Find Reviews by Make:
26 Comments on “Live Blogcast: Jack Baruth Defends His Safety Article...”
Read all comments
Latest Car Reviews view all
Latest Product Reviews view all
Recent Comments
- Lou_BC: @Carlson Fan – My ’68 has 2.75:1 rear end. It buries the speedo needle. It came stock with the...
- theflyersfan: Inside the Chicago Loop and up Lakeshore Drive rivals any great city in the world. The beauty of the...
- A Scientist: When I was a teenager in the mid 90’s you could have one of these rolling s-boxes for a case of...
- Mike Beranek: You should expand your knowledge base, clearly it’s insufficient. The race isn’t in...
- Mike Beranek: ^^THIS^^ Chicago is FOX’s whipping boy because it makes Illinois a progressive bastion in the...
Car Reviews By Make view all
New Car Research
Who We Are
- Tim Healey
Managing Editor - Matt Posky
News and Social Media Contributor - Timothy Cain
Sales Analyst - Murilee Martin
Junkyard Finds Author - Matthew Guy
Contributor - Chris Tonn
Contributor
- Adam Tonge
- Bozi Tatarevic
- Corey Lewis
- Jo Borras
- Mark Baruth
- Ronnie Schreiber
Defending the indefensible would be some trick.
I’m still not convinced.
So many accidents happen because someone doesn’t stop at a stop sign, or doesn’t know who has the way of right. Much of which can be prevented by proper drivers ed.
Granted, highway pile-ups, are somewhat different. But even there, the first cause is usually a mistake by some driver. And guys like Jack who are driving towards the accident might be lucky, but the better your skill and the more you know about a situation like that, the more likely you are to escape alive. I mean it’s a no-brainer.
I don’t have much experience in driving fast but I’ve driven 210 km/h (130 mph) for a steady long distance on the Autobahn (where it’s legal). I thought I will like it but after a while I decided to drop to 180 km/h (around 110 mph), that felt safer for the car, the road, etc. … In Germany most people don’t drive that fast even w/o speed limit – because of the fuel consumption, self-imposed safety etc. The few, who have the car and the mood for it, do. And it’s fine, it is not a grave horrible public danger as it is perceived in the US. The US has good highways to implement ‘no speed limit’ driving (US interstates are wider than the autobahn with larger shoulders), the one thing needed is the concept of a ‘fast lane’: a lane where trucks, trailers, etc don’t go under any circumstances, and where people don’t ride except to pass … like in Germany. People who drive fast usually pay attention, I would rather have people with skills & adequate cars drive 150 mph past me in the fast lane with both hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road than have drivers at 55 mph in minivans or pickups blocking my way while looking in the vanity mirror, eating, fiddling with the radio, smoking, arranging the kids, etc. while joggling the pedals in hiking boots, high heels or slippers. And of course, eating the burger and sipping the coke with their free hand (the one not holding the phone).
I drive Volvo 240s and Saab 900s because I want to protect my wife and my life from the Jack Baruths of the world. Luck is wasted on people who don’t learn from their mistakes. Don’t fool yourself Jack. The rest of us don’t want to face racetrack odds when you are on the road.
May your luck hold!
“[Comment From Bertel Schmitt] I’ve been working 25 years for the company that built your Phateon. And we found that two factors lower fatalities: Electronics”
Tutti Respecto, Don Bertel:
What was the other one? And what are ESP and Radar?
Safety is not so much the question what car you drive, but more a question of who is driving the car.
I have a pretty defensive driving style and pretty much a small car. Always keep a safe distance to the car driving in front of you, keep sure that your car is in proper condition and check that your speed is matching the current street conditions (wet, icy etc.). And don’t ever drive near 100 % of your skills on public roads. I try to keep it below 75 % so that I am able to react to mistakes of other drivers.
Apart from that big car is not much safer than a small car. It is just than in a crash the bigger car with more mass is much more dangerous to the other car in the accident. So you are gaining safety at the expense of others.
A little bit of physics.
Legal speed limit – 70mph (112.7kmh – 31.29m/s)
Traveled speed – 123mph (197.9kmh – 54.99m/s)
Traveled momentum – a Phaeton weighs approx. 2356kg. Jack was traveling with his wife and two kids, plus some luggage, I presume.
Let’s say a total of 2800kg.
Momentum at 123mph: 153972 kg-m/s.
Momentum if Jack had been traveling at the speed limit: 87612 kg-m/s.
Jack helps himself to a hefty 66.3 metric tons of extra momentum that needs to be handled properly in the case of an emergency maneuver.
It’s not driver training that’s at issue here.
Passive safety saves lives, true. But once it becomes common knowledge, people drive faster and accept the same perceived risk, which now occurs at a higher speed. Like 123mph, for example.
RF, you and one of your contributors had a big fail at selling the idea that reinforced roofs will lead to more rollovers. Makes no sense on the physics of it – probable mass/cg changes are insignificant. Is this what you may have been getting at?
Not sure which side of the debate this come down on (especially since I am still not clear on what Jack’s point was) but perhaps training (situational awareness, scanning the horizon) is what allowed him to get from 123 down to 70 prior to entering the situation. Or, in the words of Wanda Sykes in Pootie Tang “Maybe he’s just a dumbass.”
The point is, even if it was luck that saved him this time, the one out of a hundred, the other 99 times the driver would have either crashed or benefitted from active and passive safety. You can’t make statistics out of a freak incident, because you can not always depend on luck. The next time it will be: “And then… Out of nowhere…”
chuckR:
Another example of this perceived safety is in the winter or whenever the roads are crappy with snow or ice. Look at all the SUV drivers causing accidents, stuck on a slope or off the side of the road from sliding out! Overconfidence and a need to show off get those people into that situation.
I owned an AWD SUV before, they’re great in this type of weather and really do mask how horrible the conditions are outside. But it’s not a license to disrespect the conditions, even if your penis size is lacking.
“…other than the sheer arrogant pleasure of being able to do it…” are you kidding me??
He drives a damn *VW* – its not that special. To crank along @ 123 in moderate traffic with his family in the car makes him an undisputed idiot.
Believe me, I’m in total agreement with not being overly concerned with my mortality – but that gives me NO RIGHT to endanger others. To defend it in such a cavalier manner is pretty incredible.
Let’s go back to bashing on GM’s management, far more interesting than some never-was racer making-up stats and justifying his idiotic behavior.
Perhaps if Jack was traveling at the legal speed limit, he would have been able to slow to a near-stop by the time he reached the accident, instead of going from 123mph to 70mph.
Tanks on wheels can’t compensate for physics. The amount of energy at impact is proportional to the square of the net velocity. In other words, speed kills. That’s not to say that we need to drive everywhere at a snail’s pace, but there’s generally no justification for exceeding the car’s point of maximum aerodynamic efficiency.
He drives a damn *VW* – its not that special.
It’s a Phaeton. Piëch’s folly it may be, but it is indisputably a special car.
The Phaeton was only built for Piech’s friend Gerhard Schröder. At least the top social democrat from Lower-Saxony (where VW is located) and chancellor of Germany and should drive a Volkswagen, shouldn’t he?
So they built him one.
“It’s a Phaeton. Piëch’s folly it may be, but it is indisputably a special car.”
Fine, if being rare & unsuccessful makes it “special”, then it’s that’s what it is.
But at the end-of-the-day it’s just another 5200#, 420 HP, and 0-60 in 6 seconds bloated luxo cruiser. Do a little comparison shopping & you’ll see what I mean. FWIW, I’ll take my M5 and plenty of others before that car… (M5 is nothing special either IMO).
Let me clarify – his comment reeks of elitism. Just because he drives a $100K car does not make him in the least bit special. Many people drive cars like this. MANY PEOPLE.
And apart from that I know people driving VW Golfs and Opel Astras that would simply smash him on the Nürburgring. So what does this whole thing prove?
To be true it proofs nothing. Public roads are no race tracks. I have no doubt that Jack may be a competent race driver, but I have doubts that he is making the wrong conclusions from this incident.
If you are driving beyond the limit of your car it is bad. If you are driving beyond your own limits it is stupid, even on a race track. And on public roads you don’t risk your own life, but the live of others.
Jack Baruth: Oh, there’s no justification for it, other than the sheer arrogant pleasure of being able to do it, and of course, being in a hurry.
Do you even care that your actions likely caused you be in the right place at the time of the accident? You sped through the gap in traffic and had less space to react once the accident began. Way to save a few seconds of time.
Jack Baruth: The point of the article? Passive safety saves lives. Driver training is great in theory, lousy in practice. Being a “trained” driver makes little to no difference.
Why is a trained driver who doesn’t follow the law (inherently unsafe) considered trained? If you are saying reaction speeds in an accident don’t change much with driver safety courses, fine. Decisions you make before and during an accident situation can avoid the accident altogether, and those get better with training and more experience on the road.
But at the end-of-the-day it’s just another 5200#, 420 HP, and 0-60 in 6 seconds bloated luxo cruiser. Do a little comparison shopping & you’ll see what I mean. FWIW, I’ll take my M5 and plenty of others before that car… (M5 is nothing special either IMO).
I’m a bit confused. You don’t seem to actually like cars, or you’d see why the Phaeton and the M5 are special machines. But yet you own a M5.
Jack,
I think there’s a logical flaw in your original post. Just because you were lucky doesn’t mean that leaning skills and training at those skills won’t help you get out of trouble in other situations. Also, I think your ‘going for the open hole’ response itself may have been the result of some training, formal or informal.
IMHO, Jack is an idiot. There is no justification for his 123 mph on public roads sign posted at 65 mph.
Travelling well above the ambient speed is just stupid, especially, when it’s more than just himself in the car – let alone the other drivers who have to share the road with him.
I found driver licensing in the USA to be a joke. I drove at 5 mph in a carpark at the MVA, parked the car in a way that never happens in real life in a parking bay that would easily swallow a F350 or two.
For the most part of my stay in the USA, I found a goodly percentage of drivers to be at best slightly incompetent. The 4 way intersections proved to me that most of the time they couldn’t count, and round abouts (rotaries) just flummoxed their understanding of what “Yield” means.
I’m not justifying Australian licensing – I didn’t have to be tested in the wet, at speed, or at night, three conditions that you do come across occasionally here in Australia.
Driver education, particularly defensive driving courses, work. I’ve done one, and I don’t know how often it’s saved my bacon, simply because for the last 20 years I no longer get into bad situations all that often due to leaving adequate room, driving to the conditions (and my condition!), keeping good awareness of what’s around me, and treating all other drivers as idiots who are out to kill me.
Whilst I have my wife and baby in the car, that’s the way I like it.
Andrew
Brian E : “I’m a bit confused. You don’t seem to actually like cars, or you’d see why the Phaeton and the M5 are special machines. But yet you own a M5.”
Brian – Sure, that’s a fair comment I guess given the exchange happening here. It’s easy to mix messages in these sorts of discussions.
I can assure you that most of my adult life has centered around a LOVE for cars!
Quite simply, the term “special” probably carries a different meaning to different people when it comes to cars. Let me try again – Is the M5 a special machine? Sure, it is obviously a stanout in some ways. It’s expensive – so it carries a certain credibility right off the bat, it runs up to 100 really fast compared to most 4-doors, its really quiet inside, its got a V10 – that’s certainly unique, the stereo is great, and it looks very nice. But, in other ways its anything but special – after all, it just takes money to have one (or, as we’re all painfully aware right now a signature on a $0-down lease!).
To me, SPECIAL cars are often one-off, rare, unseen, or vintage – something which includes craft, passion, effort, and embodies an existence which is somehow unique. Cars which transcend time and place, become more special as time goes by. Personally, I do not think that is likely to happen with the Phaeton or the current gen M5 – hence my earlier (perhaps unfair) comment.
A serial number which happens to be wrapped in a higher price tag doesn’t always equate to special for me.
I dug into some archives and unearthed an interesting study that relates directly to this issue of advanced driver training. In the early 1970s the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety sought to compare the driving records of the general public with “national competition license” race drivers certified by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). The SCCA consented to participate because it was sure of the outcome: the “trained” drivers would certainly have superior records.
Surprise! Not only did the SCCA members have more traffic violations (well, not really a surprise), they had proportionately more crashes than the control group of drivers. This was true even when mileage driven by each group was taken into account.
Needless to say, the SCCA never again agreed to participate in further such studies. I’ll say it again: in driving, attitude trumps knowledge (that is, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force him to drink). And of course, you have the overconfidence factor — the SUVs in the ditch scenario in that first winter snowstorm — but this too is part of attitude.
Wow, two articles on this. No kidding! My opinion is in defense of Mr. Baruth here. The speeding Phaeton discussion was clearly meant to show his “what was I thinking” mindset about it, rather than any form of bragging. He’s very open about the fact that he let his driving ego get a little out of control due to all his track time. He is absolutely not defending his behavior.
Based on all the negative responses to the 123mph speed thing, it appears that the majority of folks on this site have never pushed the limits of their cars on the road? I have, and I look back on some of my youthful endeavors with the same “what was I thinking, lucky I didn’t get killed” mindset as Mr. Baruth. I was going to cite one particularly shocking example but decided against it just now due to all the Baruth backlash. Let’s just say that with all my track experience, I was short on common sense.
Anyway, I would have to say that from my decades of road racing and open track day time, I have seen my share of folks that took their performance driving to heart, and I’ve seen my share of folks that let the whole thing go to their heads. We called it the “God complex” where a few folks with one or two track days under their belts would suddenly start driving very aggressively on the roads, thinking that they were indestructible. Sure they could handle their car, but they were very poor at “playing with others” in traffic. I wouldn’t blame the training though – it was probably in their character to act that way.
The key thing to take away from these articles is to watch your surroundings when you’re out there, whether in a car or on a motorcycle. There are inattentive folks out there. Sometimes, you and I are the inattentive ones. Don’t get complacent about this just because you’ve taken some drivers training classes.
It’s one thing to say one oughtn’t drive too fast, quite another to say that driver training does not serve any productive purpose.
Not too long ago, I found myself in a near head-on collision on a two-lane country road in New England. Driving a rental Explorer at 60 mph, I had to cross the opposite lane and get on the far-side shoulder as there were obstacles on the shoulder next to my lane. Given the sudden, severe way I yanked the wheel, the car tilted seriously as if to tip over.
Looking back, I believe my experience in driving on the track enabled me to instinctively take appropriate action, ie, apply judicious opposite lock & power to straighten up the car as well as avoiding a spin. Wouldn’t the instinctive response of an untrained driver have been to yank the wheel and brake? Which of course would have guaranteed disastrous results.
There are elements of what appear to be both non-reality as well as non-truth in Mr. Baruth‘s piece. Drive at 120+ mph on the NJ turnpike? Hardly possible, given the extremely dense traffic on that road. Worse, do it in a heavy sedan full of passengers and baggage? Foolhardy, to say the least. Not even in a well engineered car like the Phaeton.
He’s right in saying it was luck rather than skill on his part that saved him and his passengers. However, as noted by another reader, he may not have been able to stop in a similarly short distance nor with similar stability in say, an SUV (except perhaps in a Cayenne or Merc ML). The superior dynamics of his sedan surely added to his luck.
A rather difficult viewpoint and narration to comprehend; indeed to take seriously. Both facts and logic preclude credibility.
[This is a repost of my comment on Jack Baruth’s original article. Comments here seem to be more recent. I wrote:]
I may be a bit late for this, considering there are already 120 comments, but DEAR GOD, anyone seriously talking about driving safety while admitting he was blasting down the I 95 at more than 120 mph cannot possibly be taken seriously. Robert, I hope it’s not considered flaming, but does TTAC make a difference between pistonheads and reckless drivers who should get their licences revoked NOW?
Honestly, all the talk about safety training just sickens me. How about some very basic mathematical safety training: at 123 mph, your stopping distance including reaction time is more than 250 metres (that’s if you happen to be in a car with good brakes). If you havent’ got at least 300 metres of EMPTY, dry, straight-as-a-laser road ahead of your car, you do NOT go as fast as that. And yes, that goes for no-speed-limit autobahns as well.
Jack, do you even begin to realise that sheer dumb luck kept you from being responsible for the severe injuries, possibly deaths of several people? Do you realise that slamming ANY car into an obstacle at 70 mph reduces that car to a cloud of debris and the passengers to a smear? (It’s physics: crash tests are done at 40 mph – at 70, the cinetic energy is over three times as high.)