Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: B@tfinkV on July 30, 2006, 08:28:17 PM
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talk about end of a long journey.
On friday I drove my brother and sister to Liverpool to collect my father, and more importantly witness the boats cross the finish line. He has just completed circumnavigation of the the globe, sailing in the clipper race
(http://www.clipper-ventures.co.uk/2006/uploads/IMG_JER0011.jpg)
he sailed with the 'New York' boat, as displayed with alot of the crew.
he is the 6th head from the left with his left hand up and what looks like some serious sun burn :). He worked his butt off for 18 months with our little company of father and two sons building fences to be able to even think of trying to be one of the lucky ones that got selected and we scraped everything and liquidated and for the first time since he was 28 he lived for himself again. His 51st birthday was in febuary. my mother walked out on us 7 years ago, after he had paid for her to spend months in detox for the alcoholism that had been a factor in our lives for 8 years or so before. As a man who has his whole lifes work torn away, his family, i think this amzing adventure has saved his life.
I are so proud of him i even hijack my own thread to show you guys :D
http://www.clipper-ventures.co.uk/2006/
anyhow, so after 35,000 miles, and a four hour car journey we stopped in and dropped my sister off at her house and set off for the 2 miles home to ours. a mile from home a very familier juntion i prepared to pull out and caught the glimpse of headlight coming fast round the corner and stopped right up at the line to let them pass as usually people will be doing between 50-90mph down this road. the car comes round at about 65-70 and see us and panics. she blared the horn for the first 60yrds thinking it might slow her down i geuss, and then 50 yrds from us stomped on the brakes and locked up on the greasy freshly rained on road, sliding with the camber of the tarmac right into my driver door.
she locked up at about 60mph and hit us at about 40mph.
the window smashed all over my bother and myself in the front seats, the door crumpled in on the drivers compartment luckily avoiding clamping any of my body parts, and the cars pivoted through 180 degrees to end up locked to each other with our faces not more than 3 yrds apart from the young girl in the other car. She promptly screamed at us and told us we were very nasty people in so many words. obviously just the shock of 50-0 in less than a second. never good for your heart rate. she was in her pyjamas and had been woken up by her boyfriend and was going to collect him.
anyhow, im making a big deal of it because its a story within the title. the funniest part being my fathers voyage of 35,000 miles and crashing 1 mile from seeing his house again in a year :D what a finsh.
the thread title regards that my car had SIPS or side impact protectin system.
undoubtably this saved my legs and right arm, if not my life.
had i been driving my other car i would be dead and the car split in half maiming my brother and father.
life is pretty fragile, im glad of those bars.
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holy crap, congrats on all accounts.
-Sik
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Congrats to your dad and i'm glad you're all ok.
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WTG
Congrats
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Unhijack, wrong place.
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Congrats Batfink's Dad :) Checked out that link and found this bit in the ships log -
We had a small amount of weed /\/\/\/\ this morning so when the wind dropped this morning Duncan did his normal 007 impression, the only difference is that we did not slow the boat down this time.
Sounds like a hoot!
PS well done for not dieing ;)
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Congrats to your brother Batfink! A proud brother you must be!
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Originally posted by Trikky
Congrats Batfink's Dad :) Checked out that link and found this bit in the ships log -
[snip]
LOL LOL LOL
:lol
yup, thats my old man, duncan
apparently he was one of the few who would do the mast work and scuba work under the hull. it would seem that this voyage had a good many people doing the whole trip, with just as many again doing small sections and individual legs.
a fine mix of hardcore sail lovers and rich folk up for a laugh to waste a few penny :)
here is the crash, just shows it can happen even when you are driving as sensible as you can.
she had a clear road with not another car for miles and still managed to hit the only thing I cared about.
later today i should get the pictures from the digital camera onto my machine and ill post them also. amazing how well the door panel took the hit. it has written off both cars completely, the chasis of my car was so distored that all the inserts on the dashboard (vents, radio, ashtray, clock,speedometer revcounter) had all popped out and were hanging by wires and broke plastic.
the impact was so hard that the glass from the window enbeded in my face and right arm, and amazingly my cap flew off my head, out the wind, and onto the road about 10ft away.
the arm rest on the inside door panel was pushing my leg and the metal from the outside was pressed up to the sterring wheel. There was no way to get a foot down to the accelerator pedal, somehow my foot wasnt traped.
(http://www.freeroleentertainment.com/AnimationWizard1.gif)
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Glad to hear your all ok Bat.
You know if you all drove on the right side of the road over there, she probably woulda missed ya. :D
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Wow, congrats on surviving that.
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Wow, that's better then when some 14 year old girl rear ended my neighbors car on the side of the road, but missed my sisters car that was parked 10 feet back.
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I'm glad you're ok but I'm a bit confused about the account. If you were right on the line at the junction and not on the main carriageway, why did the other driver sound her horn then panic and step on her brakes?
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I envy your father that trip!
and congrats on surviving the female driver :aok
How much does it cost to enter the race, and what do you need in terms of experience and certificates?
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Originally posted by Momus--
I, why did the other driver sound her horn then panic and step on her brakes?
cause its a chick driving is why, they cant drive wortha dang
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Women are capable of pulling off accidents in places where it should be theoretically impossible. Problem with women behind the wheel is, that if situation requires reactive driving or foretought, their most creative action will be flooring the brakes even if thats the worst thing to do. It might be related to not having any interest in how combustion creates motion and why that motion isn't always related to the commands entered trough the cabins user interface. Ie. honking the horn doesen't always remove the obstacles in front of you.
Old saying, that women are passengers even when driving is not very far from the truth.
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I wanna see pics of the MILF in her PJs!
On a serious note, my guess is she was tending to the child and not paying attention until she saw your headlights.
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lookit the way they drive,seriously
clutch the wheel with both hands at 12 and sorta hunch forward over the wheel, then bunch your shoulders a bit, then think of the feelings that that posture evokes.
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I hope she got a ticket of sorts (don't know what they do in accidents in other countries) and her insurance has to pay. it sure looks like 100% her fault.
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That car in the pic is on the wrong side of the road...
:noid
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hmmm..maybe someone started to pull into intersection..then saw car & stopped...other car hits breaks....perception is a funny thing
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I saw all those clippers when I was up in Victoria BC a few months back, I remember seeing the Scottish one, the New york one too.
Glad to hear your ok sir!
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Originally posted by BigGun
hmmm..maybe someone started to pull into intersection..then saw car & stopped...other car hits breaks....perception is a funny thing
very true BG, i had started to pull out and then seen the headlights coming round. being a left hand corner cars at the junction appear to be in your way even when further back from the line.
I admit that yes, I was right up to the line, maybe even a bumper width over it. Still she had two WIDE lanes with nothing coming the other way to avoid us. And by her own admission she was exceding the speed limit by 10-15 mph.
having come round the corner she notices another set of headlights and sounds the horn to warn us. the road is under a strong camber in places to make heavy rains flow to each side and into the gutter.
she simply saw headlights in her path and tried to slow down by stamping on the brakes.
we had already decided not to try and claim either one to blame. I was maybe too close to her carrigeway, and she was driving too fast.
btw she wasnt a milf, she was only about 19 years old.
I did get her mobile phone number though and she seemed very keen to slag her boyfriend off, and smile at my borther(hes the good lookin one) :D