On Tue, 4 Mar 2003 PbPied@aol.com wrote:
> I disagree with your assertion that there were incidents not caused
> by stupid mistakes. Driving over one's head, or beyond the direct
> controlled operating capabilities of a vehicle is a stupid mistake,
> perhaps the biggest and most common one. "Gotta save this run"
> is responsible for almost all incidents involving vehicle or property
> damage.
> Sorry to throw water on the theories that "things just happen", or "it was
> the course's fault", or "high speeds caused it". The DRIVER, and only
> the DRIVER decides what control inputs to make. If someone has no
> experience autocrossing at 60 + and flat out, they should make an honest
> assessment of the risks they take by trying to go 100%.
The flaw in that argument is that the judgement and level of
aggressiveness of the driver is statistically pretty consistent. You have
to be able to explain the empirical results. Three contact incidents at
one site on one weekend, vs long periods of time with no contact incidents
at other sites, with the same or similar drivers, is a stretch to explain
away as a statistic anomaly.
Drivers are always going to make strategic and tactical mistakes; the
point of autocross is that "reasonable" errors shouldn't result in hard
contact. In the cases where it does, a reason needs to be identified and
a lessons-learned produced, even if the cause is ultimately determined to
be an anomaly, and the lesson learned is that shit happens.
Your position is ultimately untenable because, if the course design truly
can't accommodate/compensate for reasonable driver error, autocross as a
sport would quickly cease to exist as site and insurance availability
became prohibitively expensive.
KeS
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