A few days ago in Barnet London in Nether St, just west of Moss Hall Grove there is a stretch of road where it is very narrow with parked cars and cars can only move along very slowly, like about 20 miles and hour.
We saw a small car like fiesta size completely up side down on its roof.
It seemed to have no major damage other than a dent on a front corner.
How is it possible to flip a car over when the possible road speed is so low?
small bunch of hooligans can easily roll a small car over. just lift one side and keep pushing.
No need for a bunch of them if it is a Reliant 3-wheeler.
a few years ago one of our much disliked teachers found his Mini on its roof on the last day of term. No CCTV and no-one admitted responsibility. Although I bet they really wanted to :)
That's tough but fair.
This goes back a long time... I remember that Niel Kinnock flipped over his new Ford Sierra on M4, it was said to be an aerodynamic effect. The 'new' Sierra was quite a sensation at the time as the 'jelly mould' design departed redically from the square framed 1980's Ford Cortina repmobile. Ford made some suble changes to the window frames on the last side windows, but hard to imagine that it would make a difference.
Probably just Kinnock's rotten driving. If someone is s**te at everything else, why should their driving be any better?
Did it flip? - I know he crashed one.
The facelift brought 'strakes' on the rear windows because the smooth jellymould shape gave crosswind stability issues.
But it's not that hard to drive on UK motorway. Maybe is was an airlock :) Everthing is caused by an airlock; that's what they always say.
The story was that Kinnock was driving straight on and it flipped over. He didn't hit anything.
Regularly used to lift the inside wheel of one on a sharp bend at the end of my road. I used to ride combinations as well as solos so I was fairly used to the sensation on left-handers.
A car which tows a load heavier than the car. Instability sets in, maybe a gust of wind. Instability amplifies and there is only one result: On the roof.
Not in my experience. Not that uncommon to see caravans on their sides but the towing vehicle seems to stay upright. It did for us. ;-)
Tim
I got caught out by a heavily rutted inner lane once, I was towing a car on a trailer using a small car as the tow vehicle, at about 40 mph the trailer started to snake, going up and back down the ruts, when the trailer wheels had air under them I knew I was in real trouble, I kept the steering dead straight and very carefully decellerated, I was very lucky and everything settled back down at about thirty.
go to about 2:00 in here.
the wheel twitching the driver did was exactly what was not needed, it actually increased the swerving around. As the vehicle on the trailer appears to be on the loose, that may have slowly moved back on the trailer leaving it tail heavy, or it may have been tail heavy in the first place, which is usually the primary cause of a snaking trailer or caravan (it certainly has been when I have experienced it)
I check the nose weight by trying to lift it, if I cannot move it, it is too much, if I need two hands and a good pull it is safe, one hand only and it is too light, you can also judge by the wheel arch clearance on the tow car if you know it well.
What we have here is undamped oscillation --> positive feedback --> catastrophic failure. Plus the towing vehicle was a limp-wristed Gaylander out of its depth. ;-)
Rhetoric licence! But there are surprisingly many cases when good modern cars end up on the roof when least expected.
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