After a crazy caravan day involving encounters with cops, getting lost, three near accidents, and someone losing a wheel on the freeway I decided it might be time to lay down some guidelines for a fun and drama-free caravan...

1. DOUBLE CHECK YOUR CAR THE NIGHT BEFORE
A lot of people use events as deadlines to finish certain work on their cars. Sometimes **** happens, but sometimes **** happens because you're tired, excited, or distracted and you forget to tighten a few bolts. Lugnuts, fluids, tire pressure, etc. should be checked the night before - twice. Treat it like you're going to an autocross or time attack event. Everything must be ready for maximum performance. That way in the wee hours of the morning when you set off for your destination everything is set and your mind is at ease.

2. LEAVING IN THE MORNING
For the bigger events people leave as early as 4-5 am. So when you leave your house, get out of there as soon as possible. People are sleeping and as much as we want to bitch at a neighbor for calling the cops just for people starting their cars, we'd be pissed too if we weren't already up with energy drinks in hand excited for the event. This is doubly true if there are 13 people all starting their loud-*** cars at 5 am and some dumbass is revving his engine. Be considerate and you won't have to deal with cops. Warm up for a couple of minutes at as low an rpm as you can and be on your way.

3. MEETING POINTS - LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION
Obviously big parking lots are ideal because of the volume of cars but not just any big parking lot will be okay. If you can it's better to be in places that would have absolutely no security, or minimal security. Shopping mall parking lot? Awesome, because no malls are open at 6 am. Grocery store or shopping plaza? Awesome as well because there are often no anti-loitering laws. Train stations, bus depots, and church parking lots. Not so good. Stay away.

4. DIRECTIONS
Whomever sets up the caravan is responsible for directions. Post the address of the caravan meet and the address of the event location. Also include detailed turn by turn directions of the route you're going to take from the meet point to the event. This way people can see beforehand what streets and freeways they're going to take in case they get left behind. Now some people will still not read the directions and that leads me to...

5. THE ACTUAL CARAVAN
When the caravan driving begins everyone is excited, blood pumping, engines revving, ready-to-go. So people forget a few things. A caravan isn't a race! There's no reason to plan for weeks to get 50 cars together so that the first three cars can ditch the rest and blast off to the event. The lead car needs to drive at a moderate pace and make minimal lane changes to maintain solidarity. The leaders need to know EXACTLY where they are going, and equally know that not everyone else does. Hit your blinkers early, get to the left of the freeway as soon as possible and don't change lanes until you have to use an exit (unless of course there's some super slow old person right in front of you). Once everyone is on the freeway, you've been through all the junctions and you're on the home stretch it's okay to open it up more but don't forget to let people catch up before you get off the freeway so the whole line knows where to go.

And don't drive like jackasses. A caravan already draws a shitload of attention and makes other drivers panic, so there's no reason to add dumbass driving to the list and give some douchbag cop who's not meeting his ticket quota an excuse to get his pen wet.

HAVE FUN!!

 

LA carvan I hope you read this!

I don't have a problem with driving fast on the freeway, I would just wait for everybody to be on the freeway and together before I do it.

 

did anyone get pulled over in any of the caravans?

 

We had cops blocking off the street while we were trying to leave in the morning because someone call the cops on us. Luckily they let us go...

 

It's pretty sad that people need to be reminded of such simple things that should be common sense. This time I drove solo to the venue and it was a much more pleasant experience than some previous years where I've joined a huge caravan of people driving like theyre in the Indy500.

Did people actually feel the need to rev their engines in a residential area at ~5am? Thats plain dumb. Heck, I think its retarded when people start revving their smoky-*** engines at Sevenstock

 

espcially if they think an exhaust leak is a p port!

 

that sucks i heard about all this. SO the guy who lost a wheel is more than likely because he forgot to check his lugs? did you guys all stop for him?

Yeah id be pissed too if the leader cars took off, was it the guys who posted a youtube video elsewhere on this forum? i met up with the rancho caravan without any directions and took my chance but our caravan was nice.

 

I went solo for this reason. I was the first FD in the lot and enjoyed my quiet time before everyone arrived. =)

 

to add to cleansolos rules/etiquette of cruising in groups. You guys could either have someone who sweeps aka last person in line. Sweeper stays in the back and makes sure no one fails behind or those who drive slowly, to make them keep up a better pace. Also those within a group should check one another out just in case they spot something that could be a risk.

 

you mean people aren't suppose to make 10000000000 lane changes in caravans?

blasphemy!


I stayed behind in our caravan (me and the 350z). Just in case someone fell off or had problems.


We were in the right lane when we passed the FC without it's wheel or I would've cut over to help 'em out. They were in the LEFT HOV lane. NOT a place to be stopping to help.


-------------------------------------------

I think caravans should run with hazard lights on. It'd help people identify members and keep other cars away from the caravan.

 

Yeah this is all too true. The humongous LA caravan SOMEHOW got split up so I slowed down to like 40mph on the freeway until the FD that was behind me at the stop light showed up (I kinda ditched him on the turn, leave it to FDs to take turns slow lol). After I get behind him because I have no idea where I am going he starts speeding off like he is trying to ditch me. After racing through the fog invested freeway following this guy who seems like he is trying to ditch me he gets off a couple exits too late because he didn't know exactly where to go lol. Luckily some FCs showed up and showed us the way....

On the bright side we all popped the clutch and did 180's to turn around. So all in all it was worth it.

 

Maps were posted in every LA caravan thread. so you fail noob!!

thats is not my problem.


Thank you for pointing it. I was leading the caravan so I drove slow to keep everyone together, ask Jaime. now shut the **** up!

 

i just tried to keep up, had no real problems on the freeway. it was fun and lets leave it at that.

lets all learn from our mistakes or the mistakes of others. and yes there were many maps

for those who were almost rear ended, sorry. that would have totally ruined the day.

 

^^ Man if Farkel would have gotten rear ended in the FC.... Game over man, game over.

..........Although I heard he got rear ended in the RV at Zero's house.
lol

 

Thats why he was so tired ha ha

As for the caravan, I think its just too hard to really keep everyone together unless we went the hazard light route. I think another idea would be to separate into smaller caravans. The main issue was just the light before the freeway.

 

the map thing is kinda odd concern ... b/c it's the big f**ing MAZDA building. You can see the thing from the 5 Freeway. You'd have to be blind to miss it.

I don't even know the exact exit and I've been 3 times without ANY map ever. South 5 to Mazda HQ.



Worst case scenerio is you follow the trail of RX parts and smog to Mazda HQ.

 

oh hell naw wtf

 

+1

 

Wacky, it makes no sense that you're taking things so personally. Though most of the experiences I was referencing from were from this trip and half of the stuff happened before you guys even joined up with us. But the point was to give guidelines from ALL my experiences to a bunch of different locations. Some of my points (such as the maps you we're oh so defensive about) were commenting on what people have done RIGHT. I intentionally left names out because I didn't think anyone was intentionally being a jackass, just caught up in the moment. So there's no reason for you to get so ridiculously overzealous about the sevenstock caravan like I was attacking you personally.

Everyone else can see it's just commentary on some common sense ideas that make the caravan
fun for everybody. And here you are telling me that you did everything right, other people are not your problem, and I don't know what I'm talking about because I don't waste my life posting 12,000+ times on some internet forum. You wanna be the big boy on the forum and talk **** needlessly? Have fun. If I remember properly I met you this sevenstock and I thought you were cool enough. Guess I was wrong. But since it's all about you anyway, how about this - go **** yourself. Get off on how much of a badass you are on the forum.

The rest of us can just share our knowledge, stories, advice, and enjoy in the community spirit of having a common interest.

Much Love,
Cleanseven

P.S. I'm not saying whether or not the guy who lost his wheel was at fault or not. I don't know because I wasn't with him the whole time. All I know was that it was unfortunate. Like I said sometimes **** happens because you weren't prepared, but still sometimes **** just happens. Hope everything works out with his car.

 

not being a bad *** but I'm just being realistic that there will always be "whinner" in every group and it just happened that it is you. Our group have been doing it a caravan for years and not having you will not make any difference to me. Life goes on and you should learn how to use common sense: read the first page of the thread and familiarize yourself and take notes. We're all adults here, not some punk kids.

now, watch these videos. you have no idea how many times I held back in racing against these slow *** FBs LOL

 

Farkel is the funniest mother ****** i have ever met. im still laughing at the stupid **** he would say. it was HELLA funny.

 

Y-nur. Spell it right next time, Gosh!

 

shiet

 

Wacky, why are you getting upset? Hell, I remember talking to you about just this issue-kids being clueless on the basic common knowledge we grew up with. The Costco meets saw a lot of the kids doing stupid **** and we actually stepped in before **** popped off.

 

hahahah... you said SLOW!!