Stroock639

mike i know you've said this many times before, but when i saw this i almost immediately thought of you saying how the most crash prone drivers are those of bmw 3-series and mustangs and whaddya know...

Aron9000

I actually destroyed a wheel when I had a flat in a downtown stretch of interstate because there was no good, safe place to pull over. Drove half a mile with a flat to the nearest off ramp. No way in hell was I pulling off the road on the left side with no shoulder, on the right side wasn't much wider. It was night like in this video, cars were flying by at 50-70mph.

There have been a couple instances of cops and people getting killed breaking down in the far left lane in Nashville. Sure enough their car is still sticking out into the fast lane of traffic, then bam, semi truck hits the broken down car or the cop car pulled over to help them and its just really sad and tragic. Completely avoidable as well, if you break down, get over to the right and get out of the road.

mmarshall

You have a good memory. You're very close......actually, what I said was that I've seen more people (especially younger people) killed in V8-equipped Mustangs than probably any other car. They tend to be, in general (though not all of them), probably the worst drivers I've seen, and do many of the dumbest things. Right behind them are the BMW 3-series drivers (again, as a group, but not all of them). The Bimmer-Jocks aren't quite as sheer dumb/asinine-dangerous as the V8 Mustang Jocks, but, in general, tend to be arrogant, presumptuous, look down on other drivers, ignore traffic laws if they feel like it, and take the attitude that the road belongs to them and no one else.

Fizzboy7

See, you are a clear example of how people should drive. Thinking about safety, the well-being of yourself, and the well-being of others. The act and care of driving is one of the few things we entrust total strangers in. One wrong move by someone and it effects our lives.

LexBob2

Hmm, I have a BMW and try to live my life this way, and my wife might agree with this LOL. Seriously though you could pick any nameplate and slap some stereotype on them.

SW17LS

At least this is on a track

This illustrates the difference between being on the track and on the road. On the track in the middle of the day (or night because of the lighting) you have excellent visibility, its a controlled situation, you're not going to have any surprises.

What we saw here was clearly late at night given the low volume of traffic, and people were driving up on an accident scene not expecting that accident scene to be there, distracted, what have you and you see the ensuing accident. Some of those cars were traveling at pretty high speeds.

chikoo

Blame it on Car pool Karaoke. That is why I drive like a Terminator. No interaction with any passenger or objects in the car. All it takes is ONE mistake and somebodys life is over.

I remember once my SO texted me something that required my immediate response @7pm. I found an old church by the road, and parked in the parking lot, and then started my texting (fighting, really). Soon a cop came by, and queried what I was doing alone in the parking lot. I explained exactly that and he left satisfied that there is still hope!

mmarshall

Like I said, not all 3-series drivers are like this...especially now that the 3-series is not necessarily the icon that it used to be in its class. It now gets more competition from other makes, and those who own and drive them, as a group, are not as arrogant as they once were. But some of them still remain.

It's true, as you note, that any car or nameplate can (and sometimes does) have a moron or a blowhard behind the wheel. But, over the years, I've noticed some distinct patterns, stereotype of not, and I just report on what I've seen. And I've seen a LOT of kids hurt or killed in high-powered Mustangs, not only personally, but from local news stories.....and a lot of grieving parents.

Stroock639

i gotta say i disagree. when it's totally dark out, it's very easy to see even a dim light that's very far away, which you couldn't see during the day when the sun is out (like the stars?). both cars had a source of light coming from them, so unless there's a blind corner that we're not seeing and EVERYONE was looking at their phone or something, i don't see how it was so hard to see these cars. same with that mustang crashing right into the back of that van. of course it's always easy to sound like you'd do better from the safety of an office chair, but i'm still confused on this one.

chikoo

Depth perception is also compromised in the dark.

SW17LS

Thats just totally not true lol. Your depth perception is nowhere near as accurate at night as during the day.

chikoo

color bleeding also happens in addition to the fact that different cars have different size of tails. Drivers often extrapolate the distance of the car based upon the size they see. If the lights are tiny, they assume car is far away but in reality it is a car with tiny taillights.

mmarshall

It's not a total solution, but one thing that helps to gauge distance at night is the way your eyes and brain react to the (comparative) distance between the headlights in front of you...both lengthwise and widthwise. It's true that some vehicles are wider than others, but most regular passenger cars, today, don't exceed 75-80 inches in width. Compact and sub-comact cars, of course, will be narrower than that, but, in general, the closer together the two headlights appear in front of you, the further away the vehicle is...until they merge into one solid light-blob. Low-beam headlights, make this easier to gauge because they have less glare....a big courtesy to other drivers. Conversely, of course, the wider the distance between the two headlights, the closer the car approaching you is.

Another thing that helps to gauge distance at night is to have taken flight training and having been a pilot, like I was. Although there are night and bad-weather approach/landing aids in use at many runways that indicate your slope-angle on approach, your height above the runway (and the remaining runway distance in front of you) can be gauged simply by how wide or shallow a converge-angle the white runway lights in front of you have (taxiway lights are blue instead of white, and less-intensity).

tex2670

Are we really going down this road (pun intended)? I saw a Prius driver make a d*** move at a congested intersection, pulling out into the oncoming lane to go around 2 cars that stopped at a yellow light, so he could beat the red--no hypermiling there. There is no make or model which you can make sweeping generalizations about, and have them be true about "most" of the drivers of that car. I see way more suburban housewives driving around in their 3-Series than aggressive drivers.

tex2670

Exactly. Add this to the fact that the traffic jam has not built up from this accident yet, and drivers chugging along are not expecting that the tail lights they see in the distance are at a dead stop; those red lights need to be processed among the highway lights, headlights from oncoming vehicles on the other side, and the tail lights of other cars in the right lanes that are, in fact, continuing to move along. This is an entirely predictable occurrence, even if no one was distracted or breaking land speed records.