BMW the ultimate crashing machine...
Maybe you've seen the TV commercials about BMW... the ultimate driving machine.Long blog again, I've got a lot on my mind... ;-)
I checked with Google who reports the average age of a BMW driver is 57 years old. Perhaps, but the ones who come up on my rear bumper flashing their headlights are much younger.
Depending on my driving schedule, I'm doing 600 miles per week. I get on the road around 8:30am and return home around 8:30pm. That gets me after rush hour when traffic starts to clear. All of South Florida's highway system is under construction. The posted speed limit is 65 on most highways and there are times we are doing 80. Yes, we... I'm not alone.
I have a saying "It doesn't matter how fast I go, someone always wants to go faster."
Three years ago, the Department of Transportation partitioned off a lane designated as an 'Express Lane' where they charge a toll that the fee is determined by the time of day and amount of traffic. From Downtown to the northern most part of Miami is 10 miles and the toll start at 50 cents in the middle of the night and jumps to $10.50 for a Friday at 5:00pm ride during the month of September. Thankfully, I'm not around that part of Miami in my travels. The section I'm using is near Hollywood to Fort Lauderdale and is 50 cents. The normal flow of traffic is around 35-45mph and the express lane peaks around 65. The lane ends and typically traffic thins out so we can go faster.
One morning, I got to the end of the express lane expecting to speed up but the guy in front of me wants to shift right... but traffic won't allow it. I look in my rear view mirror and see a BMW right on my tail. He wasn't there two blinks ago and probably one car length from me now. He's flashing his lights like I'm holding up traffic. Within a second, this guy get so close that I cannot see his headlights! Oh, time for a video. I click my cellphone to movie mode as no one is going to believe this story. I'm actually forced to slow down to avoid the guy in front and I'm sure the guy behind is thinking I'm hitting the brakes intentionally to annoy him and he decides to switch lanes jamming the speed at the same time as the guy in front changes lanes.
Like a scene in the movie Mission Impossible this guy slips between us but he has enough time to 'shoot me a bird' like I was the one causing the problem.
I had a few choice things to say and was sure he had overdosed on a**hole pills that morning, typical of many BMW drivers.
Wow, I said all that. Now, back to the intended blog.
I see lots of car accidents, but this month, most of the serious high-speed accidents involved BMW's.
Last Sunday morning around 7:30 two BMW's collided on the Turnpike that back up traffic for miles. Although there isn't much traffic that early in the morning, I say they were high-speed racing, all lanes were closed and we were single file riding on the easement. It was no less than 30 minutes crawling to go two miles around the accident. I could see bumpers on the roadway, deployed side airbags, broken parts all around the wreck. I knew they were BMW's from the emblems on the wheels. The front of one and rear of the other... totaled.
Comments (2)
Although the BMW vehicles are exceptional in safety, precision and performance, I have found many who own them to be first generation money, have aggressive personalities, buy the cars as a status symbol. Miami has lots of wealthy 'players' sports figures who sign multi-million dollar contracts. BMW is typically their first purchase, then Mercedes. When they have money and buy to excess, something exotic as in Lamborghini comes to mind.
hit the back of my car.
I was stopped as there was a lot of stop & eventually go traffic in front of me and perhaps
the idiot was texting,rather than driving properly.
I saw him coming in my rearview mirror and sensed he was getting much too close to
stop in time at his speed.
When I stop I leave a lot of room between me and the car in front of me.
So, I took my foot off the brake and slowly rolled forward.
He did eventually slam on his brakes, but it wasn't soon enough.
After the car hit me, I then put my foot back on the brake pedal, so that I wouldn't hit the car in front of me.
There was no damage at all to my tank.
But the front end of his car did nor fare so well. Ahhhh.
I was tired and didn't want to delay my 22 hour drive any more.
So, I told him not to worry about it, after he apologized.
However, I did scold him for not paying attention to the car in front of him.
If I had not seen him coming, had not anticipated his hitting me and thus, had not taken
my foot off of the brake pedal, I'm sure the damage would have been much more extensive
to both cars.