Saw a near-miss last night

[martine]

So on the way back from the Shropshire ADUK driving day (excellent btw) I saw a very near-miss...an idiot in front booted a BMW 330d in the wet on the M32 last night about here

Car got a serious wiggle on at probably 60 and I lost contact with it as it headed towards the central reservation barrier...I swore and started to slow convinced I was going to witness carnage (plenty of other vehicles around him)...but no, I then saw him heading at high speed in the outside lane, off down the M32 towards Bristol. I reckon only the DSC saved him.

Do you reckon he learned from his very near-miss or is just a plank?

[Horse]

Yes, that DSC will get him out of trouble.

[jont]

Yes, that DSC will get him out of trouble.

You could argue that the knowledge he had it got him into trouble. If you know there isn't any electronics to sort things out, you might drive more sensibly.

/replace airbags with a spike...

[Garrison]

Yes, that DSC will get him out of trouble.

You could argue that the knowledge he had it got him into trouble. If you know there isn't any electronics to sort things out, you might drive more sensibly.

/replace airbags with a spike...

I hate to say this but I believe that mandatory fitments of stability controls to new car sales had and will continue to reduce actual accidents, regardless whether this increases near-misses or not.

Obviously the ABS and PSM cannot overcome the law of physics.

Unfortunately, I also came across 2 accidents - one I drove pass on the way up to the Bridgenorth drive day and one I witness on the way back. The one on the way up was on M6 in the opposite direction in dry condition where a BMW X5 had a front-left offset impact into the back of an HGV rear right.

The one on the way back I witness was a 911 (997 C2S) span off the road sideways and backwards on the M40 across 3 lanes in torrential rain and up the left side embankment about 10 seconds in front of me where I was in lane 3. The 911 was overtaking and accelerating up the hill with a gentle right hand curve pass slower traffic and it span off.

[jont]

I hate to say this but I believe that mandatory fitments of stability controls to new car sales had and will continue to reduce actual accidents, regardless whether this increases near-misses or not.

In general, I agree - there will be far more people who benefit from it in extremis unintentionally, than those who start to rely on it routinely and end up using it as a mechanism to crash faster.

But I've thought for a while there should be an "idiot" feature - if you set the DSC off, you're probably driving too fast for the conditions/doing something silly, so the car goes into a reduced performance mode for a few minutes while you calm down.

[jont]

But I've thought for a while there should be an "idiot" feature - if you set the DSC off, you're probably driving too fast for the conditions/doing something silly, so the car goes into a reduced performance mode for a few minutes while you calm down.

perhaps one that turns the engine off completely would be appropriate.

Personally, I wouldn't ever turn it off on the road. Therefore, it would be obvious to tie it into the GPS which would detect 'off-road' usage e.g. on the circuit/airfield and permit disabling.

Sorry, I didn't mean "set off" as in "turn off" - I meant if you ended up triggering the systems while driving, you probably need to calm down a bit (and yes, I'm aware some of the older systems can be intrusive, particularly on crappy road surfaces).