Filed under: Government/Legal, Safety, Porsche
U.K. sentences country's fastest speeder to jail
Back in January, Timothy Jonathan Brady got his 15 minutes of fame when he became the fastest speeder ever caught in Britain. It happened while Brady was rocketing his Porsche 911 down a quiet country road in Oxfordshire at a radar-confirmed 172 mph. He pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and has been awaiting his sentence.Monday, he found his punishment will last much longer than his fleeting fame. Not only was Brady sentenced to ten weeks in prison, he also loses driving privileges for three years and will be required to take an extended driving test to get a new license. Yowza!
Hey, Tim, just letting you know, if your 911 needs some exercise while you're in the slammer, give us a call. We're more than willing to help out. Just be sure to leave us a map showing where that nasty little speedtrap is you found.
Thanks for the tip, Thom!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Vivek 7:37PM (9/24/2007)
Pretty fair punishment if you ask me. Or are there any loopholes in the UK as well where you can spend 60 seconds in jail?
Oh that's right, those priviliges are reserved for the "celebrities".
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Shoaib 7:40PM (9/24/2007)
Actually, it wasn't his car, it was one from the leasing company where he worked. The day after he was caught he naturally left the company
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Barney 8:03PM (9/24/2007)
"The day after he was caught he naturally left the company"
Probably because he didn't have a job with them anymore.:)
joe 7:58PM (9/24/2007)
Damn, if only I lived in the UK I bet I could obtain that 997 Turbo for a fair discount....seeing that it has been "used and abused."
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CH 1:07AM (9/25/2007)
In addition, as a practical matter you need to add the distance the car would travel during the perception-reaction time. That's another 120 m or so on average; considerably more if the driver is slower by a few blinks of an eye.
http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/driving/articles/43810/article.html
CH 1:18AM (9/25/2007)
Sorry, I meant to reply to sr20de's post below.
sr20de 8:51PM (9/24/2007)
From the linked police press release:
"172 mph is 77 metres per second. At that speed the car’s minimum braking distance would be 453 metres. To put that into context, the average duration of a single blink of the eye is 0.3 seconds, during which time the car would have travelled 23 metres (five car lengths)."
The 911 Turbo needs only 99 feet (~30m) to stop from 60. Lets round that to 100 feet and round the guy's top speed to 180. That's 300 feet (~91m) to stop from 180mph. The police claim it would take 453 meters to stop from that speed. That's nearly 1500 feet.
Typo, skewed reporting or is my math crappy? It was my worst subject in school.
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Kevin C 8:57PM (9/24/2007)
i do believe your math is creepy, becuase braking distances arent linear like that. they have exponential growth (maybe its exponential, maybe its not, but they definitely have growth.)
havent you ever heard the school zone warnings on the radio.
"the stopping distance at 35mph is TWICE the stopping distance at 25mph."
sr20de 9:07PM (9/24/2007)
I don't remember any warnings on the radio like that. :) Perhaps it's logarithmic math... well I stand corrected.
Kevin C 9:06PM (9/24/2007)
yes, its logarithmic, i had to dig out my calc book to look it up :)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/12/Ln_.png
basically like that
Daniel 9:25PM (9/24/2007)
Wow how's this for timing...I was just reading the newest AutoWeek. In the letters from readers section, a guys responds to a previous article about a mistake the author made regarding braking distance:
"There is a serious error about braking distance in the "If You Go" sidebar to the Audi S6 article. Doubling the speed of a car doesn't double the braking distance for a car; it quadruples it. Braking distance goes up by the square of the speed. A lot of drivers on the autobahn are going to fly past their exits (or worse, crash on the exit ramps) if they follow your arithmetic"
There's your answer haha
Poopy Head 9:57PM (9/24/2007)
I don't want to break out the calculator, but the real distance based on 99 feet at 60 mph would be closer to 800 feet at 172 mph or 240 meters. Police like to embellish stuff.
Andrew 10:29PM (9/24/2007)
You can use basic physics to get an idea: Energy=0.5*mass*velocity^2.
Therefore the energy at 172mph is 8 times greater than it would be at 60mph. This doesn't take into account any air resistance though...
jesda 11:40PM (9/24/2007)
Why is his math "Creepy"
CH 1:13AM (9/25/2007)
In addition, as a practical matter you need to add the distance the car would travel during the perception-reaction time. That's another 120 m or so on average; considerably more if the driver is slower by a few blinks of an eye.
http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/driving/articles/43810/article.html
seoultrain 1:22AM (9/25/2007)
Andrew's probably had the best answer here. Ideally, it would be a square relationship, and it'd be about 800 feet not accounting for air resistance, which also increases by the square of the speed. So as a guess, I'd figure about 700 feet from 172mph.
Then again, the car may be generating lift at those speeds, which would lessen the weight on the tires (normal force), which also lessens the available friction force, increasing distance. There's just too many things to account for.
As an aside, I wonder how much force pushes that huge airbrake on the veyron when you press the brakes at 252mph. gotta be a couple hundred pounds.
MikeW 1:26PM (9/25/2007)
Veyron, hundreds? More like thousands.
The veyron can pull a peak deceleration of about 2g.
A 911 turbo peak is about 1.33.
The SLR and Enzo peak about 1.5
CoffeeJones 12:10PM (9/25/2007)
Do you think brake fade is a factor here?
They're cross drilled rotors, with standard (red) brakes.
SPG 10:18PM (9/24/2007)
You play, you pay.
I just wanted to say that.
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Eludium-Q36 1:28AM (9/25/2007)
Some American-based confusion ... I didn't think there were speed limits on English/european autobahns (A420) and why would a metric nation where speed is generally in km/hr have police clock vehicles in miles/hr ? I'm feeling a disconnect.
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