Re: Converts at driving schools

[Keith Wollenberg <MFreude@xxxxxxx>]

Bradley Otoupalik complains of his inability to drive his M Roadster at BMW
CCA schools, points out that he is an extremely experienced driver, a
reasonable guy and an attorney, and closes with :

>C'mon you guys, BOTTOM LINE is that it IS MY LIFE, and if I want to risk it
>- - LET ME!

Bradley:

While I empathize with you (and am also an attorney, if not practicing),
there are three things you overlook:

1.  Not all students may be as competent or rational as you are,
2.  With an instructor in the car, there are two lives at risk, and yours
is only one of them,  and
3.  While you may have neither interest nor intent in suing, the same may
not be true of either your heirs and assigns, nor of your instructor's
heirs and assigns.

I know that many of our (Golden Gate) volunteer instructor core have
expressed to me a reluctance to drive in an open car, in the absence of an
SCCA approved roll bar, at the least.  

At a recent visit to the museum at the Zentrum during M-day, they were
showing a film of rollover testing of the Z3.  While it was intended to
promote a sense of security about the extensive testing of the car, it had
the opposite effect on me.  I could not help noticing how the "A" pillar
collapsed as the car landed on it in the rollover.  This makes the SCCA
requirements seem more reasonable to me than they did before I saw this
factory video.

As someone who has seen several cars rolled at driver's schools, the
requirements strike me as lees arbitrary than they seem to you.  I have
been doing track schools myself for more than 25 years, and have never
rolled a car, but that does not mean it does not happen.  Nor,
unfortunately, does it mean that rules can be made just to keep
experienced, competent drivers safe.

While I would welcome a world in which assumption of risk was an absolute
defense, we do not currently live in such a world.  In the one we do live
in, the rules on open cars do not seem as unreasonable to me as they do to
you.  (Of course, the fact that I drive sedans may color this view.)

Best Regards,

Keith



Keith Wollenberg
__________________________________________________________________
BMWCCA, V.P. Golden Gate  ( # 73293)  *As should be obvious,*
BMWACA Seattle  (Since 1972)      *all opinions expressed*
                                                   *are solely my own.*
'88 ///M5 (MFREUDE)       '72 tii Touring (TOURING)    
'95 M3 (M-Tschuss) [Kelly's car, which I get to drive sometimes.<g>]         
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