Or as someone once put it to me: Imagine the novice driver with a stuck
throttle having catastrophic brake failure right HERE!
Also, a key factor to making a course easy for even a novice to find his/her
way through is that they sometimes get lost in most inventive ways and thus
come way too close to fixed objects that were never seen as hazards because
they were "too far from the course." Haven't most of us, at one time or
another, seen the novice somehow end up driving the course in the wrong
direction? (and you hope a second car hasn't started already!)
--Rocky
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Johnson" <rjohnson@ghg.net>
To: "Team. Net" <autox@autox.team.net>; <evolution-discussions@egroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 8:52 AM
Subject: Course design safety - formerly Re: autox insurance
> It was said (on team.net):
>
> "...Preventing pole-hits is largely a course-design problem. I raise holy
> hell when I see
> a course that makes this likely. Courses like that cause problems for all
> of us, in all clubs."
>
> Although I strongly agree with comments made above, I would like to add
> that making a course design with "no risk" (i.e. zero) of hitting a
> pole/foreign object found in an solo2 lot is impossible.
>
> There are just too many factors to account for that are totally out of
> control of the course designer, such as Acceleration intoxication; driver
> stupidity; novice misconceptions ("I can floor it through the entire
> course"); the "I can save it syndrome"; etc. I have seen poles/foreign
> objects so far off the path of the normal driver that it was inconceivable
> that they would become a safety issue - but they did anyway.
>
> However, we as course designers, can MINIMIZE THE CHANCE OF INCIDENT by
not
> thinking like a seasoned soloist, but rather as the dumbest, most
> adrenaline crazed person you can imagine. I have made many course design
> changes based on what an unreasonable driver could do - knowing that it
> would not be an issue *at all* for 90% of the competitors out there.
>
> You have to keep in mind that it only takes one person to ruin for all of
> us - so making it perfectly safe for 90% of the the drivers may not be
good
> enough.
>
> Thoughts?
> Comments?
>
> Roger H. Johnson
> Home of the Criminally Insane
> rjohnson@ghg.net
> (281) 992-7504
>
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