What headlights are in the Miata in the cover image? Those look about 300% brighter than stock.
What headlights are in the Miata in the cover image? Those look about 300% brighter than stock.
ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) said:What headlights are in the Miata in the cover image? Those look about 300% brighter than stock.
Hella Euro-spec H4s. I want to the say the bulbs are 55/60w.
What if you are out there driving like you want to kill everyone else?
Appleseed said:What if you are out there driving like you want to kill everyone else?
You may be safer........well at least until you crash.
As a Miata driver and Rush fan (for nearly about the same amount of time, incidentally) I enjoyed this article. =)
As someone who has been hit in one of his Miatas and had to turn it into a bright pink Exocet so people would no longer have the "I didn't see you..." excuse, I can relate. I reckon it's only a matter of time until I've driven another Miata for free, with the way people are "driving" these days...
Watching lots of dash cam videos on YouTube is one of the best educations you will get on how inept other drivers are. People make turns in front of oncoming semi trucks and wonder why they got hit.
One thing I've learned riding motorcycles is I try to position myself in such a way that IF they actually use their mirrors, they will see me. Most people do not have their mirrors adjusted correctly. As we taught in our teen driving class, "You should not be able to see your quarter panel in the mirror. The panel is always going to be there; you don't need to see it. What is outside of the panel is where you need to see".
ddavidv said:Watching lots of dash cam videos on YouTube is one of the best educations you will get on how inept other drivers are.
brother, you ain't kiddin. i have a dash cam and its captured some of Georgia's finest. i say this without exageration; i think at least 30-40% of the people i share the road with are either overmedicated or inebriated. its beyond just being distracted IMO.
things like this:
completely vacant highway, merges directly into me. wtf. i hit one of the stereo buttons trying to find the horn and the song choice was hilariously fitting.
hell no we aren't gonna be late to bingo!
that was one of the reasons i sold my FA5 Si and did NOT move over to an ND2 RF, much as i fell in love with it and really really wanted one. even in my 6th gen camaro, which shares nearly the exact same footprint and wheelbase as a '10-24 4Runner (within the inch), i feel dwarfed in 1/2 ton pickup traffic down here in the SE. i've found the only way to manage sometimes is to be highly interpretive of people's behavioral patterns and make room accordingly. thankfully people don't try to push the big V8 sled around too much, which is a nice change from my Honda days.
it's weird to feel so small even in modern muscle.
buzzboy said:I drove a slammed 1972 Mini on the interstate once. I think it was scarrier than even my first time racing(with 120 cars on track!). I am not a defensive driver usually but in the Mini I sure am. It's not just assuming they don't see you, but in a car like that you're worried somebody will see you and stare at you and run into you! Object Fixation is a concept I remember well from MSF.
I like to call how I drive "aggressively defensive."
I've had small cars all my life. Currently an ND and a MINI, so I've learned to drive with my head on a swivel and I still get too many close calls. People driving a six foot tall SUV can't see either car if you're in the lane to their right, so I try not to put myself there. Also,cell phones should be made to be inoperative if they're moving faster than walking pace. A lady drove right through a roundabout yesterday and she was on her phone. She must have E36 M3 herself when she looked up from it and saw the nose of my Canyon coming at her door.
I've always tried to drive with my head on a swivel. Any time I have a moment where a car being somewhere was a surprise, I consider that a failure. Ideally, I want to keep track of where every car around me is at all times, so I should know what my options are before I actually look. That comes in very handy when someone does something stupid.
As far as visibility, when I was DD-ing the Jeep I used to swear the thing was completely invisible. Despite being noisy and obviously modded it felt like nobody could see it. I think my record was getting cut off by 4 different cars in 4 different ways in the span of less than a minute. It's like none of them saw me, or they all assumed I was doing half the speed limit for some reason.
On the other hand, despite drivers around here getting dramatically worse the last few years, I've only had a very small number of moments with the E38 where it felt like someone didn't see me. One was a couple weeks ago, I almost got merged into on the highway. The guy (in a small SUV, can't remember what it was) looked shocked when I hit the horn and he realized I was there. I don't know if he looked right over the top of me or what. But in general, despite being significantly lower (I've seen stock pickups with the hood at or above the E38's roof height) people seem to notice the car.
Now, the issue I do have in the E38 that seems to drive people crazy is that I can't see worth a damn in traffic. Between the car putting my head fairly low to the ground and the car being wide, so I can't get my head as close to the edge of the lane, I practically can't see past a Miata in traffic. I've had to train myself to wait at most left turns (unless there's a turn arrow or unusually good visiblity) until the car in front of me is clear before even thinking about going, as it's way too easy to miss another car that was hidden behind them. Other drivers don't seem to like the waiting even if I go quickly after, but oh well.
In reply to ScottyB :
One of my favorite guilty pleasures is watching dash cam compilations on YouTube and trying to predict which car or driver is going to do something stupid.
I've become quite skilled at guessing correctly, but I'm still surprised every now and then.
Colin Wood said:In reply to ScottyB :
One of my favorite guilty pleasures is watching dash cam compilations on YouTube and trying to predict which car or driver is going to do something stupid.
I've become quite skilled at guessing correctly, but I'm still surprised every now and then.
same. my kid is going to study a bunch of them before he ever gets behind the wheel.
I've been even more aware since I got whacked by a Kenworth while driving my MINI. The driver admitted he never saw me coming straight toward him as he made a left turn in front of me. Needless to say, the Kenworth won that conflict of space, but lesson learned by me. Don't ever assume they see you.
triumph7 said:The latest thing I've been seeing here is "drivers" using the left turn lane to pass cars at a traffic light... sometimes even blowing through the red light.
Oh, and there was the time I was sitting at an intersection and this guy comes from the left and does two or three laps IN the intersection and then departed the opposite direction.
Welcome to parts of Detroit.
Colin Wood said:In reply to ScottyB :
One of my favorite guilty pleasures is watching dash cam compilations on YouTube and trying to predict which car or driver is going to do something stupid.
I've become quite skilled at guessing correctly, but I'm still surprised every now and then.
Now do that in real time while driving. That's how you have to drive.
You'd think you'd be safe stopped at a red light, right? Not so much - my wife was stopped at a light and a couple of young girls plowed into her from behind, no doubt texting something funny to friends instead of watching where they were going.
Time that someone came up with a cell phone damper that puts them out of commission as long as the car is in motion.
Your teaser headline saying --“You have to drive like everyone out there is trying to kill you.”--- had me believing this was a story about the very early days of SPEC MIATA racing. No fun racing against novice drivers in their trailered rental SMs. For the first time, I felt safer driving mine on the highway to and from races than when on the track.
For the record, Iphone has/had a feature that if you were driving it wouldn't alert you to getting a notification. The downside is I was able to activate that feature while walking in stores and would miss important calls / messages pertaining to my being at said store, and didn't seem to work properly when driving so I shut it off as there was no settings for it other than on/off.
I have had people claim 'I didn't see you there' after nearly hitting my 3/4ton truck. It's factory height full-size pickup that's noisy, and these people lock eyes with my door and start coming over. At least most people are apologetic, some laugh about it and drive off.
wspohn said:You'd think you'd be safe stopped at a red light, right? Not so much - my wife was stopped at a light and a couple of young girls plowed into her from behind, no doubt texting something funny to friends instead of watching where they were going.
Time that someone came up with a cell phone damper that puts them out of commission as long as the car is in motion.
Except "in motion" could be a cyclist doing 25mph. They might want certain features active to track their ride. It would have to be specific to certain apps and features.
Colin Wood said:In reply to ScottyB :
One of my favorite guilty pleasures is watching dash cam compilations on YouTube and trying to predict which car or driver is going to do something stupid.
I've become quite skilled at guessing correctly, but I'm still surprised every now and then.
I usually watch them during my lunch break at home. Even my usually disinterested wife now watches them, and does the prediction game with skill.
I always told the kids, and now grand kids, to expect people to do something stupid. "See that car getting ready to pull out in front of us?" Too many times it did.
...and I feel a too-large percentage of people out there driving, shouldn't be...
Learned at MSF school: Always have an out.
In reply to JimS : I remember a motorcycle magazine editor that was first in line at a red light on a motorcycle. When the light turned green for him, he COUNTED TO THREE and started out, only to be t-boned by a driver running the light.
Speaking of being rear-ended: I taught my kids to keep the wheels straight when turning across traffic. If they get rear-ended they won't be pushed into oncoming traffic.
Also, pause when light turns green in case someone runs the red.
Don't risk a lifetime to save a minute.
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