I think it's a 1967 chevy impala



(Edited by Chambler 07/02/2006 12:23)

Certainly looks like it. Cool car

Any idea what Angel's car was? I really liked that. Plymouth GTX is in my head, but i don't know why.

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by Maffrew
Certainly looks like it. Cool car

Any idea what Angel's car was? I really liked that. Plymouth GTX is in my head, but i don't know why.

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Yeah according to what VG found he does indeed drive a black 1968 Plymouth GTX convertible, also a nice looking car but probably like any american car useless on European roads (as we have corners).

Since when are american cars useless in Europe?

Ford sell loads of cars in the UK...

Yeah but most "older" american cars are made and designed for the type of roads that you find in America which are completely different from the type of roads you'll find in Europe (for example we have sharp corners and tight roundabouts). Those cars are just not made to go around corners easily at any decent speeds, they are designed to go in a straight line and be ultra comfy (very soft suspension), which causes them to handle badly in most other conditions in comparison to their european counterparts.

Ford does indeed make a lot of cars and many of them are sold in the EU, however Ford designed and builds cars for specific markets as different consumers want different things from a car and there are different rules and regulations. We won't see many Ford Explorers in the UK as even for the SUV loving mums that thing is just way to huge for example.

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by Chambler
Yeah but most "older" american cars are made and designed for the type of roads that you find in America....(for example we have sharp corners and tight roundabouts). Those cars are just not made to go around corners easily at any decent speeds...

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Depends on what part of the country you're in. If you're in Kansas or Iowa, for example, where many roads follow straight-line surveys that were done when those areas were first being settled, you might have a point. In my part of the country, we've got plenty of tight corners and roundabouts--although we call the roundabouts traffic circles.

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by Chambler
Yeah but most "older" american cars are made and designed for the type of roads that you find in America which are completely different from the type of roads you'll find in Europe

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Seconded on the crappy American handling. I love old American muscle cars, but I wouldn't want to take any tight turns in any.

And as you say, it's not just American cars, it's how they're setup for the American market. So a Japanese car sold in America will have the same sloppy handling. When I went to Boston we were coming back to the hotel at night in a Nissan hire car. We were doing 85mph, and I was egging on the driver to do more, which he didn't want to as he said the car would "fall apart". Then we hit a dip in the road, and it took what seemed like forever for the car to stop bouncing all over the place. "You know what" I said, "maybe you're right about not going any faster".

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by Funky Monkey
(quotes)

When I went to Boston we were coming back to the hotel at night in a Nissan hire car. We were doing 85mph, and I was egging on the driver to do more, which he didn't want to as he said the car would "fall apart"....

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Not to mention the fact that you were driving WAY over the legal speed limit just about anywhere in the US, and were potentially creating a hazardous condition that could have gotten the people in your car or some other vehicle seriously injured or killed. Yeah, I'd say not going any faster was a good call on the driver's part.

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by Sandia
Not to mention the fact that you were driving WAY over the legal speed limit just about anywhere in the US, and were potentially creating a hazardous condition that could have gotten the people in your car or some other vehicle seriously injured or killed. Yeah, I'd say not going any faster was a good call on the driver's part.

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No offense but US speed limits are ridiculous but I guess it might got something to do with the handling of the cars. if you feel that your car is falling apart if you hit a bump at any higher speeds... that probably isn't safe. Speed limits in Europe are way higher than that. UK it's 70mph, most of mainland europe its just above that at 73mph or even 80mph (as we do Kms). In germany there are parts on the motorway where there is no speed limit at all and in parts of Italy they are doing tests with speed limits of 93 mph. Modern cars are just capable of going faster safer which has mostly to do with improved handling capabilities as when you are doing 100mph on the motorway in a Ford Mondeo 2.0 diesel you don't feel like your car is coming apart with every little bump in the road and when the road isn't busy you don't even feel you are going all that fast. Do we see dramatic increases in deaths, nopes as relative speed between cars (if you are all traveling in the same direction at the same speeds are majorly low). Most of our speeds limits are in place not for safety reasons but for enviromental reasons (sound / air polution) than anything else. Always find it very funny to see the motorway police chases from the US where a car is being cased at insane speeds which are about equal to what we see every day in the outside lane.

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by Sandia
(quotes)

Not to mention the fact that you were driving WAY over the legal speed limit just about anywhere in the US, and were potentially creating a hazardous condition that could have gotten the people in your car or some other vehicle seriously injured or killed. Yeah, I'd say not going any faster was a good call on the driver's part.

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I think it was more likely the fact the driver had been drinking that would have gotten us injured. That's what I found interesting - the US speed limit is stricter than ours, but when I asked about drink driving laws it seemed as though they are not nearly as strict as in the UK. So at the end of the day, it's just different cultural values I guess. In Italy nobody really much attention to the road laws or wears seatbelts etc, but I don't think they're wrong, they just have a different approach culturally. Risk is seen differently in different cultures and I for one think that in the UK and US we've adopted a rather strange attitude to risk.

Sorry, Chambler, but I'm not giving one inch on this point. Speed limits are set basically for safety reason, not environmental ones or because of "the handling of the cars." They're set based on the design of the road, the local conditions such as topography and weather, expected and usual traffic conditions, type of development along the roadway (rural or urban)--a whole host of factors. And they're set based on what would be considered a safe speed under those local conditions. When you drive at speeds that are well over those limits, in most cases you're endangering yourself and others.

As with almost any other topic, you can find studies and statistics to support your particular point of view, whether you advocate lower highway speeds or having the ability to just rocket down the road at 85+ mph. But I do know this:
--The faster you drive, the greater the braking distance you need to stop if something should happen--another car cuts in front of you, you go into a skid on black ice, or a tire blows out. Even if your reaction time is good, the car will go a longer distance before it stops just because of the speed at which you're traveling.
--The severity of the crash increases with speed.
--And high speeds, especially those well above accepted limits, reduce the ability of any safety feature you might have in your car to protect you.

You mentioned that speed limits in the US are "ridiculous." Which ones? They differ from state to state. In the East, they generally don't exceed 65 mph on interstate highways. And that seems reasonable to me. In the West, where distances between towns and such are vast, speed limits are higher--generally about 75 mph. And that also seems reasonable to me. I'd also note that the 75 mph limit in the West is higher than the 70 mph limit for the UK that you cited, or the about 73 mph that you cited for mainland Europe. So are all those speed limits "ridiculous" too? But again, driving across the wide open plains of Wyoming or Montana is different than driving on highways around Boston or any other large city. I can understand a 75 mph allowance on those open roads, but in urban areas such as where I live, no.

Modern cars ARE capable of going faster, as you said. But just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Regardless of how fast engineers can build cars to go, there will always be a safety factor that has to be taken into account with human drivers. And I believe the decrease in fuel economy and the increase in emissions of some pollutants at higher speeds is just one more reason to slow it down.

I'm sorry, but unless you're a firefighter heading to a fire, or medical personnel going to an emergency, I can't think of a reason that you'd need to be driving 85 mph or more on most highways. No one means to harm another person, eeven when they're speeding. But when you're barreling down the road at high speeds, there's just a greater chance that any accident will be more severe and people could get seriously injured or killed. It's just not worth it.

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by Sandia
...Speed limits are set basically for safety reason, not environmental ones...

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The US speed limit of 55mph was originally set for environmental reasons, it was to reduce the US dependance on foreign oil and had nothing do to with saftey.

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by Sandia
Sorry, Chambler, but I'm not giving one inch on this point. Speed limits are set basically for safety reason, not environmental ones or because of "the handling of the cars." They're set based on the design of the road, the local conditions such as topography and weather, expected and usual traffic conditions, type of development along the roadway (rural or urban)--a whole host of factors.

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Even if safety is the reason (and that's disputed, as vinnie claims they were set for environmental reasons), different countries appear to have wildly different opinions about what are the "safe" speeds. In Germany, some sections of the Autobahn are destrestricted and cars can travel any speed they like. I'm sure the local conditions on those sections aren't much different than many places in the US where a much lower speed limit would be in force. So it comes down to policy as well, you can't just suggest there is one universal formula for what is a safe speed in any given situation, it will vary based on the opinions of the policy makers.

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And they're set based on what would be considered a safe speed under those local conditions. When you drive at speeds that are well over those limits, in most cases you're endangering yourself and others.

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You're endangering yourself the moment you step out of your house. You're certainly endangering yourself driving at 55mph. Some things are more dangerous than others, there is no right speed, only one at which the casualities/deaths per year come to what your lawmakers consider an acceptable level. That level varies all over the place. What if there was another country that set it's speed limits at 30mph absolute max, they would consider all you Americans reckless fools for driving at 55mph. As I said before, it's a cultural thing.

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But again, driving across the wide open plains of Wyoming or Montana is different than driving on highways around Boston or any other large city. I can understand a 75 mph allowance on those open roads, but in urban areas such as where I live, no.

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For the record, I think we were on an Interstate. We were returning from Boston to our hotel in the nearby town of Andover.

Wow, lots of action on this thread!

Funky Monkey, you may be right about drunk driving laws or enforcement being stricter in the UK than in the US. I don't know. Americans often adopt a lax attitude about the strangest things. But that would certainly be an important factor.

I also agree with you that the risk is seen differently in different countries. But I still believe that high rates of speed are dangerous, regardless of the different attitudes that we adopt to them depending on where we live. For example, I don't see 55 mph as dangerous on a limited access highway, such as an interstate, as long as road conditions are good, the weather is clear, and so on. On a rural, winding road, I wouldn't suggest driving as fast as 55 mph. I'm just saying that faster means less safe, no matter how we view it--and we clearly view it differently in different places.

I wasn't attacking you personally, although it may have come off that way. I'm sorry if it did. This is just a very touchy issue with me for many reasons. And when I saw your post, I had a strong reaction.

Vinnie, the 55 mph speed limit that was adopted nationally in the US in the 1970s or 1980s (don't remember the exact year) is no longer in effect. It was repealed several years ago. As I said in an earlier post above, the top speed on interstates in the US has been raised to 65 mph or 75 mph, depending on what state you're in. You're right though, in that the 55 mph speed limit was adopted to conserve oil and make the US less dependent on foreign sources. But I wasn't referring to that specific law when I said speed limits weren't adopted for environmental reasons. I was referring to the general reason for instituting speed limits on roads (which have been in effect in the US since the early 1900s), which is tied primarily to safety.

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by Sandia
But I still believe that high rates of speed are dangerous, regardless of the different attitudes that we adopt to them depending on where we live. For example, I don't see 55 mph as dangerous on a limited access highway, such as an interstate, as long as road conditions are good, the weather is clear, and so on. On a rural, winding road, I wouldn't suggest driving as fast as 55 mph. I'm just saying that faster means less safe, no matter how we view it--and we clearly view it differently in different places.

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If we just look at the physics high rates of speed aren't dangerous however large difference in speeds in extremely small timeframes are dangerous. Saying high speeds is dangerous is very similar to saying bullets kill people, it aint true, but you aint far off. If we work by the assumption that on a motorway / highway traffic flows are properly kept apart the maximum impact at the legal speed limit would be when you hit a car standing still at full speed which would be a speed difference of 70mph. When you hit a car doing 60mph while you do 70mph the speed difference is only 10mph. Yet if we look at roads where traffic flows aren't split you can have headon collisions. If both cars would be doing 40mph the speed difference is 80mph which is more than you would ever get on a motorway in normal conditions. And on a motorway you have impact barriers which works as an additional crumple zone to take the forces away from the car... Trees don't seem to have these but they can be found in large numbers along roads. They are horribly unsafe yet people think they are pretty so we plant them next to roads!?! This is why we see so little fatal accidents on motorways yet many in the city or on roads without seperate carriage ways as the speed differences are just way bigger. Yet again most speedcams can be found on the motorways, which is a bit weird if you think about it because high speed isn't all that dangerous on the motorway as it is anywhere else, personally I get the feeling that if you aren't doing it to improve road safety you do it either for enviromental reasons (as every 10 miles faster costs 15 - 20% more fuel) or finacial reasons.... or third you are just stupid thinking that it will improve road safety... but thats a different discussion.

If we now take into account that cars over the last few years have become incrediably more safe you'd have to wonder why the motorway speed limit is still 70mph. If we take for example cars with those new "race car" style break disks they stop in under half the distance that it requires a "normal car" to stop not to mention old cars also the fact that pedestrian impact is actually taken into account when modern cars are being designed is bringing fatalities down. So if the average car is a lot safer than the average car at the time the speedlimits were brought in they should go up.... yet they are talking to bring speeds down... That makes very little sense to me personally.

If you really want to improve road safety and reduce deaths, get rid of all those trees and really check on speeds in the city

(Edited by Chambler 16/02/2006 10:06)

I don't think that tree's are the problem. It not like they are going to jump out at you.
Most times when people hit trees it's on a corner which they have taken too fast for the conditions.

True trees don't jump out in front of you, yet they don't make the safest thing to have on the side of the road. Why don't we not just put huge sharp metal spike on a 30 degree angle or so on the side of the roads they don't jump out in front of you either.....

Of course speed is always the reason as if they had been standing still it wouldn't have happened but driving over the speed limit is certainly not always the reason as cars break down, tires go flat or burst or people are frightend by for example something that jumps / walks onto the road than a lot of barriers would be a lot safer than trees.

Chambler, no sale here. We're going to just have to agree to disagree.

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by Sandia
I wasn't attacking you personally, although it may have come off that way. I'm sorry if it did. This is just a very touchy issue with me for many reasons. And when I saw your post, I had a strong reaction.

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That's OK, I didn't see it as a personal attack, I just wondered if people in the US were more touchy about speed. In the UK, people are very touchy about drink driving, probably less fussy about speed. I would say the attitude here would be that if someone bragged about driving 70mph in a 30mph urban zone, they would get attacked as irresponsible. However, if somebody tells their friend how they took their new car down the motorway at 120mph, I've found very few people who are offended.

On the other hand, maybe you know someone who was in a car accident, and that is why it is an issue for you. I cant deny that would make somebody have stronger feelings about safety in cars, but for myself personally I tend to accept that risk is inherent in driving, and the speed i'm willing to go is usually based on my own feel for the road conditions. Eg, whether I know the road, the weather, how dense the traffic is at the time - ie a multitude of factors. In the right conditions I like to drive fast, in bad conditions i'm often a good deal slower than those around me preferring to keep it easy, particularly if its wet. I think it's entirely possible that there are people who fervently stick to the speed limits but through either bad judgment, or lack of attentiveness could cause a serious accident. There are many reasons one can have an accident, and speed is only one factor here.

(Edited by Funky Monkey 16/02/2006 14:12)