I wouldn’t normally put up two YouTube vids in a day, much less in a week, but this one is blowing up like the proverbial crack in the Eighties. So… how would you have avoided this incident? And can you count all the different things the driver is doing wrong?
According to the people at Mischief.tv, the driver stated
“Well it happened at South Mountain park in Phoenix AZ. One of my buddies and I were out just having fun and driving until I came up on a deceptive corner, misjudged it and it happened. No injuries. The car was a total loss. Misjudgment of the road caused the accident.”
If the owner doesn’t seem too worried about the loss of the car, I guess we shouldn’t be either. Perhaps the poor M3 will be reborn as a NASA GTS racer or something. More likely, it will be crushed and sent to China. I never thought I’d say it, but given what’s coming down the pike from BMW I suspect we will miss those V8-powered M3s.
Looks like mommy bought him a safe car at least
Failing to turn left — at all — seems to be his biggest mistake there at the end. Eyes UP young man.
Oh, and crossing over the solid double-yellow on blind corners and hills? Please don’t do that.
Send him your itinerary, Jack. Maybe he can get some instruction on a closed course before he kills himself, someone else, or another nice car.
Too funny – thanks for the chuckle.
I sure hope I don’t encounter this genius while I’m riding my motorcycle.
Take a look again – he’s turning left. It’s just that the car is coming down off that small rise so only a fraction of the cars weight is on the tires, so while the wheels turned, the car didn’t.
The M3 looked planted enough and he did turn left slightly going into the turn, but didn’t intend to negotiate it. He had way too much speed for that. To attempt it would’ve meant siding off and going sideways, off road. He definitely made the right call at that point because it’s better to go straight off than rolling it.
“but didn’t intend to negotiate it.”
If we were talking Schumacher or the world rally driving champ – maybe. This kid ain’t that. To my eye he was dialing in enough steering to make the corner if the front suspension was fully loaded.
“To attempt it would’ve meant siding off and going sideways, off road. ”
Only if he did the double DB and turned the stability control off.
You don’t have to be Schumacher to know when you’re in deep $h!T. Things start to go into slow-mo at that point, so you cut your losses and exit the turn straight on. You can see he never cranked the wheel to try to stay on. He would’ve drifted sideways into the weeds and rolling multiple times.
“Send him your itinerary, Jack.”
Don’t bother, he’ll most likely just shuffle-steer with his hands on the lower part of the wheel!
-What a dumbass. At the very least he did a good job on attaching the camera (it didn’t even move) and “framing” himself… Does anyone know if he got charged with reckless driving?
Looks less like a deceptive corner than an unanticipated rise in the road. Steering input is a lot less effective when your tires aren’t touching the ground. Either way he was driving over his head on an unfamiliar road….
“Steering input is a lot less effective when your tires aren’t touching the ground.”
+1 That’s what I’m seeing.
That’s what I’m seeing too.
Indeed. He’s clearly in the air over that last rise and the front tires hit the ground in the dirt.
From :19 to :21 his front tires are not touching the ground.
To me he simply did not have enough left input. Even with the rise he should have made that. Hard to get a good vantage point from that angle but it also looks like his right side went one tire width of the asphalt as he entered the turn…
A trip to the top of South Mountain should be on every drivers itinerary while in Phoenix. However, this douche is lucky he only destroyed his parents car. Lots of folks jog, bike, and motorcycle to the top every day. Don’t get me wrong, I love driving fast, but especially around blind corners and hills, stay in your own damn lane. It is a shame he didn’t go off to the left and rolled thousands of feet to his death.
Been up this a dozen times. No way in holy heck I’d ever drive it nearly as fast as this dude was going. The camera shot shows a deceptively wide road – in reality, it’s nothing of the sort.
On my last trip to PHX I ripped up that road in my Corolla rental car. I didnt crash on that corner.
LOL – I did the same thing, except in a Hyundai Accent rental. It was a blast ripping up those roads with a 4 pot auto. At my max speed I was probably going less than half the MPH this Delta Bravo and it was a drive that demanded total attention with two hands on the wheel in a death grip. Going as fast as that kid was, regardless of how well the car handles, is a recipe for a far worse result.
He’s lucky this didn’t end with him winning a Darwin Award.
“I did the same thing, except in a Hyundai Accent rental. It was a blast ripping up those roads with a 4 pot auto.”
Absolutely best post of the day. I did the same in an anemic four door ’97 Cavalier rental driving similiar canyon roads out by Fort Irwin, CA. The most fun you could have in that car without a girl. It barely reached speeds of 70 mph, but sure sounded and felt like you were playing Need for Speed II.
How would I have avoided the incident?
Easy. I don’t drive 10/10ths on the street.
That’s not 10/10ths, it’s 6/10ths + being too stupid not to outdrive your eyes when you don’t know the road.
but even 6/10ths is way too fast on the street.
+1 and agreed, not 10/10th – not close. Not enough weight on the front wheels from the rise, turned the wheel and got nothing and went off-roading. Funny how in order to steer the rubber needs to be on the ground with some weight over the wheels.
It’s at least 11/10 the driver’s level of skill.
@Dan
Touche my friend, touche! Definitely went to 11/10ths for the driver.
How would I have avoided this accident? Not driving like a jackass on a two lane road with no improved shoulder and lots of nice, pointy, basketball sized rocks right beside it would be a good start.
Maybe his mommy and daddy will buy him a new Lamborghini Urinal or whatever it’s called to replace it. That way he’ll at least have the ground clearance to get over the rocks next time.
So there I was, running fast up a winding road in the dark, when the road seemed to end. It actually “T”d, and I may have missed the sign in my haste. Hit the brakes while turning in the direction that I thought the road went,and slid sideways to a halt at the top of the “T”. Opened my door, and looked down into darkness with the sound of a stream at the bottom. Oh if I only had a car of Today, instead of a 40hp volkswagen, what trouble I could have gotten into.
Perhaps a non-layback rollin wit the homies driving position would have allowed him to concentrate on watching the road rather than maintaining a death grip on the wheel to keep his torso upright.
Oh well, mommy will have to buy him another M3.
The toolbag is the shiznit.
Dear toolbag, you didn’t misjudge the corner.
As others have already posted, other people could be on the road and they don’t know or want to play what you are playing.
I swear people who post these videos think it is some kind of badge of honor.
Do a youtube search sometime for “Mulholland Crash Clips”, mostly cycles, but such a regular occurance it has become a spectator sport.
My opinion, the first mistake was allowing a kid (who looks as if he doesn’t yet shave) behind the wheel of an 333HP M3. Fortuitously the car was able to hit a boulder, launch and land without injuring the occupants. With luck a lesson was learned.
Airbags deploy real fast like.
What did he do wrong? Cheated Darwinism perhaps?
Target lock. Once he goes over the crest, he starts looking at the rocks.
Also: Wearing a hoodie.
The hoodie popping up after the crash was a nice touch.
I think I would have leaned harder into the turns.
Wow, this video makes my blood boil. I live a stone’s throw away from South Mountain Park and cycle on this road every week. I’d hate to think what would have happened if a cyclist or jogger would have been in his way.
The speed limit on this section of road is 25mph. The best way to avoid running your douchemobile into a pile of rocks and launching into the air Dukes of Hazzard style is to obey the speed limit and keep this type of (inept) driving on the track.
As a cyclist myself, ditto.
Save it for the track, kid. Take some lessons and get out there and have fun on a DE day. You’ll meet some good instructors at your local BMW club. And you won’t be tearing up your ‘rent’s M3, or maiming or killing a bike rider or runner, either (as we don’t partake in those activities on the local racetrack).
“I’d hate to think what would have happened if a cyclist or jogger would have been in his way.” You might hate to think it, but it is your life you are risking by riding on a road that is a series of blind rises and corners. I’m sure you’ll ruin the life of whoever hits you as well, but you probably won’t have to live with that.
Yep. Treating public roads as a gym makes Darwin smile.
You guys must not leave the house much.
I am risking my life as I am every time I step out my front door to do anything. I expect others to obey the laws put in place to protect life, the social contract etc.
South Mountain Park consists of a series of narrow, 2 lane roads full of hikers, joggers, and cyclists; it is a park. Expecting drivers to obey the 25mph speed limit is more than reasonable. Recklessly driving a car at high speed on these roads is the equivalent of firing a machine gun in a crowded shopping mall and hoping not to hit anyone.
Would you tell someone who had been maimed by a drunk driver that they should not have been driving at 2 in the morning or someone hurt during a bank robbery that they should not have set foot in a bank? How is this situation is any different?
I’d tell someone not to play in the street.
Dan, South Mountain Park is a city park in Phoenix. Get it? It exists for recreation, and that’s why it’s full of hikers and cyclists. The posted speed limit in the park is something like 20 mph.
I suggest, CJ in SD, that you refer to your state’s laws regarding bikes and roads. In most every US state (including CA, if that SD means San Diego), a cyclist is afforded the same rights and responsibilities as motorized vehicles. In other words, a cyclist has every right to the road as any car or truck.
And Dan, public roads are just that: public. For everyone.
How is it that just about every nation on this planet finds a way to physically and philosophically have motorized vehicles and bicycles peacefully coexist, while many American drivers stubbornly maintain bikes belong on the…sidewalk. Travel a little. Belgium. The Netherlands. Norway. Sweden. England. France. Spain. Germany. Just about anywhere in Asia. People ride bikes without fear of angry motorists. Most riders elsewhere in the world aren’t subject to yells, screams, obscenities, horn honks, gunning engines, or anti-cycling posts on blogs.
Domestic Hearse –
What do you mean by “gunning engines?” I have to ask because I have frequently noticed this complaint from cyclist recently, and I’m not sure what the issue is.
I’ve always felt that it is safest to make the pass quickly. This applies to cyclists as well as cars. Making the pass quickly requires additional power. ICE engines make additional power by increasing RPMs. Revving the engine seems unavoidable.
Are drivers supposed to cruise by at a minimum speed differential to give oncoming traffic a chance to turn up and create problems? As long as there is a safe amount of space between the passing car and cyclist, what’s the problem?
Sorry for heading off-topic, but I’ve noticed this complaint too frequently lately to not follow up.
Burgers and Beer,
There’s revving the engine to increase engine RPM to pass a cyclist going 20 mph, and there’s revving the engine excessively to intimidate.
You must understand that cyclists are car drivers, too. It’s not like the only way we get around is on a bike, and have no idea how a car operates. In fact, this particular cyclist has a weekend 911, so I’m pretty familiar with how right pedal depression correlates to the sound and act of driving.
What some intolerant drivers do, when they come up upon a cyclist and cannot immediately pass, is either left-foot brake, or shift to neutral and rev the motor, right behind the rider. For the rider, it’s unsettling, startling. You can hear the engine fan and belts immediately behind, and you’re not sure if the driver behind you is indeed in the process of running you over, or just being a jerk.
If I were to generalize, drivers of Bro Trucks are the worst — jacked up F250 diesels. Great sport in trying to blow as much black exhaust into the cyclist’s face as they pass. Riders see it coming; the truck pulls around, gets the rear-end even with the bike’s front wheel, then the trucker floors it. Guffaws and obscenities from the cab ensue. Fun for all, apparently.
Note that in my state (and in several others), it is illegal to use a motor vehicle to intimidate or harass a cyclist. This includes driver behavior, as well. Screaming out the window, excessively honking, engine gunning, tailgating, swerving or impeding a cyclist’s progress – anything which is above and beyond safely and courteously sharing the road – will result in a ticket and fines for the driver.
The difference is that in Asia, urban Europe, etc. most cyclists are riding for transportation.
In America, most cyclists are out for exercise.
Again, the road is not a gym.
I ride for exercise, almost every day. I pick my routes based on places where I have a fighting chance of being seen and avoided by cars, but it still isn’t enough. I’ve been hit on bikes twice, run off the road a few other times. I’ve been brushed by rear view mirrors while riding in bike lanes. I’ve had people turn right while I’m alongside them. I’ve had people whip U-turns in my path from parking spaces without signaling. I must really like cycling, because I still do it in spite of close calls getting more frequent from week to week. I’m not familiar with the road in question, so I’ll now defer to local knowledge. While it somewhat rebuffs my point, it doesn’t change the stakes. It’s your life.
I jumped to conclusions because of behaviors I’ve seen on the roads around Palomar Mountain, where cyclists are ‘sharing’ the roads with car and motorcycle clubs in the early morning. Sun and shadows means there are blind spots even in places where there aren’t blind apexes, which occur every few hundred feet. Should people be speeding on these roads? Maybe, maybe not. Are they? Every Sunday morning. How an hour goes by without a cyclist getting flattened I’ll never know. On the other hand, I’ve been up there when sections are closed for emergency vehicles, medivac, and crash investigations, so maybe an hour doesn’t go by. I also once almost took out an entire nitwit peloton in Charlottesville Virginia, on a road called 21 Curves. I came around a blind right hand curve at the speed limit, which isn’t to say the maximum safe speed for the curve, and there were cyclists all the way across my lane and part of the opposing one. I basically slid to a stop sideways to avoid collecting them. It was a long time ago, and I probably wouldn’t drive like that now. Still, I would argue that blame should have been shared had anything happened.
Dan,
I tried riding my bike at the gym but all those weight machines were in the way. Once I got past the rowing machines, I had to pick my way through the zumba class.
“Onyerleft! Onyerleft! Onyerleft!”
Didn’t help. All those women started to get really angry.
Then this big weightlifter dude grabbed my bike by handlebars with his big, meaty arms and said I should take it outside. Or else.
So, well, that’s where I am. Outside. And now you’re saying to go back to the gym. Well, if you say so.
And wow, in Asia and Europe, riders there aren’t doing it for exercise, but for “transportation.” I had no idea. So, like there’s even moar bikes on the road there? And people are like, riding them on purpose? Not even for fun? And yet, no hostilities ensue? Drivers and riders still manage to get along?
But that can’t happen here in America. Cuz you know, riding a bike for transportation is different than riding a bike for exercise. Totally. Exercise riders here take up way more space than a 100 million Chinese people riding their way to work.
Must be why I’m having so much trouble riding in the gym.
I’m learning so much today.
CJ – your point is well taken, I understand the risks, have been hurt by cars while on my bike and have had friends hurt worse. Phoenix is an incredibly dangerous city for cyclists, an order of magnitude more dangerous than Boulder, CO where I lived previously. South Mountain is one of the few areas of the city where cyclists can ride in relative safety which is the reason this video angers me so much. It is yet to be seen what impact this video will have but I have a bad feeling that South Mountain will soon be known to every 17 year old in the greater Phoenix area as a sikk place to test your driving skillz.
Dan – you are way off base. Cycling for recreation and fitness is 500 times more popular in Europe and since many drivers are cyclists themselves they maintain a higher level of alertness and caution toward cyclists. Turn on the TV and spend 5 minutes watching that big bicycle race that they have in France every year to get an idea of just how popular cycling is. I take it that you are neither a cyclist, runner, walker, or hiker so I kind of understand why you don’t get it. Enjoy obesity sir.
domestic hearse
I hear you on the intimidation tactics, and I’ve seen that done before. On the other hand I’ve had bicyclists flip me the bird while I was behind them for heel toeing a downshifting (ie rev) in order to give them the courtesy of a little space. I’ve also seen bikers refuse to yield to cars behind them in an obvious manner, clearly because they’ve been irritated by passing traffic. I spent a good portion of this summer commuting to work by bike as I was out of state, and I found myself getting touchy about cars doing things they have every right to do on public roads, the issue was my own perceived level of risk. In most cases it was my fault for choosing to ride on roads without adequate room for a cylclist and car to ride together. There were a few db’s, one guy even knocked me with his side mirror, but 90% of the time the problem was all mine as the bicyclist. Bikes…good for your cardiovasular system, but still likely to cause you a heart attack.
As for the video…25mph is nearly impossible to acheive. He could have done this road safely at 40 or 50 without endandering anyone but he didn’t. He went full gonzo without much talent, in a car that’s over-tired to the point where you aren’t having fun unless you go 70mph, at a bare minimum. If he had seen a biker/hiker on this stretch he really could have killed them. My prognosis….too much car for the driver and the road. Also, he looks young and I bet he hasn’t really grasped the concepts of available grip and suspension load/unload. That crest was blatant.
It looks like he’s got the seat reclined way too much also. Seems like he’s leaning into the corners and not letting the seat hold him at all. We shouldn’t be able to read the PUMA logo on the back of his hoodie…
seems like a strong camera mount, though.
AGREED! I want to know the brand/make/model of the camera mount and what camera. Not only did the camera not go flying off into outerspace at impact, but the camera remained practically jitter free during the entire off-road experience.
I’ a little disappointed, actually. The best vids are the ones where the camera stays attached long enough to get the impact of the crash, then flies off, spin a few times and land giving you a great view of the wreckage.
The main problem I see here is that he is driving at 10/10 on a road that he appears to be completely unfamiliar with. Race drivers go out and do endless laps of a race track before race day. This guy (and his buddies) just jumped in his car and “in M3 we trust”.
Also, I couldn’t stop laughing at the fact that he isn’t wearing his hoodie before the crash, but right after it he is due to the crash forces.
He was not driving at 10/10ths. It was more like 11/10ths of his own abilities and about 7/10ths of the car’s.
things the driver is doing wrong:
1.) operating a motor vehicle
(that’s also numbers 2-12)
I was going to say “going way too fast to have proper control” but I think you’ve hit upon a more fundamental flaw.
He doesn’t seem to know the difference between real-world driving and playing a video game! I wonder if he tried hitting the re-try button.
Another Ultimate Driving Machine with a less-than-ultimate driver. Even on city streets you see tons of errors from BMW drivers.
We are kinda stupid like that.
Huh? You don’t need to drive a BMW to be an asshat. They drive among us in every size, shape and form of vehicle.
True, but you would think someone who would go through the trouble and expense to get a unique and capable car would be a little better than average.
Nice one genius. First up though, holding the steering wheel like that… really? His arms are see-sawing all over the place in the previous corners.
I don’t buy the whole “to attempt the corner meant going off sideways, so he steered straight” thing. No. He obviously didn’t know the road and just fluffed it. The corner tightened quite a bit just beyond the brow of the hill and he wasn’t ready for it, either in the speed he was doing or the position of his car on the road.
I won’t start calling the young chap a bunch of rude names, as I too have crested the brow of a hill at speed only to find the road not going where I thought it was going. My saving grace was that I landed in a nice soft field.
^Agreed he just plain fluffed it.
The road is clearly presenting itself as bumpy and he’s not getting off the gas frequently enough to get the wheels back on the ground.
Also, his vision and reaction-time are terrible.
When you see that kink, and the road magically teleports off to the left, where was the sound of the throttle coming off; -like a lot?
.
+I also find his choice of Justin Bieber haircut particularly offensive.
He should be stoned to death with engine blocks dropped off the Woolworth Building by Robert Moses’ mouldering pimp-hand for that mistake alone.
Somebody please forward the link to his insurance company. Maybe the AZ DMV, too. Putz.
Can police cite him just from the video? Probably not because they can’t prove a specific speed, but it would be nice.
Just from the fact that he posted this video tells me no lessons were learned here. I would be quite embarrassed in that situation, both from driving like that on a public road and then crashing. I certainly wouldn’t put that online. Clearly that kid doesn’t see a problem here.
Doesn’t matter, because he’s clearly driving recklessly. “Speed Unsafe for Condtions” would definitely apply, and that can be a nasty ticket. I’d throw in Reckless Endangerment, if it would fly.
Doesn’t really matter, because if this kid doesn’t give a damn about his M3, he couldn’t care less about a ticket or two. Probably already has a stack of them pinned on the wall next to his eminem poster.
They could always go swear out a criminal complaint on him in front of a judge instead of just citing him. That’s how we’d do it in KY.
Getting the video to his (or, more likely, to his parents’) insurance company is a better play, IMO. About 10 years ago we had a local jackhole who liked to film himself and his DB buddies running from the police on their crotch rockets. He was dumb enough to put together a video compilation of it and try to sell it. A copy of the DVD made it to his insurance company, which promptly jacked up his rates so high on him and his ass clown posse that they all sold their bikes since they couldn’t afford to ride them any more.
Improper hand position plus
Improper arm position plus
Improper seat position plus
Improper posture plus
Improper road position plus
Improper eye position plus
Improper speed for road conditions and visibility plus
Improper steering input plus
Improper use of tanning bed plus
Improperly being a toolbag equals
Crashes into rocks.
His biggest mistake was to film it.
I am sure his insurance company sure appreciated it!
Rule number one when driving on twisting roads is to stay in your lane. Pretend the center line is a center concrete wall, or a line of spike strips. The edge line is the same. That’s what you’ve got to work with. If that results in severely limiting your speed … that’s the idea. Thou shalt not cross the center line when not allowed to.
Pretty much equal importance is to not travel faster than your ability to stop within the distance ahead that you can actually see. Most people cheat a little bit, but this guy was cheating a lot.
I do not want to meet this clown when I am out on my motorcycle.
Also, it as at this point that if I was Jesus I would pull up the big magic video wall and replay every one of us doing something equally stupid when we were they were that age.
JMO, I rarely seem to agree with you, but in this case +1000.
We ALL, every single one of us, did things just as stupid and probably more so when we were young and newly licensed. I know I did pretty much exactly the same thing on a back road in Maine in my ’82 Subaru, except with logs instead of rocks. And since an ’82 Subaru is no M3 I did not damage the car, even though I had to jack it off the logs. There is an awful lot of heaping on of this kid because he is lucky enough to be driving an M3. Who knows, maybe he saved his paper route money for the past 10 years to buy it?
And if I had a video camera and youtube 25 years ago I am sure I would have posted the video of my flying Subaru too. How I survived my college years with only one minor accident I will never know, I drove like a first-class idiot.
“There is an awful lot of heaping on of this kid because he is lucky enough to be driving an M3.”
No, the fact that he could have killed or badly hurt someone else has far more to do with it.
I don’t care what he was driving. I would prefer that he not drive. He had no business treating a public road like a closed track.
@ khrodes1 – Speak for yourself. I’m sure I made mistakes at that age, but endangering the greater public to the level displayed in this video is not one of them. I don’t think this behavior is quite as common as you or jmo believe.
I mean, how many of us can honestly say that, at one time or another, he hasn’t set fire to some great public building? I know I have. ;)
Wow, I actually agree with jmo once as well. I got air off dips plenty of times in my 110 hp Saab 900 in high school. And there was the time I was racing my friend in his Bonneville up a mountain road at over double the speed limit. And plenty of other teenage idiocy.
The difference between me and this kid was that I had enough dumb luck never to wreck my car and all this happened in the late 1990s before Youtube.
What would I do… Id probably start by using the brakes
This could be used as an instructional video on what not to do, from not knowing how to control the car and keep proper loading on the steering tires, to not wearing a shoulder harness & seat belt, to crossing the double yellow line.
Dude, it’s not a race course. It’s a public road. The “line” you take is determined by the lane markers, not your maximum possible exit speed.
Don’t worry. He had it rebuilt to his exact specifications.
http://www.jorymon.com/vehicle/nissan-maxima-bmw-7-bmw-m3-lamborghini-toyota-supra-monster-sport-car/
General observation:
What Track Racers almost never emphasize enough when talking performance driving with non-track-racers is that on curving roads, particularly country / mountain roads that are fun roads, visibility is quite often the limiting safety factor in driving.
Yes, your car can stay adhered through the apex at 50, but if there’s something stopped / standing in the road / etc. right outside your current visibility, you will smash it and yourself.
The safest rule is to be able to stop if the road’s totally blocked (all lanes) right beyond your current vision. So take your reaction time and braking distance and corner geometry and figure out how you can stop with all of the car within your current visible area.
That’s overly conservative for how people really drive; what they usually do is some mixture of conservative enough that if one (not both) lane is blocked they can stop and/or dodge without hitting anything, ranging to if one lane is blocked they can stop and/or dodge off the road, perhaps to they’ll have slowed down a lot before they hit anything in the road.
If you think this never happens, drive more. I’ve nearly head-onned a fully loaded milk truck that drifted across the center divider in a blind (for both sides) corner, nearly head-onned a motorcyclist who bobbled in braking and came across the centerline into my lane in a corner I could see, found 2-foot diameter rocks in my lane around the blind corner, found a tree down across the road around a blind corner, found a cement truck wedged 90 degrees between the center and side cement barriers on Highway 17 around a corner (!).
Seek roads which have visibility. Know your roads. Don’t drive like a dick on roads with unknown visibility. This guy was extremely lucky – that it was a one-car, one-person accident and not hitting a cyclist or motorcyclist or pedestrian or another car. That he didn’t kill himself was secondary, though I am sure he doesn’t see it that way yet.
I have to agree him not killing himself was secondary, over not killing someone else!
I think this describes this kid well:
Completely inept behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.
Why does everyone keep assuming his parents bought the car? A used M3 cost around the same or less as a Civic SI to buy. What really bugs me more is how this guy’s driving too fast, crossing the double-yellow and holding the steering wheel like my mom.
Of course his parents bought him the car.
16 year olds who don’t shave yet aren’t going to lawn mow their way into a new Civic either.
“And can you count all the different things the driver is doing wrong?”
1. He drove too fast for conditions.
2. He filmed himself driving too fast for conditions.
I’m sure that his insurance adjuster is grateful for the help. He had better hope that the cops don’t show the same level of gratitude.
Looking at the video…
At that speed it would seem that your brain should have processed a warning that you were approaching a steep rise that would loosened the suspension to unsafe levels even if you thought the road was straight on the other side.
So it should have been last minute braking, sight line, turn in and gas.
17 years ago, on one fateful night, Dad should have gotten a blowjob.
Dear kid,
All those times driving over the centerline around a blind corner? That was the road telling you to slow the hell down.
He’s lucky everyone walked away.
That makes me irate to see that idiocy. I could easily be the guy on a nice drive enjoying the countryside that comes over a hill with that jerk in my lane. (Or anyone else of course.)
I think the kid knows the road. He was already steering to the left before he crested, so he knew what was coming. But he for sure never drove that fast before, so he didn’t realize that at that speed, he would be airborne and the left steering input that he was used to before wouldn’t be enough at the much higher speed.
I’m not so sure he knows the road because he’s steering late on just about every change in the road’s direction. He’s also using too much steering angle, requiring corrections. Bottom line is that he’s a kid who probably doesn’t have a whole lot of performance driving experience.
That’s why I’d personally go for 7-series cruising over M-car apex clipping.
After about 40 years of winter driving I’ve come to the conclusion that some folks just don’t pay attention to the signals that they are getting from their fingers, inner ears and rear ends that one of more of their tires is losing traction.
Like Mr. Baruth likes to point out, you only have a given amount of traction in any situation and you have to properly allocate that traction to acceleration, braking and steering. If the total inputs exceed the grip that the tire has it loses traction. If you lose enough traction you slide or spin.
Racing cars has always been about finding that balance of forces that let you use 100% of that traction. The best drivers, racing or road, have that sense about what the tires are doing.
Finally got to watch this at home on a bigger screen and with audio. Wow. As others have noted:
1) Seat in the wrong position
2) Body in the wrong position
3) Hands in wrong placement on steering wheel and dance all over the place
4) Too far back from the steering wheel
5) Listening to the throttle and watching appears to be little to no use of the brake and on the throttle in many places where he should not have been.
But I saw one other detail I missed before when I watched on a bigger screen.
There is at the minimum a front seat passenger. You can see their hand toward the end of the video (before the slow-mo replay).
After the car comes to the stop, this creep, this douche, the slime bucket doesn’t even look to the right. Doesn’t utter a word. What is he worried about?
His precious M3. “Car”-ma sure can be a beotch.
Well, it was an extremely minor impact. The airbags shouldn’t even bother deploying during such an event. I was t-boned for $10k worth of body damage and I didn’t think about my two passengers on the other side either. I immediately began trying to get my mangled door open, and when that failed, I crawled out the window. Somebody needed to get yelled at. Until she started crying. Then I stopped. Anyway, the point is, if a person doesn’t physically feel even the slightest bit of pain or discomfort in the process of a minor collision, I think it’s reasonable for that person to assume that his passengers experienced the same negligible impact forces. Of course, I am a bit of an a**hole myself!
Well, it was an minor impact. The airbags shouldn’t even bother deploying during such an event. I was t-boned for $10k worth of body damage and I didn’t think about my two passengers on the other side either. I immediately began trying to get my mangled door open, and when that failed, I crawled out the window. Somebody needed to get yelled at. Until she started crying. Then I stopped. Anyway, the point is, if a person doesn’t physically feel even the slightest bit of pain or discomfort in the process of a minor collision, I think it’s reasonable for that person to assume that his passengers experienced the same negligible impact forces. Of course, I am a bit of an a**hole myself!
If you were in an accident and did not stop to think about your passengers but instead climbed out your window so you can yell at the driver that hit you (until she cries) you are definitely an a**hole.
Definitely.
Totally agree, he was driving way to fast for his skill levels.
BTW, if you are driving a car equipped with airbags, 3 and 9 O’Clock are the preferred positions for holding the steering wheel, so that much, he had right, and there is a reason for that. The airbags, of which deployed in this video. Having your hands at 3 and 9 prevents the bags from shoving your hands into you and breaking bones, or into the windshield or something like that as the bags will shove your hands out to the side, if they bother your hands at all. A colleague had a similar experience with his airbags when they deployed and his hands were at 11 and 2 position, and it shoved his hands into the windshield, causing it to get stitches and perhaps more.
That said, I didn’t notice the seatback angle, but did note that the road undulates big time, up and down and is not a smooth, level surface, but the road itself looks to be of good condition none the less, and may well be narrow as had been said up the thread, and therefore, not conducive for high speed driving.
That said, it reminds me of the roads drawn for the Wile E Coyote and the Roadrunner cartoons from Looney Tunes, some of my favorite cartoons BTW.
That said, I think he hit this one curve, got air, loosing traction, and went off the road as the car understeered like mad, causing the front to slide wide, and into the rocks.
I have to agree, the car, from the angle of the camera, didn’t look too damaged, if at all, but obviously, it was, as the bags deployed, and the car went airborne after hitting the rocks, causing frame damage most likely.
As to driving from lane to lane, technically, that IS how you negotiate curves at speed – on a track, but not here though. I’m surprised he didn’t run into bikers, hikers and walkers while ripping up this route in the first place, as it looks to have taken place during the day, or early evening.
Waste of an E46 M3 in the hands of an idiot. At least BMW made 75,000 of the things.
I’m lazy. Things wrong? Too many to count.
Things right? Bought a quality camera mount.
He didn’t have any clue the road went left over the curve. He was straightening it out, but nothing that said “I have a left curve coming up here”
“Hey the road goes left over this hill, I’m airborne. Look at the pretty rocks.”
Brain : “Guru Meditation”
His hoodie wasn’t disco enough?
Massive brain fart….?
He didn’t even turn the wheel….
I phone must have been ringing…?
My eyes – These airbags do nothing!
At that kind of speeds, he needs to cut the apex. Without seeing it, he couldn’t. He simply ran out of road for a left corner on the right lane. If he happened to be on the left lane, he would’ve had enough to either slow down or corner hard.
Kid didn’t have a chance. He was still in the air until 0:36 (slow frames) at which point, the left tire looks to be off the road, right tire is way off road. Suspension rebounds (albeit quickly), but he’s still unloaded before he even hit the rocks.
I guess I’m glad that my first car was a Yugo with a bad clutch. It took a LONG time to get to 80 MPH and there usually wasn’t enough road to do it.
Makes me wonder if this kid would have been better off with something like a FR-S. I mean, you really have to be pushing the M3 before the excitement starts. Searching for that rush just becomes so much more dangerous when things get away from you.
If we’re going to imagine things that this kid would be better off with, I would start with a trip to the barber.
A sharp left after a hill like that is a admittedly bad bit of road construction. The cambers are all over the place to. Not that I am saying the kid is not at fault, cos he is, I am just pointing out that, that is not a great road for some fun driving. I am not even sure why they bothered paving it because it is such a poorly engineered road and there are no warning signs up either.
Something gives me the impression, that God forbid this little dumbass had hit someone on a bike or on foot he wouldn’t have gave a rat’s azz about it, and mummy and daddy would have bailed their poor innocent helples spawn out and shortly after bought him a new Bimmer to get over the trauma. What went wrong?
Allow me to repeat a few points for those of you who do not live in Phoenix: This accident took place in a city park in Phoenix, South Mountain Park. It did not happen out in the middle of the desert a hundred miles from civilization (assuming one is willing to count Phoenix as civilized). SMP is heavily used by bikers, both self-propelled and motorized, and hikers alike…all use the paved roads. The roads aren’t necessarily banked, because they aren’t state highways—they are park roads. You wouldn’t drive like this in Central Park, and it’s not appropriate here, either. Anyone who lives in Phoenix knows this. Firebird Raceway is located about 5 miles south of SMP, which is the appropriate place to take daddy’s BMW for a hard drive. This kid will, hopefully, be a great contributor to this website in a few years.