Smart car on its side: Lower Richmond road 8:20pm last night

georgee

Some sort of comical accident it seems, a few scooters and cyclist stopped and the police had just turned up as I rode past. I assumed it was just the motoring gods taking revenge for choosing to drive a stupid car?

Slightly staggered that in trying to get past some muppet in a small car swerve onto the pavement in desperation to save a couple of seconds...

anyone else spot what happened?

oscarbudgie

lots of estate agents drive smart cars so no sort of tw@ttish driving should come as a surprise

ex-pat scot

Oi! I've got a smart car.

OK it's a roadster, but it's still a smart car.

walkingbootweather

Smart car - isn't that an oxymoron?

t4tomo

ex-pat scot wrote:

Oi! I've got a smart car.

OK it's a roadster, but it's still a smart car.

well done, the first part of any theraphy is to admit you have a problem. Now you've got that off your chest you'll soon be on the road to recovery.

alan_sherman

i don't have one but do like the design ideas in a Smart car. Which other cars can you change bodywork so easily for example? My 14 year old estate is starting to get rusty panels - that is major work to fix. if they were easily replaceable panels the life of the car would be extended. i think all cars should be designed with ease of fixing and longevity as a higher priority.

Was the accident on the mini roundabout on the LRR?

There was a fatality on Tibbetts corner on Saturday - a race driver crashed at 6 am in the morning:
http://www.putneysw15.com/default.asp?s ... esw002.htm

el_presidente

alan sherman wrote:

There was a fatality on Tibbetts corner on Saturday - a race driver crashed at 6 am in the morning:
http://www.putneysw15.com/default.asp?s ... esw002.htm

poor sod; race formula 3, Le Mans, then end up buying the farm by stacking it on the A3 ;(

tarquin_foxglove

alan sherman wrote:

There was a fatality on Tibbetts corner on Saturday - a race driver crashed at 6 am in the morning:
http://www.putneysw15.com/default.asp?s ... esw002.htm

as taken to a south London hospital suffering serious head injuries. But he died the following day.

If only he'd been wearing a helmet.

mr_ribble

I must have gone past it just after it happened as there was no Police or Ambulance at that point. It happened well before the Roundabout. It was near the ped crossing 100m before the pub as you are heading west.

My thoughts are that they cornered too quickly, clipped the cerb and it just flipped them over.

Lots of people taking pictures

meanredspider

I owned a smart Roadster-Coupe (the little sports version) for a while. Had it remapped to make it quick enough to be interesting. It was, however, a total piece of rubbish and spent about 3 months at the dealers in the 2 years I owned it. Bizarrely, in contrast to the comments above about body panels, one of its issues was corrosion. The quality of build was truly shocking and the Merc dealers knew less about it than I did.

To rub salt into the wound, when it went wrong I'd get smart For-Twos (the "smart car") to drive. They're fun for about 5 minutes with a stupidly short wheelbase and fantastic off-the-line acceleration ability (don't try to beat one away from the lights) - but I drove one on a windy motorway once - I've never been so scared at the wheel of a car in my life (and I race cars as a hobby).

snailracer

el_presidente wrote:

alan sherman wrote:

There was a fatality on Tibbetts corner on Saturday - a race driver crashed at 6 am in the morning:
http://www.putneysw15.com/default.asp?s ... esw002.htm

poor sod; race formula 3, Le Mans, then end up buying the farm by stacking it on the A3 ;(

Apparently, professional race car drivers are more likely to have accidents (on public roads) than the average.

SimonAH

I'm sure I read about a test pilot who retired, only to die from a remote control model airplane hitting him in the head......

meanredspider

snailracer wrote:

Apparently, professional race car drivers are more likely to have accidents (on public roads) than the average.

That's funny because I've read that insurers like race drivers because of their increased awareness and looking ahead. I have nothing to support that though.

veronese68

I once drove a Brabus Smart car. Hilarious, until I got to a speed bump. But great fun between the bumps. Didn't try it for more than 2 minutes and didn't try to corner qucikly though. Awful gearbox as I recall.

bails87

I know someone who works for a hire car company, they had a load of smart cars but got rid of them because they fall over so easily around corners!

snailracer

meanredspider wrote:

snailracer wrote:

Apparently, professional race car drivers are more likely to have accidents (on public roads) than the average.

That's funny because I've read that insurers like race drivers because of their increased awareness and looking ahead. I have nothing to support that though.

http://www.scienceservingsociety.com/tsd/CH06.htm

meanredspider

Veronese68 wrote:

I once drove a Brabus Smart car. Hilarious, until I got to a speed bump. But great fun between the bumps. Didn't try it for more than 2 minutes and didn't try to corner qucikly though. Awful gearbox as I recall.

You learn to drive around the gearbox. It takes time to respond to the paddle so you just learned to shift down in advance - shifting up is automatic so that's not a problem. Not ideal but not the problem you think it will be.

When I first arrived in Inverness with it, I was stopped by a policeman in an Astra van for "accelerating too quickly onto a roundabout" in my "powerful sportscar" - I was tempted to point out that his Astra had considerably more power than the smart but thought better of it.

walkingbootweather

snailracer wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

snailracer wrote:

Apparently, professional race car drivers are more likely to have accidents (on public roads) than the average.

That's funny because I've read that insurers like race drivers because of their increased awareness and looking ahead. I have nothing to support that though.

http://www.scienceservingsociety.com/tsd/CH06.htm

Pretty meaningless analysis to be honest as no account taken of mileage covered or fault. It may be that race drivers enjoy driving and therefore cover greater mileages where they are run into by non-race drivers.

In other news, the analysis suggests that single people have more accidents than married people. Don't know about you guys, but I went out more and engaged in more risky behaviours when I was single compared to being married.

daniel_b

meanredspider wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

When I first arrived in Inverness with it, I was stopped by a policeman in an Astra van for "accelerating too quickly onto a roundabout" in my "powerful sportscar"

Jesus that is ridiculous, surely you want to get onto a roundabout as quickly as you can, be it on a bike or in a car, and it's not like you can break the speed limit on your way to the centre of the roundabout :roll:

Out of interest, what car/s do you race?

meanredspider

snailracer wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

snailracer wrote:

Apparently, professional race car drivers are more likely to have accidents (on public roads) than the average.

That's funny because I've read that insurers like race drivers because of their increased awareness and looking ahead. I have nothing to support that though.

http://www.scienceservingsociety.com/tsd/CH06.htm

LMAO - love the references in there from forty years ago. There's little doubt that racing drivers might get more speeding tickets than average...

nation

meanredspider wrote:

snailracer wrote:

Apparently, professional race car drivers are more likely to have accidents (on public roads) than the average.

That's funny because I've read that insurers like race drivers because of their increased awareness and looking ahead. I have nothing to support that though.

Most mainstream insurers won't deal with professional sportspeople because they're incredibly high-risk as a group (not necessarily because of their driving). If you ever rent a car have a look at the list of disqualifying occupations in the rental contract.

I don't know how that applies to racing drivers (or non-professionals for that matter) specifically, though.

meanredspider

Daniel B wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

When I first arrived in Inverness with it, I was stopped by a policeman in an Astra van for "accelerating too quickly onto a roundabout" in my "powerful sportscar"

Jesus that is ridiculous, surely you want to get onto a roundabout as quickly as you can, be it on a bike or in a car, and it's not like you can break the speed limit on your way to the centre of the roundabout :roll:

Out of interest, what car/s do you race?

I did also want to say to him that I was from the south of England and, if I didn't accelerate onto a roundabout that quickly, I'd probably have still been in the south of England waiting at a roundabout....

He said it was friendly advice to avoid me running into a truck! You have to remember that the Highlands has (I believe) the lowest rate of crime in the UK.

I race a 1969 Alfa Giulia GT in the Scottish Classic Sports & Saloons series mostly at Knockhill. ITV4 coverage here (my car is the white Alfa with Teenage Cancer Trust logos)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_xFeOGC ... ata_player

daniel_b

Beautiful and characterful car you have there mrs, good on ya for getting out there and doing it

georgee

As Mr Ribble said, well before the roundabout. It looked as though it had pulled out onto LRR turhing right, and was on its right hand side. as in my little diagram below, complete illogical as though maybe it was turning left at speed then slid out into LRR?

----| | |
---- | |
----| x| |
| | |

prawny

nation wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

snailracer wrote:

Apparently, professional race car drivers are more likely to have accidents (on public roads) than the average.

That's funny because I've read that insurers like race drivers because of their increased awareness and looking ahead. I have nothing to support that though.

Most mainstream insurers won't deal with professional sportspeople because they're incredibly high-risk as a group (not necessarily because of their driving). If you ever rent a car have a look at the list of disqualifying occupations in the rental contract.

I don't know how that applies to racing drivers (or non-professionals for that matter) specifically, though.

It's not really about the drivers, it's the people that they might have in their car. Passenger liability would be millions if Lewis Hamilton had Jenson in the car he crashed and Jenson lost a leg. TBF less famous racing drivers aren't a problem, it's just how famous they and their freinds are.

I used to deal with the insurance for Adam and Ricky Christodoulou's Dad's company, they're both insured, not famous enough (yet) for us to worry about.

meanredspider

Daniel B wrote:

Beautiful and characterful car you have there mrs, good on ya for getting out there and doing it

Thank you. If the last year has taught me anything it's that you have no idea what's around the corner - if you don't do it now while you can, you may never do it. Raised a few thousand for Teenage Cancer Trust while we are at it and raised their profile too. Can't be wrong.

kingmho

walkingbootweather wrote:

snailracer wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

snailracer wrote:

Apparently, professional race car drivers are more likely to have accidents (on public roads) than the average.

That's funny because I've read that insurers like race drivers because of their increased awareness and looking ahead. I have nothing to support that though.

http://www.scienceservingsociety.com/tsd/CH06.htm

Pretty meaningless analysis to be honest as no account taken of mileage covered or fault. It may be that race drivers enjoy driving and therefore cover greater mileages where they are run into by non-race drivers...

The study is estimating overall risk of being in an accident, not risk-per-mile or risk-of-fault.

If race drivers tend to drive lots more than the average driver, then they may be exposing themselves to more risk in total, even if their risk-per-mile might be lower.

The study is not trying to distinguish fault either, an accident is still an accident regardless of whose fault it is. If, say, racing drivers are never at fault, but still get into more accidents than normal drivers, then - bottom line - racing drivers are still more likely to have an accident.

The study is not trying to correct for confounding factors in order to "uncover" some underlying "truth", it's simply measuring raw risk.

I could speculate that pro racing drivers tend to be young men, who are less risk-averse than other demographics.

veronese68

Daniel B wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

When I first arrived in Inverness with it, I was stopped by a policeman in an Astra van for "accelerating too quickly onto a roundabout" in my "powerful sportscar"

Jesus that is ridiculous, surely you want to get onto a roundabout as quickly as you can, be it on a bike or in a car, and it's not like you can break the speed limit on your way to the centre of the roundabout :roll:

Out of interest, what car/s do you race?

Hang on. I've never been to Inverness.

veronese68

meanredspider wrote:

Daniel B wrote:

Beautiful and characterful car you have there mrs, good on ya for getting out there and doing it

Thank you. If the last year has taught me anything it's that you have no idea what's around the corner - if you don't do it now while you can, you may never do it. Raised a few thousand for Teenage Cancer Trust while we are at it and raised their profile too. Can't be wrong.

Very good cause and good taste in cars. I heartily approve. I'll look at the clip at home tonight. Took the boy to watch the HSCC racing at Brands on Sunday some beautiful machinery. We sponsor one of the series, so free tickets. Odd seeing the company name on the side of a De Tomaso when we do bits for old english cars.

peat

Another Roadster owner and hobby racing driver here!

Had the Roady for 2 and a bit years now, a few niggles but a thoroughly delightful little car.

I know many lunatic racing drivers who have come a-cropper on the road, but i would like to consider myself a very safe and aware driver on the public highways. On the racetrack mind.................

meanredspider

Veronese68 wrote:

Very good cause and good taste in cars. I heartily approve. I'll look at the clip at home tonight. Took the boy to watch the HSCC racing at Brands on Sunday some beautiful machinery. We sponsor one of the series, so free tickets. Odd seeing the company name on the side of a De Tomaso when we do bits for old english cars.

Thanks. well done for sponsoring the racing too - really helps. If you enjoy that type of racing, I post loads of in-car clips on YouTube. Here's the BTCC race featured on ITV from my POV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3gnKD8-cXQ