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

jalopnik.com

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

#71

Post by intricatedetail »

tomcooks wrote: post #57
rhacker wrote: 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.

What purpose does it serve? Is it to make people transporting harvested organs use Lambos?

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

#72

Post by eganist »

qchris wrote: post #5
eganist wrote: post #3

For years I had this concept in mind of deploying a fleet of supercars across hospitals around the mid-atlantic as rapid organ shuttles, but quick research made it clear that the idea would probably only be practical in a limited spread of circumstances, more limited than would make sense to justify the service. Still, if there's a job I'd love to do, it'd probably be this.

I wonder what the stats would be on risk for regular transport. I've often heard that for many "dangerous" jobs, the actual most dangerous part is literally driving to and from the site. I'm assuming that even without needing to worry about the speed limit, the sheer requirement of needing to deal with other (occasionally very stupid) drivers, high speeds, and environmental considerations (you don't get to pick when…

This is true, though for what it's worth, one of the advantages emergency vehicles have is the sheer variety of tools they can use to get attention - and compel others to create a path forward.

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

#73

Post by emteycz »

tomcooks wrote: post #69
Arech wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Night is hardly a good moment for a highspeed race. Very poor visibility (extremely easy to outrun car's lights), but even if a race happens on a nicely lit highway, there's no protection from wild life that are more common in night time.

At night every moving object on a high speed highway has lights that make them more visible, wild life is fenced off the road and there are just a few vehicles. Bonus points: no trucks at night.

I see you never went 200+ km/h at night. The reality: It becomes impossible to recognize whether it's a car or a truck or a bike or nothing above 200. I regularly drive 260 on the autobahn like many people do, but evening is the slow-down moment for most of us. The risk of wildlife is extreme at these speeds, too, fencing does not exist and/or has holes. Trucks drive at night a lot, and you can't see the properly at night; at these speeds, trucks that are side by side can appear like one being behind the another - very scary experience when you realize the reality (usually only ~30 meters behind).

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

#74

Post by detritus »

marmaduke wrote: post #39
chmod775 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On highways in Europe it is illegal to pass on the right, meaning that the fastest-going vehicles are supposed to be in the leftmost lane. On top of that you're supposed to switch back into the right-hand lanes if they're empty. Taken together this means that you can generally go pretty fast in the leftmost lane.

That’s the theory perhaps. The practice OTOH would disappoint.

Yeah, having driven on Italian motorways - my experience is the exact-opposite of what the law supposedly encourages.

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

#75

Post by lmilcin »

rhacker wrote: 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.

The only way it could be worse is if they had actual helicopter filming this.

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

#76

Post by [deleted] »

emteycz wrote: post #73
tomcooks wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At night every moving object on a high speed highway has lights that make them more visible, wild life is fenced off the road and there are just a few vehicles. Bonus points: no trucks at night.

I see you never went 200+ km/h at night. The reality: It becomes impossible to recognize whether it's a car or a truck or a bike or nothing above 200. I regularly drive 260 on the autobahn like many people do, but evening is the slow-down moment for most of us. The risk of wildlife is extreme at these speeds, too, fencing does not exist and/or has holes. Trucks drive at night a lot, and you can't see the properly at…

[deleted]

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

#77

Post by lmilcin »

tomcooks wrote: post #69
Arech wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Night is hardly a good moment for a highspeed race. Very poor visibility (extremely easy to outrun car's lights), but even if a race happens on a nicely lit highway, there's no protection from wild life that are more common in night time.

At night every moving object on a high speed highway has lights that make them more visible, wild life is fenced off the road and there are just a few vehicles. Bonus points: no trucks at night.

At 220 there isn't much you can do if something shows up at the limit of your beams or if somebody decides to change lanes at a wrong moment.

You are effectively giving away your life to the clueless people driving in front of you and also to the fact there is absolutely nothing obstructing the road.

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

#78

Post by jpcooper »

chmod775 wrote: post #27
dvdbloc wrote: 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

On highways in Europe it is illegal to pass on the right, meaning that the fastest-going vehicles are supposed to be in the leftmost lane. On top of that you're supposed to switch back into the right-hand lanes if they're empty. Taken together this means that you can generally go pretty fast in the leftmost lane.

You are wrong. In the U.K., which drives on the left and is in Europe, it is not expressly forbidden to undertake (pass on the left) anywhere, including motorways. This is independent from the legal requirement to remain in the left-most lane if possible.

On designated one-way streets, and thus not on motorways, passing on either side is expressly allowed. Of course, reckless undertaking at high relative speed on the motorway may be interpreted as illegal under other more widely encompassing laws.

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

#79

Post by theBobBob »

In Ireland there is a charity called Blood Bikes (http://bloodbikes.ie/) where people volunteer to quickly transport somewhat urgent medical supplies including blood (hence the name), test samples, medication, medical files etc. They don't do organ transport though. I presume that is still generally done by the ambulance service.

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

#80

Post by tutfbhuf »

rasz wrote: post #59
tutfbhuf wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, but I would also like to consider the prep time + starting and landing. So lets assume, you call an helicopter pilot and a lambo driver at night up out of their bed, both lets say 20 km far away, in the middle of the night. For this distance I would bet that the lambo driver would be faster.
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