Pointless & impractical vehicles
- Thread starter PeteXXX
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ebikeerwidnes
Guru
- Location
- Z’ha’dum
How do you hold on at the back??
N.B. I have never been on the back of a motorbike - or even the front unless you include mopeds in Greece when I was young - so I am asking based on zero experience!!!
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Probably not quite the right thread for this. It's an entirely practical vehicle for most situations, but being amphibious isn't one of them.
Watch to the end with the sound on for the bang as the engine goes ... bang.
View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_OEiBtO3E9U
Watch to the end with the sound on for the bang as the engine goes ... bang.
View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_OEiBtO3E9U
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
That serves them right, although I'm sad to say twots like that push up insurance premiums for the rest of us.
Profpointy
Legendary Member
I had a tank slapper in my Maestro Diesel van in very similar circumstances; the "circumstances" being "driving like a twat". Thankfully I didn't hurt anyone else and learned my lesson. It was some 40 years ago, and I make no excuses.
ebikeerwidnes
Guru
- Location
- Z’ha’dum
WHen I first started riving my Mum had a Datsun 120Y - a tale that I will relate at another time
but it was a great car - the first owner had put a load of underseal on it so it didn;t rust (another tale)
anyway - it had very little weight over the rear wheels and it was rear wheel drive and one day I was driving in the Lake District on wet roads and went round a corner
Well - the front did - the rear decided it liked the look of the wall
I was lucky that it found some grip and flicked back the other way and then forwards
I have no idea how I controlled it - probably luck and random bit of drier road
I also drove it in snow a few time - which was fun - until I got stuck a few time - but it did teach me what a rear wheel slide felt like!
I had a similar "nearly a tankslapper" in my chipped SEAT Leon turbo years ago. At night with damp greasy roads, I was accelerating up a motorway slip road that had a fairly sharp bend on it. No other traffic and good sight lines so decided to provoke a bit of lift off oversteer. Gave it a bootful, into the corner, plenty of lock and off the gas... oh crap, I got the oversteer all right and a bit more besides. Caught it with some opposite lock but then the rear found some grip and immediately kicked the back end out the other way, plus a bit more! I just managed to catch that one, but the realisation is dawning I'm in a fishtailing situation and it's getting worse. My brain is shrieking at me to control it better or I'm off into the verge backwards. I manage to catch the next one earlier with less steering inputs and now speed has reduced enough so the fourth is just a little wobble. I carried on much more sedately, thanking my lucky stars. I confess to feeling a teeny bit of smugness that I had enough skill to catch it, but also sobering that I'd found the limits and luck had played a big part. Lesson learned.
I do think that skid pan training should be mandatory on the driving test.
I do think that skid pan training should be mandatory on the driving test.
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
FWD lift off oversteer is almost uncontrollable, caused as it is by the changes rear suspension geometry as it unloads. There's not a lot to be done to catch it except hang on until the rear loads up again, not a lot a driver can do to bring that about - you didn't catch it, it loaded up and settled of its own accord.
It's a killer, to be avoided at all costs and definitely not deliberately induced.
It's a killer, to be avoided at all costs and definitely not deliberately induced.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
I think the cost / benefit of "mandatory skid pan training on the driving test" would be pretty poor (to say the least).
The risks it addresses could be addressed more simply and cheaply by getting people to drive more slowly and more cautiously and not to put themselves in a situation where skid-pan skills are relevant.
Take the situation you describe above. I'm going to bet that the slip road with a fairly sharp bend that you describe had a 50 speed limit sign on it, most bendy slip roads do. I'm further going to speculate that you were exceeding that limit. Even if you weren't, I'm going to bet that wouldn't have needed any of your skid-pan related skills if you'd taken the bend more cautiously.
Even if skid pan training was practical in the test (how much would it cost?), all it would do is give more people the tools to drive recklessly, creating more problems than the rare problems it would solve. Sure you might avoid a few cases of people going off the road in icy conditions, but that's more easily and cheaply rectified by simply not driving in icy conditions.
Terms such as understeer, oversteer and fishtail mean absolutely nothing to me. I've never needed them when driving and I doubt I ever will.
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Marchrider
Well-Known Member
yes, the big danger I see would be folk might think they now know what they are doing and that 'they' can handle it. and I don't see the point of it either, having fun drifting about on something like an airfield has little relation to narrow roads with vehicles coming the other way and kerbs that will flip you over
As you say the trick is to get people to drive slower
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Well, there are degrees. Initially it's caused simply by reduced grip due to suspension suddenly unloading when the grip was near the limit. Lower weight on the axle = lower grip, but it's momentary. The type I'm talking about is acceleration to load up the rear a bit more, get to the edge of grip which is thus slightly higher than it would have been, then unload it.
I can see how geometry changes could exacerbate it but how catchable it is depends on the car. If I hadn't applied roughly the right amount of opposite lock I'd have just spun out. The back may well have "just loaded up and settled of its own accord" but without me altering steering input accordingly at the front I'd have been heading for the other armco.
raleighnut
Legendary Member
- Location
- One of the 'Elite'
My ex was prone to going into corners a bit too quick and lifting off the throttle, used to scare me to death. Luckily I had insisted on Michelin tyres when it needed a new set despite the garage tyre fittery bloke telling us he could get tyres for 'half the price' that would last longer..........No she needed the grip that the Michelins provided.
I agree with most of what you say but the skid pan point wasn't to suggest it would have affected that particular episode. Just a general point, prompted by current weather conditions. Yes, in the case I described I foolishly provoked a slide and learnt a lesson but it's possibly to suddenly find your vehicle going in a different direction without doing that.
The slip road in question doesn't have a 50 limit but I don't think I was exceeding that at the time anyway.
You misunderstand me too. I haven't had any skid pan training per se. It was a lot of messing around with cars on snowy car parks, and having a Mk 4 Cortina as a first car. RWD, modest power and skinny tyres, plus a live rear axle.
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