On the Autobahn
That motorbike story reminded me of my travels across Europe with my old man. (BTW - the headlights routine is just the way it's done over there, if someone wants to go faster than you, you get out of their way... I'm not justifying what he did afterwards, but when in (or near) Rome...

Anyway, the year before the Italy trip, we drove to Prague, via Germany. One the way home, we left Prague at 7am on sunday morning, so we hit Germany by about 9 or 10. We were making pretty good time and the traffic was fairly light. Then I rounded a corner and all I could see was dead straight, empty, derestricted Autobahn all the way to the horizon.

I put it down into 5th and floored it, and changed back up to 6th at about 150mph. It crept up to about 183mph (I wasn't spending too much time looking at the speedo). In the distance I could see two cars in the middle lane, and I was coming up on them pretty fast - bear in mind when you're doing 180mph, you're still approaching someone doing 90mph AT 90mph... In all fairness to the other driver, he probably checked his mirror and saw a dot in the distance, so he pulled out in front of me.

I had to stand on the brakes at 183mph. Now that, my friends, was a bowel loosening procedure. Fortunately my dad's car has got incredible brakes with very clever ABS and traction control, so we drew up in a perfectly straight line, but I literally got to within a inch of the guy's bumper - I could see his eyes in his rear view mirror. I think they looked almost as petrified as mine.

All credit to him though, he knew that the best thing to do was to put his foot down and give me more space. I wish people in England drove the same way as they do in Germany.

Length? I'd be an awful lot shorter if wasn't for Mr Brembo and his four pot brake calipers.
( HoratioFellatio Taking the the out of psychotherapist, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 12:53, Reply)