Carmageddon - Stevenage

[DaveDorson]

10 minutes ago, EssDeeWon said:

Fairy muff.  

Southend centre is a no go on a Friday / Sat evening especially during the summer. You get them under and over taking, sitting 45mm off your back bumper in their lowered corsa's and fiesta's heading for the seafront. I think this sort of thing goes on down there but never been there to witness it. Lots about it in the local press, residents trying to get it stopped, imagine having to listen to tyre screech all evening. Far from ideal I suppose if you do live down there. 

I remember seeing someone stick a Rover SD1 v8 into the flower beds between the promenade roads at Saaafend one year when him and he mate in a Capri 280 tried to have a play.

 

It's been going on forever.  It's the cars that change, people have always been muppets, who inevitably run out of talent. 

 

There was a muscle car that did it a few weeks ago and ended up in someones garden.  It's just unfortunate that he spanked into a crowd of people.  Unfortunate, but it was always going to happen some time.

The knee jerk response we'll all suffer as a result is what bothers me the most.

[JeeExEll]

[Peter C]

This incident reminds me of the old Group B rally cars and associated crowd safety issues.

 

[DaveDorson]

A few people have drawn that parallel. 

[rml2345]

I think the problem with this is not them being condemned for being reckless arseholes, it's what they were but the wider implications for car meets due to a knee-jerk reaction by plod and local authorities. The sad thing is that street racing/dicking about in car parks by idiots will continue but the local branch of the Morris Minor owner's club will be banned from a once a month pub lunch meet because they respect the rule of law. 

[vulgalour]

The worst of it is, when you organise/are responsible for a meet like this, generally speaking the police don't want to get involved until something goes wrong.  You can ask, you can liaise with the meet location's owners, you can do everything right and still it only takes one or two knobs to encourage five or six other people who normally aren't knobs, to encourage another dozen or so people who normally don't play silly buggers and before you know it you've got folks trying to create their own personal race track.  Confronting the people that do this leads to two responses usually: being totally ignored/mocked, or making them take even more risks.

You can even move location and the knobs will follow.  Worst of all, if you punish the knobs it doesn't seem to work, they just get more and more aggressive about being singled out and do it all the more.  Because they're the one everyone can see and hear, people assume everyone else at the meet is the same and the vast majority of attendees at these meets and ones like it know full well that if you dick around too much, you lose the meet.

The solution is to give people a place to play.  When you do that, the knobs do make use of it and usually get it all out of their system before going back on the public highway.  Except for a handful, of course, who have no ability to curb their enthusiasm or take responsibility for their actions.  There's no helping some people.

[JeeExEll]

BBC News have issued a short vid of the lead up to the incident, but not the actual collision or aftermath, for obv reasons.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-49041165

[sierraman]

I don’t know how people can afford to give an expensive car such cosh. If I’d spunked 30k on a new Toyota I’d be looking after it not hammering the fuck out of it. Let’s remember these are not racing drivers, just man in the street, seemingly with no ability to reign it in a bit. I’m not saying I’ve not ragged cars before but I wouldn’t be hammering the fuck out a 18 month old Merc. Unlike genuine performance cars these won’t take abuse like that for long. 

[tooSavvy]

https://www.motorious.com/articles/news/358014/chevelle-crash-doncaster-car-show

..... Ooops!

[GrumpyCat]

I think YouTube and social media has played a part in this. The filming of them leaving shows seems to encourage the reckless behaviour and at the same time those standing around filming are blocking the views of the drivers.

Having watched a few of AdamC's videos where drivers are encouraged to burnout, drift and "send it, mate", I'm only surprised it doesn't happen more often.

[Justin Case]

Car cruising has been banned in the Black Country for a few years now:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-30285191

It has been successful, since the ban came in fewer people have been injured in such events than in arguments about where the boundary of the Black Country is.

[omegod]

Just watched what I didn't realise was the actual video of the crash and wish I hadn't , fucking arseholes driving that fast so close to people, how there haven't been fatalities I'll never know 

 

[chompy_snake]

Well, police have known about this behaviour at this location for above 6 months. 

There's plenty of videos on YouTube of the place and the behaviour of attendees. Why nobody did something before there was an accident we will never know??

I wonder if the words "Hold my beer, Watch This" were uttered before that incident?

[Wack]

It was tunerfest at oulton park last week , crap to be honest because it was against the clock so like watching a fast track day , drift cars made for good pictures but 5 minutes and they'd fucked the tyres

leaving a group of lads were outside shouting send it at the drivers,a few did as you'd expect because being on youtube is all it's about these days

 

they shouted send it at me which obviously didn't happen so they shouted abuse instead

The chief constable's statement about not knowing it was on is utter bollocks because there's video of a police van there earlier in the evening and it's on every week

 

no she probably got a memo with ££££ overtime attached to it so looked at the revenue generated by deploying the coppers on ANPR on time instead of double time and binned it

 

I've been going to oulton park for 20 years or more, Nobody ever leaves it like this at any other meeting

 

Comedy MX5 kicks it off at 40s

 

[Timewaster]

It is amazing that there aren't more incidents considering how many of these events there are and how mental some of the driving is.

I used to go to one or two several years ago and nothing much has changed.

I only ever went to Saaafend once in the Cossie. 

One look at what was going on, I parked up as far out of the way as I could and waited for the carnage.

I will also say I've seen some amazing car control from some of them and the fact there aren't many accidents is testiment to that.

One twonk I used to work with had a 325 E30. He could barely spell his own name but he could do Donuts round shopping trolleys and handbrake into a parking space like Russ Swift.

 

Our town square used to be a car park with a road on three sides and every Friday and Saturday night there was a dozen cars there, wheel spins, donuts, drifting, the lot.

 

My mates uncle who was in his sixties asked us one day "what do you ol boys do up the town of a night?"

Innocently we replied " just look at the cars, see your mates, chat about stuff...."

Uncle replied "Oh.... We used to use it as a race track!!"

 

Is, was and ever shall be.

The comments on kids driving 250bhp stuff instead of 70bhp Astras is valid.

However most of the hooning done in my day was MK2 Escort's, Marinas and Avengers with bent MOTs and bald Tigar tyres.

Several of them had been in the pub too.

 

[bigstraight6]

In the good old days of the late 70’s and early 80’s “cruising” was all about people driving 50’s/60’s American cars and Customised old Brit tin at a a slow pace so all on lookers could get a good look and the drivers and passengers having a good pose. I think this incident will drive the current scene underground with ‘illegal” cruising gatherings rather like “raves” 

[sierraman]

Does anyone remember the Cruise pages in Max Power. On occasion, if you were lucky you’d get a glimpse of a pasty pair of tits posing at the side of a Stealth shelf in wanky Astra Sxi. 

[Peter C]

Talking of Max Power, towards the back of the mag there was a reader’s girlfriends page, where one of the questions asked and published was whether the girl spits or swallows. Classy.

[Peter C]

Come to think of it, there was also a simple question - pink or brown?

 

???

[Andyrew]

2 minutes ago, Peter C said:

Talking of Max Power, towards the back of the mag there was a reader’s girlfriends page, where one of the questions asked and published was whether the girl spits or swallows. Classy.

Ha! I remember that. And the yes/no question

"Do you agree once up the bum no harm done?"

 

[MikeR]

Spit or swallow ..... 

 

Missed out gargels .......

[fatharris]

I had a quick view of the video, but I can't see how it isn't mostly the Toyota's fault? It was joining the road, so it's their responsibility to do so safely by checking for a knobhead in a Nissan doing Mach 10 before pulling out?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

There are potentially 17 claims for personal injury. Whether these will be against the two drivers or the Cruise organisers or all of them will be interesting to see. Blue Nissan driver in particular may find his insurers might decide to treat his policy - assuming he actually had one - as void.

I listened to the organiser, one Ray Siddhu, on the radio earlier. He was asked whether he felt responsible for what had happened. There was a very long pause before he said "I do....and I don't". That sounds like equivocation to me. Either he does or he doesn't; it isn't a "yeah but no but yeah" matter. Given his claimed experience at putting on these events, he will have been well aware of the eejit element. It was his decision to go ahead. I only hope he had adequate public liability cover, otherwise he may find himself defending 17 claims.

There is also a bit of a row over whether Herts Constab had been notified in advance. Herts say they weren't; Mr. Siddhu claims they were. How was that notification done? E-mail only? Telephone calls? Proper letters in the post? E-mails can get diverted to the wrong department, and telephone messages may not be passed on. Where's the paper trail?

Whatever the truth, it begins to look like cock-up theory being put into practice, and I suppose there'll be frantic arse-covering going on now.

Meanwhile, the local council may want to spend some of its highways budget on some speed humps.

[mat_the_cat]

44 minutes ago, fatharris said:

I had a quick view of the video, but I can't see how it isn't mostly the Toyota's fault? It was joining the road, so it's their responsibility to do so safely by checking for a knobhead in a Nissan doing Mach 10 before pulling out?

It may have been clear though, within their field of view when pulling out. Don't know how far down the road it's possible to see.  

[vulgalour]

The blame will be passed around.  Essentially, the blame is with the people who decided to drive like idiots in a public location.  The pedestrians injured were stupid for putting themselves in danger but it is the driver's responsibility to not drive into them by being a twat.  The organiser isn't really to be blamed, it's not like they encouraged the behaviour and given that there was clearly police presence at the venue, they probably did everything they should have done.  There's only so much an organiser can actually do and even if they step away from the event and publicly state that, they can still be held liable (bizzarely) for the thing.  The council will likely fit a barrier to the car park if there are no businesses that would prevent this from being done, they won't fit traffic calming measures or anything like that.  The police will do a bit, not a lot, just a bit, because that's all they really have the resources to do.  The police are normally present at events like this but are rarely there long enough to prevent the idiots who show off well after the event has concluded.

The thing is, the people who should be blamed, the people who were responsible for the harm, are unlikely to be the ones people point the finger at.  Instead the council will be accused of letting it happen, the police of not doing enough, and the organiser of not doing their job.  Pedestrians will be defended for doing nothing wrong, even though standing in traffic is pretty stupid at normal speeds.  Worst of all the idiots who caused the accident through their reckless behaviour will likely be lauded by some for sticking it to the man and having fun because 'they're not hurting anyone'.  Cruises are fine, when everyone remembers where they are and the risks involved and behaves accordingly.  A bit of showing off, a bit of silliness, is perfectly okay within reason.  It's when you become unreasonable and leave your brain in the car park that the problems begin.

[LostnotFound]

Obviously I hope all injured recover well, finger waging about standing in a dangerous place seems a bit ott given they've had a more physical lesson.

The bit that annoys me is that the driving isn't exceptionally bad, there are plenty of bent road signs attesting to the inability of anyone to look before pulling out / drive. Yes the numbers would be a lot lower without a crowd, but it's still luck when ever anyone mounts the pavement no one is walking there.

By 'othering' the yoofs with their questionable taste in cars Mr / MRS respectable SUV driver doesn't need to worry themselves that they are responsible for over a tonne of metal and checking facebook rather than their blindspot isn't the best idea.

[Wack]

41 minutes ago, LostnotFound said:

Obviously I hope all injured recover well, finger waging about standing in a dangerous place seems a bit ott given they've had a more physical lesson.

The bit that annoys me is that the driving isn't exceptionally bad,

Really , given there are dozens of spectators standing where they are I can't see how the nissan driver could be much worse

In a few months time we'll learn of the sentence the court gives him , I think he'll be locked up for it 

[JeeExEll]

1 hour ago, LostnotFound said:

The bit that annoys me is that the driving isn't exceptionally bad.

U wot m8?

[vaughant]

On 7/19/2019 at 10:34 AM, Kiltox said:

Car finance has always been a thing. 

I meant are we sure they were driving Maestros 20 years ago, given it’s 2019, or is it the usual Autoshite stuck in about 2002 syndrome 

1999 would’ve been peak Max Power surely. 

In 1999 I drove a series one RS Turbo and had a XR2i/XR3i cab as a daily as tbh they were cheap fodder then ( not the series 1, but still only a £2-3k car). 

The cars of choice back then were gsi/gte Vauxhall's, xr/rs Ford's, maybe a few R5 GT Turbos as most were broken back then, quite a few Frenchies, pug 106/205/306 still really popular, not so much Jap stuff, that exploded after the import cars went crazy a few years later IMO,a few nice Corolla 16v's about from memory.

 

Later that year/year 2000 I bought a 2wd saff Cossie and remember going to a cruise in Cardiff drifting it around for hours ( well probably 20 mins) skimming past the unregulated crowd just about keeping it from smashing into the kerb.

 

It was going on back then and will still go on now, I think the only difference is now,is that the crowd back then had no distractions and weren't putting up videos on YouTube, they were trying to enjoy a car "show" and had an element of self preservation.

 

There were issues back then, but not many accidents, not sure what's actually changed? 

[iainrcz]

Saw this on the forums and Facebook.

I think balls need kicking.

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