What car do you currently drive

Blue Sky Mine · **Reply #30 on:** February 01, 2008, 11:38:05 pm

Quote from: "Vamerica"

Mini's are the best, if someone says they arn't then Ill beat them up.

They're way too slow

zkvac · **Reply #31 on:** February 02, 2008, 05:40:07 am

Yeah, maybe stock. I plan to fiddle with mine a bit.

This isn't any slower than the next car:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fRxHAM8HA&feature=related

AirHanoverInternational · **Reply #32 on:** February 02, 2008, 01:54:25 pm

Quote from: "Blue Sky Mine"

They're way too slow

Most of the people here dont need cars faster than 130km/h (75mph). They cant use it. I am glad to live in Germany. It would take me a day to drive to Munich instead of 5 hours.

Blue Sky Mine · **Reply #33 on:** February 02, 2008, 07:24:56 pm

Quote from: "AirHanoverInternational"

Quote from: "Blue Sky Mine"

They're way too slow

Most of the people here dont need cars faster than 130km/h (75mph). They cant use it. I am glad to live in Germany. It would take me a day to drive to Munich instead of 5 hours.

Well, I think no-genral-speedlimits politic is the one thing other countries should take over from Germany!

AirHanoverInternational · **Reply #34 on:** February 02, 2008, 08:25:35 pm

Quote from: "Blue Sky Mine"

Well, I think no-genral-speedlimits politic is the one thing other countries should take over from Germany!

Agree to that. International studies show that there die more people on british highways than on german ones. There are also studies in America that say the police could be used better in the cities to prevent crime instead of chasing people on the highways. I dont mean that the highways should be unlimited in speed in general. There are parts of it where a speed limit makes sense - for example near big cities where you often approach traffic jam or when the road is in bad condition. On the other hand I remember almost empty and straight highways in the States. It is boring to drive slow and I think than many people getting tired and do not pay enough attention which may cause accidents.

Blue Sky Mine · **Reply #35 on:** February 02, 2008, 08:35:32 pm

I think there should be speed advices, not limits.

zkvac · **Reply #36 on:** February 02, 2008, 10:44:12 pm

Well remember some countries can't afford it- Here in NZ, we have the same sized land mass of Italy but 1/10th the population. We can't afford to build huge motorways everywhere- Only in cities. Therefore the roads aren't as good - (eg State Highway 1, NZ's main road, is mainly 1 lane each way, with the odd passing lane.) so it's not as safe to go 130km/h or more here. Our speed limit is 100 km/h (60mph) but you are given 10% error, so I generally cruise at about 109km/h. Of course if you have a radar detector and a quiet road.. I can tell you that a Fiat Stilo Abarth will happily do 200 km/h

:twisted: . Also a good ( bad for other people?) thing here is the driving age. You get your learners at 15 and can drive on your own (Restricted licence- what I've got) at 16.\\

Italy was awesome- the limit is 130km/h but nobody seems to care- we're passing small cars at 170km'h and BMW 545's are roaring past in excess of 200km/h!

Blue Sky Mine · **Reply #37 on:** February 02, 2008, 11:09:00 pm

Well it's true that NZ hasn't got the world's best roads. But until 2007 Australia's Northern Territory also had no speed limits. Their argumentation that these easy speed limits caused many crashes, but I can't really follow that. Fact is, in Germany most deadly car crashes happen inside the cities (where we've got speed limits of 30-50 km/h). At the same time, other countries that had similar roads (for example France, Italy, Spain) had much higher crash/fatality numbers than Germany. And these countries all have VERY strict speed limits.

How does that happen? Well, it's all about how alert you are. Many German Drivers are afraid of Italy and France because many people in these countries don't concentrate what happens outside their tin box. They drive on the lane they want, at the speed they want and they do very risky manoevres when they overtake you.

In German cities you might drive like this. However chances are that you'll be stopped if the cops see you. Try to drive 80 in the left lane of an Autobahn where you're allowed to go 120 or even unrestricted and you'll find out how loud 20 horns can be and how angry people will get.

Also we don't need to go over the legal limits to test our cars. If we want to find out how fast a car goes we don't do that in a silent back alley in a cold december night so that you can scrap our cars from a tree the next morning, we simply wait for the right weather and traffic conditions and then head for the Autobahn.

I think NZ could live with unrestricted speed limits if you were used to them!

zkvac · **Reply #38 on:** February 02, 2008, 11:34:34 pm

Sure, NT may have unrestricted speed limits, but that's because they are dead straight, with no traffic. Roads in NZ are overcrowded, and the government can't do much because we don't have toll roads, and often windy. Lots of roads here it would be literally impossible to do 130km/h in your average car. I'm sure NZ would never get used to 130km/h roads, because of the standard of vehicles (mostly crappy used Japanese imports, due to our lax import laws), and the ability of most drivers here. Because NZ is very 'multicultural', there are lots of drivers from certain parts of the world which aren't renowned for good driving ( I won't name countries, at the risk of generalizing/being racist).

I may be wrong, and I'm not trying to insult you, but I've found Dutch/German tourists to be some of the most inconsiderate drivers here. Because most roads are single lane, we can't just pass when we like, so we rely on slower cars/ motorhomes to pull over and let cars going the speed limit past. I've been stuck behind Germans driving motorhomes that seem to be completely oblivious to the 50+ cars held up behind them at 70km/h. Which brings us to another side effect of NZ's poor roads- Road rage :twisted:

And I'm not sticking up for NZ- I wish we had no speed limits!!

AirHanoverInternational · **Reply #39 on:** February 03, 2008, 09:30:08 am

The most important thing about this discussion is the fact what you are used to. As a German I am used to pretty good roads and highways with rare placed speed limits (although they say about 33% do have speed limits). When I leave Germany for Dutch, Austrian or Italian highways I carefully obey the speed limits cause the cops there seem to watch out for the "rich Germans". This may be a cliche from the past but I still am afraid to pay a big amount of money. In Austria the cops do not need a radar to check your speed. If they think you were above the limit they may stop you and make you pay - without any evidence. To come back to the speed limit discussion: I dont know if you (blue sky mine) remember what happened in East Germany after the reunification. Peoples were not used to the speed causing horrible crashes with their old eastern (or unreliable western) cars that were not built for that speed. Almost 20 years later east german roads are still the most dangerous ones. I am not talking about the Autobahn. There is be one thing you will notice when you leave the state Lower Saxony (where I live) for the eastern part of Germany: in almost every small village you will find fix mounted radar. In one village they even have two of them within 200 meters! So better watch your speed there.

@blue: I do understand your argument about the foreign drivers in Germany. Especially when I drive on the A2 - wellknown as the "Dutch-Poland-Highway" :wink: - I always watch carefully the eastern trucks I pass. I drive about 50.000kms a year and I have seen so many terrible accidents where those drivers were involved. Also the A7 (It starts in the north at the danish border and crosses the whole country and ends in the south at the austrian border) is well known for accidents with foreigners involved. What those people may forget that we do have speed limits for certain cars: Trucks (not the SUV's or pickups - the big ones) are limited to 100kmph and if you drive a car with a trailer it may be 80kmph or 100kmph. But many times I drove behind a car with a trailer driving 130...140kmph. The part around the city Kassel (ca. 150 kms) contains many curves and hills. This part is probably one of the most dangerous in summer time.

Blue Sky Mine · **Reply #40 on:** February 03, 2008, 09:31:45 am

I think you can't classify motorhome drivers as normal drivers- rather as tank drivers :twisted:

Blue Sky Mine · **Reply #41 on:** February 04, 2008, 07:36:43 pm

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UR32kWUJWZw

Oh yeah, this song had to be posted here- you might not understand it but it just represents this thread :twisted:

AirHanoverInternational · **Reply #42 on:** February 04, 2008, 07:52:32 pm

The worst thing about that song:

"Und kost' Benzin auch 2.10 DM" ("And if regular would cost 2.10 DM" roughly about 1.05 EUR per liter)

Well, we are "slightly" above that value: 1.40 EUR (about $7.80 per gallon incl. tax). But this song was made in the eighties.

Blue Sky Mine · **Reply #43 on:** February 04, 2008, 09:06:54 pm

But I like the part I've taken into my sig:

Mein Maserati fährt 210,
Schwupp, die Polizei hat´s nicht geseh´n,
das macht Spaß!
Ich geb Gas, ich geb Gas

My Maserati makes it up to 210
Wham, the police didn't see a thing
that's fun!
I floor it, I floor it

Of course the translation kills it (as usual)

CornField · **Reply #44 on:** February 04, 2008, 11:41:47 pm

Quote from: "Blue Sky Mine"

But I like the part I've taken into my sig:

Mein Maserati fährt 210,
Schwupp, die Polizei hat´s nicht geseh´n,
das macht Spaß!
Ich geb Gas, ich geb Gas

My Maserati makes it up to 210
Wham, the police didn't see a thing
that's fun!
I floor it, I floor it

Of course the translation kills it (as usual)

Almost a 'stolen' line from Joe Walsh.

'my Maserati does 185, lost my liscense now I don't drive'- Joe Walsh Life's been Good