Derek_C

Mooty said:


Mooty,

IMO, if they are professional students, they should be able to do their job without "adult supervision". After I finished high school, I went away to college (Go Blue!) and I obviously didn't have a curfew there, so when I came home on weekends or for the summer, my parents interpolated that if I was doing well at school without a curfew, there was no need for one when I was home. They had decided that they were done with teaching me to be responsible and it was time for me to be responsible on my own.

My wife supervises student teachers and at least once a semester one of the parents of the students calls up my wife with some sort of an excuse for a missed assignment. These are seniors in their last semester! Is this mother going to call up the principle of the school in two months to them their 'child' isn't feeling well and they will need to get a substitute teacher for them?

I think many parents these days continue to 'help' their kids to be responsible, but what they are really doing is letting their adult children continue to be child-like and not learn to be responsible adults.

So as not to be hypocritical, I think I'll go place my 18 month old in front of a boiling pot of soup and see if she is responsible enough not to touch it.


Derek

cgfen

sad?
maybe.
sounds more stupid to me.
i just hope no one calls it a tragedy.............................

good reason to be careful who you hang with

this comment is not pointed at you stilljester.

be safe
be smart

craig

cgfen

bingo

be safe
be smart

i'll stop now


craig

jimhsu

it's already been called a tragedy in the local Ocala news.

there's already a candlelight vigil planned.

Seems so far that community is in knee jerk grief/shock mode, and no one is asking the obvious questions, yet, about what the heck were they doing at that time of the morning and on private property and making top speed runs without experience or skills (trolling on m5board.com for 140mph shifting tips hours before the fatal run does not constitute experience).

And those are just the obvious questions about the kids....then there are questions about the parents' lack of supervision.

David in LA

You would think that if they were going to attempt a stupid stunt like a high speed run in the dark (I'm assuming runway lights were off) they would have at least measured off the length of the runway. Going as fast as it seems they were going, by the time high beam headlights showed the end of the airstrip there wouldn't be enough time to stop.

mooty

i know what you mean. i am sad and pissed off why these ppl had to die. so some of my thoughts are more random than they should have been. i didnt mean that parents should continue to curfew kids, but i do mean parent should curfew them until they are used to it until they understand consequence, REAL CONSEQUENCES.

and frankly some ppl never learn, thus we have jails, elect chair and the like.

finally i AM somewhat insane. i did have my 2 year old touch rather hot water in the tub (with my supervison) then she realized from then on, never touch that again, look at the faucet to see which side the **** is turned toward (hot or cold) she will tell me when she watch me get ready to bath if the know is turned to the hot side, and she is only 3!!

i eat very, i mean deathly spicy food. i eat thai chili pepper like carrots and like chips... i dont want my child to have that bad habit. SO... i fed her a piece, now she never touch my chili again.

back to topic. i am still pissed about the pointless loss of lives. for what??? i simply cannot understand why they were doing and certainly cannot possibly fathom the pain those parents are going through right now.

Toga

Very Sad Story! I was speachless after reading the M5 board! Woke up last night still thinking of it!
Please don't take it wrong, my mind is overfilled with questions and I would just make 2 points here:
-At 19 yearsd old, I was flying high performance military jets. So I assume at that age you could be able to drive an M5 safely.
- But to fly those jets, we were teached how to do it and what not to do. Where were the parents here? I just cannot imagine leaving an M5 to my son just like that...
Mine has a s"ptupid" 18 years old Honda Civic , and I offered him driving lessons... I mailed him the links of this thread to keep him informed of what speed means if you don't take it seriously.
I'm just horrified imagining those kids "***** out" in the M5 when they realized they forgot to take the lenght of the runway into account. And another story posted a while ago on this board comes to my mind: A teenage girl killed in her parents Porsche when hitting a Toll gate on the highway... ...
Please parents talk to your kids!!

Peter R.

A spectacular, if somewhat unfortunate choice of words

Peter R.

Marlon

Maybe. In full sunlight. And a very alert and practiced driver. But then again, we don't know to what, if any degree, the drivers judgement might have been hampered by alcohol or other. Let alone the condition of the occupants to have allowed it to happen. Headlights alone in total darkness can cast a pretty weird light - especially at 150 mph.

Marv

Running in the dark at speed is simply a recipe for disaster. I have no idea how fast they were going, but I estimate that they left the runway at 68 mph, assuming the data they gave was accurate.

The calculation goes like this. Distance airborne = 200 feet. Distance from runway to ground was 80 feet vertical. Distance above ground at impact was 15 feet. That means the car lost 65 feet of altitude over the course of 200 feet horizontally. Ignoring the effects of air resistance I calculated the time it took to drop vertically 65'. That is the time they were airborne:

d = Vi * t + (a/2)*t^2

d = distance
t = time
a = acceleration due to gravity = 9.8 m/s^2
Vi = initial vertical velocity = 0
Convert to metric: 65' = 19.81m

Solve for t, so rearrange the equation:

t = sqrt ( d/(a/2)) = sqrt (19.81/4.9) = 2 seconds

That was 2 seconds of fear over a 200 foot distance or 100 feet per second.

Convert to mph and 100 feet/second = 68 mph.

That doesn't seem like much, but the point is that you can do a hell of a lot of damage at 68 mph striking an immovable object (A.K.A> a tree).

Sadly, people do not consider how dangerous it can be. I remember hitting a tree at 35 mph head on and the car was destroyed and I had some injuries, too. The kinetic energy of impact squares with the velocity, so doubling the speed squares the force of impact.

I am a pretty sedate driver, but I find this whole story very sobering. I hope that people can take away from this a sense of just how fragile and vulnerable we are.

Even more disturbing was 18 hours later a neighbor about 1/4 mile away was shot dead in his yard when two men came to buy a car he had for sale in his yard. Life is precious.

tj90

What?! I agree it is more disturbing...

Unfortunately, the airstrip owners and others that had no participation in this act will be sued. The legitimate users of the strip will either be more inconvenienced with additional gates, passes etc or hit with more costs in implementing these extra "safety" measures.

Im sure if I had a sports car (like Z28) in high school Id be dead. A fellow classmate was F***ed up when he drove his pickup drunk. He woke up with his teeth implanted in the steering wheel.

Here in CA, 16YO drivers cannot drive after dark and cannot have passengers. Not that Im advocating more laws to restrict our lives, this one may make sense. At least those guys chose an airstip instead of a road...

Ritter v4.0

How long would it take an M5 to slow from say 150 mph to 68mph?
I'm guessing these guys were testing the upper limits of speed (circa. 150?) then the driver realized the approaching problem and stood on the brakes. Chilling.

Marv

Maybe the answer is how far ahead you can see with your headlights.

Amfab

"kids" should get a learners permit at 18 and license at 21. I was an idiot at 18. And while I may still be an idiot, I did develop some sort of empathy, so I don't impose my idiocy on others. . .

well except here on Rennlist.

Black993

not sure if it was covered already, but local news is saying now they were "not alone" at the time of the accident. Details to come around 11.


This is fox news local, so take it for what its worth