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Italian police use Lamborghini to transport donor kidney 300 miles in two hours

jalopnik.com

51–60 of 102 posts

Re: Italian police use Lamborghini to transport donor kidney 300 miles in two hours

#51
post #8

How is it possible to maintain an average speed that high on public roads? Even if you had lights on, you’d come up on people so quickly they wouldn’t be able to get over fast enough. And surely they had to stop for fuel at least once unless they have some special gas tanks fitted? Seems difficult

> Even if you had lights on, you’d come up on people so quickly they wouldn’t be able to get over fast enough.

You're going to have a bad time on the Autobahn if you think like that (which is not in Italy, sure, but "highway" etiquette should apply to both cases)

Re: Italian police use Lamborghini to transport donor kidney 300 miles in two hours

#54
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if you had lights on, you’d come up on people so quickly they wouldn’t be able to get over fast enough. This isn't the US. People aren't driving on the left lane just because they can.

I wouldn’t exactly hold up Italy as a paragon of courteous good driving.

If you know the rules of the game it's pretty courteous, if you swim against the current it's a mess.

Re: Italian police use Lamborghini to transport donor kidney 300 miles in two hours

#55
post #17

Definitely this was probably "fun" for the driver. But I do suspect something wasn't above board here. I know it was mentioned in the article, but the choice to not use a helicopter was... putting a lot of people at unnecessary risk. Which is pretty stupid since you're trying to save someone's life. Hopefully someone does this with a copter in the future.

> putting a lot of people at unnecessary risk

I assumed that since this was a police job that they would have cleared all the roads and intersections along the route.

Re: Italian police use Lamborghini to transport donor kidney 300 miles in two hours

#57
post #17

Definitely this was probably "fun" for the driver. But I do suspect something wasn't above board here. I know it was mentioned in the article, but the choice to not use a helicopter was... putting a lot of people at unnecessary risk. Which is pretty stupid since you're trying to save someone's life. Hopefully someone does this with a copter in the future.

It's a PR stunt.

Roads are almost empty due to lockdown, it's the police and everyone in front will move far away, it's a fast highway track.

Numbers have clearly been cooked so that both Lamborghini and the Police get media exposure.

If they wanted to do it fast they'd have done it at night and without cameras.

Re: Italian police use Lamborghini to transport donor kidney 300 miles in two hours

#58

Assuming this is real, it is absolutely reckless and just not needed for kidneys. They can stay on ice for 24 hours or longer. Nobody ever needed an emergency kidney transplant, thanks to dialysis. Even if a helipad wasn’t on the hospital any clearing would do. And if the weather was too poor you use an ambulance or special transport going at a safer speed, which would still get there with time to spare.

Well, how can I say this? Welcome to Italy, my friend. The country that gave the world Leonardo and Galileo and Michelangelo, and the country where these things happen, where a police force has a few Lamborghinis (I was overtaken by one, nearby Rome, ~15 years ago) that regularly travel well above 100mph even if it's not necessary, whose cost would cover several "normal" police cars. And a country where sometimes whe…

I love visiting Italy, and it's great to visit a country where the drivers—and everyone—have attitude.

However, when you come from a nanny state with Namby-pamby road rules like I do, it takes a bit of getting used to driving in Italy. The last time I had to drive from Genoa to Rome I was overtaken so often I thought I'd be better off with a low-flying jet despite driving at about as fast as my cheap rental car would go!

Mind you, that spirit it doesn't always bode well for the locals. Once in Firenze at a 90° T intersection with the road that follows the bank of the Arno, I saw that the traffic lights were out and stuck on red, so traffic couldn't veer off down the intersecting road.

Not to be outdone, mopeds and small cars just mounted the sidewalk and bypassed the red lights altogether (by going down the sidewalk they technically weren't going though the red lights (now where they?). Now, that's good lateral thinking but it would never happen where I come from.

Unfortunately, there was a huge ditch in the sidewalk some 10/15 metres down from the intersection that wasn't easily seen when one turned the corner. The result was that this enormous hole (almost a sinkhole in size) was full of busted mopeds and small cars!

Nevertheless, I give them 10/10 for ingenuity. ;-)

BTW, I saw this news report about the police using a Lamborghini to transport a donor organ on TV last night. There didn't seem anything unusual about the story (for Italy anyway) and Lamborghini had donated the car to police some time back specifically for purposes like that. Seems they did AOK and I hope the patient is doing well.

Re: Italian police use Lamborghini to transport donor kidney 300 miles in two hours

#59
post #17

Definitely this was probably "fun" for the driver. But I do suspect something wasn't above board here. I know it was mentioned in the article, but the choice to not use a helicopter was... putting a lot of people at unnecessary risk. Which is pretty stupid since you're trying to save someone's life. Hopefully someone does this with a copter in the future.

I wonder what would be the maximum distance where a Lamborghini is actually faster than a helicopter (assuming there's almost no traffic e.g. at night).

For most helicopters its around as far as it takes Lambo to accelerate for 20 seconds.

Re: Italian police use Lamborghini to transport donor kidney 300 miles in two hours

#60
post #8

How is it possible to maintain an average speed that high on public roads? Even if you had lights on, you’d come up on people so quickly they wouldn’t be able to get over fast enough. And surely they had to stop for fuel at least once unless they have some special gas tanks fitted? Seems difficult

"How is it possible to maintain an average speed that high on public roads?"

Seems you've never driven in Italy. Let me assure it's very possible. In fact it's just matter of fact!

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