rec.autos.simulators

A couple of months ago I finally bought the car of my dreams - a BMW M3.
After a few frustrating weeks driving it around traffic in England I finally
had a few days off to drive through Europe on the roads my car was designed
for.

On the day I left I picked up my car from an ICE specialist that had fitted
an audio/DVD/Navigation system. This is the Alpine unit with a fold out 7
inch LCD monitor built into the head unit in the dash.

I was driving at night through Germany on a narrow 2 lane autobahn. There
was hardly any traffic, so I started to relax and made 2 stupid mistakes.
The first was to start playing with my new navigation system instead of
concentrating where I was going. I was having loads of fun programming
alternate routes, zooming in and out, looking for local information, whilst
keeping the road in my peripheral vision and glancing up every few seconds
to see that the road was still empty. My 2nd mistake was to misjudge my
speed. This was my first high speed trip in the M3, and it is a deceptively
quick car. I thought I was doing about 130 km/h when I was actually doing
closer to 180 km/h.

I noticed something ahead in my peripheral vision and looked up to see a
very slow truck doing about 80 km/h less than 100 meters ahead in my lane.
In retrospect, I probably would have been able to slow down enough in time
to avoid rear ending it, but I was still getting used to my car and wasn't
going to take the chance of getting my head taken off by the back of the
truck.

My first re-action was built up from all the hours avoiding rear-ending cars
ahead of me on GPL - I didn't touch the brakes but immediately headed for
the left lane and tried to thread my way between the armco (center rail
dividing the autobahn) and the truck. Even though I didn't brake, the weight
transfer forward from the throttle off was enough to induce oversteer as I
straighted up after swerving around the truck. I held the car sidways, and
thought everything would be fine until I heard/felt the left rear of the car
continuing to slide onto the "marbles" beyond the edge of the road. I
realised that in about half a second I was going to hit the rail at about
160 km/h whilst passing a truck in the other lane!

This is where GPL really saved the day. I had been sideways many times
before - opposite lock is nothing new in real life, but railriding was!
However, in GPL I had to used the rail to save myself many times, and knew
what to do.  I instinctively knew that if I hit the rail with attitude I
would bounce off and spin the other way - right into the truck. So, just
like with GPL I turned the wheel left into the rail and deliberately hit the
rail square on. There was a massive noise as I hit - I remember thinking to
myself that I shouldn't have hit THAT hard - then I realised the noise was
the rear left tyre blowing out. Exactly the moment the car hit the the rail
I almost straighted up, using just a touch of left lock to keep the car
running against the rail until I felt it was stable. Once the truck was past
me again I eased the car very gently off the rail and found myself
travelling in a straight line. I hit the emergency flashers and gradually
slowed down, and moved back into the slow lane until I found the next
emergency lay-by.

The left of my car was a mess, but I was quite unshaken. I was too busy
focusing on my driving to have any time for fear during the event, but of
course afterwards I had time to reflect what a close call it was.

I've always been proud of my real life car control skills, and until this
accident thought that I could handle any situation. However, had I not used
GPL with its incredible physics simulation, I would have done the wrong
thing when hitting the rail, as I wouldn't have known any better. Prior to
GPL, I would have kept the front of the car away from the rail, trying to
minimise the impact and hoping that the back end wouldn't hit too hard. I'm
sure I would have thought about the back glancing off, but I would have
thought I could have quickly thrown on opposite lock the other way and
caught the car again. However, I knew from GPL that in reality the car would
spin out the other way and hit the truck. Deliberately turning into the rail
to hit square on just would not have occured to my pre GPL - but it saved my
life.

Tim

i know a few other things they could do with their cell phones 8-o).

anywho, nice short-short there.  the suspense was nice and i'm glad our hero
overcame the adversity and is ready for the next adventure.

when is the next insurance premium due?

rob

used

One of the best "real life" car control skills is paying attention to what
you're doing. Rather than trumpeting who GPL saved your life, your subject
line should say: "How my inattention ruined a brand new BMW M3."

PA

apparently they need a few more idiot lights :)

/petern

Seeing as NR2002 is the flavour of the month, you should have
explained how NR2002 saved your life and you may have got less
people calling you a moron. lol!

Cheers,
Rod.

Gerry

This month! Its probably going to be around 3000 - (US$5000). Ouch!

I'm a bit dissapointed by the knockers out there. I had the courage to admit
my mistake publicly. Its difficult to write about making a fool of yourself
without trying to make excuses. Its my first stuff-up in all my years of
driving (well.. since I was a ***ager anyway). I've always been one to
criticise the morons on the road, but we all make mistakes occasionally. Now
I'm paying for it by going to the bottom of the insurance rating and
starting from scratch. In my car that's an expensive mistake!

Anyway - I'll just take the insults with a grain of salt and put it down to
jealousy? :-)))

p.s. for what its worth, I'm well into my 30s and this is my first decent
car. I've scrimped and saved for this car for a long time - and put off
buying a house to follow my dream. I'm no big shot, so please don't
automatically assume that people who own nice sports car have more money
than sense, or are just lucky bastards.

Tim

That's a bit harsh. In Australia at least you build up a no-claim
bonus of 10% per year up to 60% and if you make a claim, you lose
20% of your no-claim bonus. Unsure how it works in other countries
but vehicle registration is gauged on age and sex of driver, the
model of the vehicle, how much you want to insure it for, the
suburb you live and how many traffic infringements you've been busted
for. Then it's discounted by the amount of no-claim bonus you've
accrued. In your case, from what it would appear, an unblemished
record, you would have been on 60%, the accident would have lost
you 20% no claim bonus. You lose it all?

I had my car stolen 3 times within the space of 6 months which blitzed
my insurance and cost me around $6000 in extra premiums over the years
and made me sell my pride and joy, a 1970 XWGT. It was taking up my
garage while my Statesman was out in the courtyard being stolen.

Cheers,
Rod.

"Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand
alloys and compositions and,......things with molecular structures,....and
the....." - Ash

"Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand
alloys and compositions and,......things with molecular structures,....and
the....." - Ash