You cleverly worded you statement in a way that basically stated that I am an incompetant and reckless driver.
No, I did not say that, my words did not imply that, and I would appreciate it if you would not twist my words around. In fact, I think that my post expressed my sympathy well for certain aspects of your situation. Unfortunately, you seem to be looking to criticize me instead of looking at the facts regarding the situations where you have gotten in trouble with your car.
My point is that every driver is responsible for driving within the limits of our abilities, the environment, our cars, etc. Sometimes we handle those responsibilities very well. From time to time, some of us don't. I've had situations myself where I used poor judgment in driving my cars, and in a couple of cases I've had minor accidents too. But when they happen, I realized that I was using poor judgment and that it was my own fault. I didn't blame the tires or the fact that it was raining when I was responsible for, and should have been, adjusting my driving to compensate for those factors. This doesn't mean (to use your words) that I am a reckless and incompetent driver; this does mean that I used poor judgment when I decided on my road speed, decided when to turn, etc. Even the best driver can make a mistake from time to time. But the very best drivers will admit the mistake and use it to learn what to do differently next time around.
It is the responsibility of the driver to know his equipment well enough to understand how not to exceed its limits. For example, if he has tires that perform poorly, he's responsible for taking turns at speeds that the tires can handle, rather than driving at the same speeds that better tires might be capable of. If the driver fails to make such an adjustment and has an accident as a result, then the cause of the accident is driver error, not sheer chance.
(OTOH if, say, a tire is properly inflated and a car is being driven at reasonable speeds and the tire blows out without any earlier sign of problems, and an accident results, this would NOT be caused by driver error, but rather by the tire failure - in other words, sheer chance from the driver's standpoint.)
Now, as for the rainy night of the incident, what would you do?
It seems that this accident had a number of causes: the darkness of driving at night; the rain which reduced the amount of traction available to your car; your decision to pull into another lane when you couldn't see whether the road ahead was clear; your impatience and frustration with driving at a slower speed while cars in other lanes are passing you; and your decision to drive your car when perhaps you were too fatigued to do so. All of these factors are things that were either within your control or were things for which you could compensate by driving in a different manner. There is no absolute "right" or "wrong" in any of these factors; any one of them might not cause a problem in and of itself. But in combination, they resulted in your accident. And, as you are pointing out, you could have avoided the accident by continuing to drive at a slower speed in your lane. It was your decision to change lanes, combined with these other factors that were within your control, that caused the accident.
Since we are asking each other questions, the question I would like to ask you is this: If you were in the exact same situation tomorrow evening, knowing now what you do, would you do anything differently?
I did not come here to be lectured; nor did I come for your opinion on how I should deal with the incident.
You presented the incident on the forums, where anyone can comment. You titled it "More Misfortune", not "Need Wheel Repair Advice". 'nuff said.
I would suspect that after your example of (how did you put it "Gallow or BLACK humor"?) at NSXPO '00, I got up from my seat and left; as, I found your joke of poor character.
I do not recall making a joke about your accident at NSXPO 2000. There were quite a number of jokes made there by others - to cite two examples that I DO remember, the improv group (not me) joked about it in their performance; and whoever determined the awards announced by Chuck Bennett (not me) gave you an award for "best use of trees as a braking device". So do not single me out as though I was the only one who had done so and blame me for the jokes that others were making. I did make a joke here on the forums in response to a comment that you had made - while apologizing at the same time for doing so. Poor taste? Sure. But perhaps, instead of being so defensive about these comments, you might consider (a) taking responsibility for that which WAS your fault and learn from it; and (b) taking the jokes in stride. Steve R. from Southern California totalled his NSX in a rollover on the highway. He is very frank about admitting exactly what he did wrong in the driver's seat that led up to the incident. And he continues to kid about it, too - he brought TURNOVER pastries to an East Coast NSX event and has been joking about it ever since. And he has never blamed his accident on bad luck.
I am truly sorry that you have incurred damage to your car. It was not, and is not, my intention to get into a hostile argument with you, here on the forums or elsewhere. It was my intention to point out that some things which we would like to blame on chance may have other causes - and that there is often much to be learned by all of us in doing so. What's the expression? "Those who refuse to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it" or something like that. I will leave this at that and this is my last post in this topic.
[This message has been edited by nsxtasy (edited 08 May 2001).]
