shit about car control.

Statistically, and reflected in higher insurance rates, drivers 25 and under have the most accidents.

According to my insurance agent, they (presumably here in CA) no longer look at age, just driving history. It just so happens that when you hit nine years of experience, your rates go down.

Hmmm.... if you get your license at 16, nine years later you would be 25. Coincidence ??

[Chunga]

If you are under 24 over here. It costs 400UDS p month to ensure. If the car is to fast - noone will do it.
You can drive racecar, stock car or anything. Its all in the genes. You will hit the metal sometimes. And stockcar, gocart or racecar will not make it more easy i guess. And it will def not make it more easy to read trafic. Reading trafic is importent and makes trafic glide smooth.

[boostdf350]

For those questioning the end of the runway it is basically flat but on the north end the land had to be built up to make it flat. That is the reason for the 85' difference in the height of the runway versus original ground level.

[ChadE]

They kid was on m5boards.com it was his dads M5 and his dad owns the neighbor hood where the airstrip was. Very sad thing...hopefully others will learn from this. Sad it takes something like this to make people realize.

[Hawkeye]

Originally Posted by MadDog

Statistically, and reflected in higher insurance rates, drivers 25 and under have the most accidents.

According to my insurance agent, they (presumably here in CA) no longer look at age, just driving history. It just so happens that when you hit nine years of experience, your rates go down.

Hmmm.... if you get your license at 16, nine years later you would be 25. Coincidence ??

Sorry, but that is where you are wrong. Statistically women are worse drivers than men but mens insurance rates are higher. This is because men drive more,on average, than women do.

The amount of under 25 year olds that get in accidents is actually pretty proportional to how much more time they spend driving than people over the age of 25.

If they rated on how much time was spent in the car and then on age I am sure it would be a lot closer. I will say that under 25 year olds have wrose wrecks but that is about all you can say.

[fragadellic]

A bit better photo of the runway. The impact trees are at the bottom of the photo...

The Runway is a total of 7,550ft long x 200ft wide. It's kind of scary. If you assume the car accelerated from a stop, it was probably going close to 140 easily by the 3,000ft mark. At that rate, the car is covering over 200feet per second and the end of the runway is less than 14 seconds away, much less if they kept accelerating. A runway this wide has virtually nothing in the driver's (or pilot's) peripheral vision to judge speed, so a perfectly smooth runway like this probably gave little or no indication as to how fast they were going. The driver probably wasn't looking at the speedometer. This is an uncontrolled airport with no FAA-required runway end identifier lights (even if there were any, they wouldn't have been on at 3:00am unless the kid had an aviation transceiver to turn them on), and in the dark, with the end of the runway elevated, there would be no way to accurately judge the distance to the end. By the time they saw the end (as evidenced by the skid marks reported), even with M5 brakes, there's no way they could have stopped.

What a disaster. Accidents like this cause people (elected officials) to go off the deep end and create rediculous laws that affect the rest of us in a negative way.

[ages944]

Originally Posted by Railgunner

Does make you wonder with all the electronic gadgets in modern day cars, why they don't have a password protected speed limiter. It's not like they don't have the technology. Limiter could be tied to the individual keys or could have a 2nd key (that only dad has) that overrides it.

Either this, or the European strategy of graduated insurance availability. This would actually be good on both ends of the age spectrum actually. Geriatrics could benefit from this as much as the teens.

[ages944]

fragadellic, well written post. I mostly agree with what you say, but regarding 'going off the deep end', would you not agree that it's entirely too easy to attain a driver's license in this country?

[T Bone]

Originally Posted by fragadellic

A bit better photo of the runway. The impact trees are at the bottom of the photo...

The Runway is a total of 7,550ft long x 200ft wide. It's kind of scary. If you assume the car accelerated from a stop, it was probably going close to 140 easily by the 3,000ft mark. At that rate, the car is covering over 200feet per second and the end of the runway is less than 14 seconds away, much less if they kept accelerating. A runway this wide has virtually nothing in the driver's (or pilot's) peripheral vision to judge speed, so a perfectly smooth runway like this probably gave little or no indication as to how fast they were going. The driver probably wasn't looking at the speedometer. This is an uncontrolled airport with no FAA-required runway end identifier lights (even if there were any, they wouldn't have been on at 3:00am unless the kid had an aviation transceiver to turn them on), and in the dark, with the end of the runway elevated, there would be no way to accurately judge the distance to the end. By the time they saw the end (as evidenced by the skid marks reported), even with M5 brakes, there's no way they could have stopped.

What a disaster. Accidents like this cause people (elected officials) to go off the deep end and create rediculous laws that affect the rest of us in a negative way.

Thank you for this post.....

If the car flew off at 100 mph, any idea what the top speed would have been? Obviously this nimrod started braking at some point....any educated guesses?

[fragadellic]

Originally Posted by ages944

fragadellic, well written post. I mostly agree with what you say, but regarding 'going off the deep end', would you not agree that it's entirely too easy to attain a driver's license in this country?

Thanks, and yes, I agree with you. The test for a driver's license in the USA is a joke.