January 16 2007
Girl Racer’s 360
posted by Ana Samways at 1:43 pmReturning from a burger run last week I witnessed a girl racer spin out, doing a full 360 degrees in her white trash flash car on Carrington Road outside Unitec in Auckland’s Mt Albert. Miraculously she didn’t hit anyone else. She sped off (exhilarated, humiliated — only she knows) leaving cloud of burning rubber. Sheesh, I didn’t know girls were into boy racing — hasn’t she got a meal to throw up?
Full of rage, I pulled over and executed a safe, Nana-like u-turn, indicated and began trawling the neighbourhood (a popular circuit for late night hooning) trying to find her so I could get her plate details and phone her parents.
Teenagers throughout time have always thought themselves bullet-proof and succumbed to the dumbass — wheelie bins down Baldwin Street, Dunners, spring to mind — but a fad gaining momentum in the US, called “ghost riding the whip”, is completely insane.
According to Wikipedia, ghost riding the whip (a “whip” being a vehicle) is when the driver of a car puts the car in neutral and then the driver (and passengers) of said vehicle exit while it is still rolling and dance beside it or on the hood or roof.
Here’s one attempt where it all goes horribly wrong:
January 16th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
I like the way he indicates left, just before veering right into the lamp post.
January 16th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
There is a hilarious one that I’ll try to find after work: skinny white kid is ghost riding his car in suburbia while his mate films – opportinistic passy-by jumps and and drives off. It’s a classic.
January 16th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
woot, found it
January 17th, 2007 at 2:03 am
I was horrified by the beige suburban back-drop in the ghost-ride carjack video. (Of course, that’s where white gangstas live.)
January 17th, 2007 at 7:55 am
I know right – and the way the kids clothes match his car perfectly
January 17th, 2007 at 8:16 am
We have had a car surfing fatality here in NZ, Queenstown, 1996?
January 17th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Farmers and others often use the low ratio feature on 4WDs to allow them to climb out and open a gate, then get back in after their unmanned truck has rolled through. This is reasonably safe as the vehicle will be going quite slowly.
Not at all safe is to use the R/A feature on a cruise control (this button is fitted to many American cars and causes the vehicle to return to the speed it had been travelling at before cruise was disengaged by braking). If you drive as fast as you can, set the cruise, brake down to walking pace and jump out, clicking the R/A as you go the car will become an unmanned, accelerating, projectile.
January 18th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Two comments here:
1. Ana. How will getting car plate numbers allow you to “phone her parents”? Do you journos have a legal way of looking up plate owners? ( or is it a shady 20 notes slipped to someone in Min.of Trans?)
2. Rich. Cruise control “Resume” function should not work when car is below 40km/hr. You can still do it but you have to willing to jump ship at a decent speed.
January 18th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Evan,
Anyone can subscribe to the Motochek NZ service through Baycorp Advantage and snoop credit histories and car regos. This service is a hack’s best friend – that and the habitation indexes from the electoral roll.