Hi all! This is something which I can find quite frustrating sometimes in leagues. Sometimes there can be an incident where two drivers collide where a certain driver is clearly at fault but continues on normally as if nothing happened and sometimes, some drivers let them past the next chance they can get to try and rectify their mistake.

Since I was a member of the CRC for sometime, one of the rules which I appreciated and respected was letting other drivers through if you passed them with an unfair advantage or nudging them so I try my best to do that whenever it happens but I've noticed many choose not to and continue to race on normally. If the league is run properly, then it becomes a case of the admin dealing with it as he sees fit but is it still entirely justified even then? Because from my league experience, a driver could nudge another off, causing the other guy to spin round and lose tons of time while the driver who caused the incident gets off with a +10 seconds added to his/her race time which may not be enough to allow the other driver to achieve a higher position than him/her due to the high probability of the gap being larger than 10 seconds.

So, how would you view a situation like this? It could be said that maybe a harsher method of penalisation could help resolve the problem but its not really something that can be easily calculated since there are varying degrees of contact.

It's not an easy question, I guess every incident has to be considered on its own merits. I am like you in many ways and like gentlemanly battles were it's not who wins but how you play the game. Real racing is much harsher than that though and is much more like a clash of unyielding wills.

Also you have to remember that in real racing the dynamics are much different as you have a pit crew and stewards, so you as a driver are not making decisions as who is at fault mid race but rather the stewards will issue a penalty if they deem it necessary and your team boss will most likely be in contact with the stewards appealing, if that fails you will receive a penalty which could be less than the initial penalty depending on how successful the crew chiefs appeal was. It is pretty standard for crew chiefs to instruct drivers to carry on as normal and even ignore black flags as they will be appealing, if their appeal is successful it means nothing if you have already come in for the stop go.

Now in sim racing you are asking the driver to determine who is at fault and issue his own penalty, my experience is that often when you think you are in the right your not. Also if you think like this as a habit you will more likely yield than not even if it isn't your fault. One of my biggest problems in sim racing has been being too much of a soft target, leaving too much room, being too polite - I've had drivers of similar ability or better berate me for be too soft and boring. So you can definitely take it too far.

I think there needs to be a balance, I personally will give back a position if I think it is 80%+ my fault but am likely to continue on if it is any less, I don't have any issue with another driver being in an incident with me and carrying on even if I think he was largely to blame (excepting of course blatant wrecking).

I would let the other driver past the next chance I get.
makes sence too as if you have respect for others, others should have respect for you

It depends on two things: whether I'm driving in a league - then I will continue and let the admins decide, and if I am unmistakingly at fault - where I will resume my position behind the other party... So both and neither answers in your poll fit me...

What bbman said. But I voted anyway. Silly me.

As I know overall rule is that you cannot take advantage of an illigitimate move. So if that was my fault I am to stay behind or let pass the other racer and start the battle all over again. If I was the driver bumped out I would report it in league to race admins I looked for time-penalty. As I dont race in leagues I report just a evident wrecker.
And sometimes when I see someone stopped in a crash I just give a bump ahead to get him in race

In the league I race in the rules are quite specific, and state that if you are in the wrong, then you must stop and wait for the other driver to take his/her position in front of you before resuming, even stating that if that driver warps to the pits, then you must do the same.

There are still instances where drivers do not redress the situation and the admin/judiciary are forced to make decisions regarding the incident. At this time it is important that a fair and just decision is handed out.

I think it is important that racers dont feel that they can cause an accident and take the gamble that the punishment handed out by the admin/judiciary will be less severe than if they had of stopped and redressed the wronged driver.

I do both things... but in public racing i always leave the other cars behind, cause no one ever stop or let me pass when they spin me out anyways so why bother? and if you get a BAN thats fine... there´s enough servers to choose from anyways.

In a league or on a server where the "mood" is right, i will however act differently. It all depends on the situation really, if i spin someone out so hard they get held up at the back or have to end their race i do continue, and i usually do a explenation and excuse after the race at the apropriate forum or ingame chat. And if the other driver decides to report it then its fine, let the admins set a penalty.

However if i just bump them off a bit, i let them pass instantly. And if they spin out and catch up i just let them pass.

It all depends on the situation really, sometimes its both or no one´s fault...

Quote from The Chickenman :

In the league I race in the rules are quite specific, and state that if you are in the wrong, then you must stop and wait for the other driver to take his/her position in front of you before resuming, even stating that if that driver warps to the pits, then you must do the same.

There are still instances where drivers do not redress the situation and the admin/judiciary are forced to make decisions regarding the incident. At this time it is important that a fair and just decision is handed out.

I think it is important that racers dont feel that they can cause an accident and take the gamble that the punishment handed out by the admin/judiciary will be less severe than if they had of stopped and redressed the wronged driver.

i dont really think that its a good system though. it basically makes everyone suffer rather then just the dodgy people. it eliminated close racing from the league because no matter what, someone was getting blamed for the incident and someone was getting all their points taken. Racing incidents are gone. Ofcourse you will be able to narrow it down to someone to blame if you are watching in slow motion from rediculous angles but they are just racing incidents.

If I stuff up a driver in a turn in public racing (hopefully I wouldn't be daft enough run into someone on a straight) then I'll always allow them to recover first.

In a league race I wouldn't expect a car to hang back on track if they put someone off, whether it was me doing it to someone else, or them doing it to me. In just about every league I've raced in the minimum penalty is a DT or a 30 second penalty, which should be more than enough time for someone to recover their car (unless it sustained heavy damage).

It might be nice to the one person you messed up to wait and let them pass, but it's a danger to everyone else to have a perfectly capable car sitting on track unexpectedly and unnecessarily. Please, if you hit me off in a league keep driving for the sake of everyone else, I'll definitely be protesting it if it's not caught in race.

The exception being "light" incidents where it's a matter of a second to allow the disadvantaged car to correct itself, or incidents where both cars end up completely off track. In these situations, even in league races, I would expect the guilty to wait for the car they hit off to recover.

If I do something unsporting and I gain position out of it, then I let the other driver back by. This happened recently in iRacing. I accidentally spun a guy on the last lap and I slowed to let him by. I sacrificed a win for it.

In real life, though, hell no. I don't intentionally spin people, and if something accidental happens and I win because of it, I'm going to take the win and maintain my "racing incident" position.

I would let the person pass only because this is sim racing. However, in karting (the only real racing I have done) I would continue on for the chance that it was not seen as my fault. If you wait, in karting, for the person to recover you will most likely get passed by 10+ other competitors.

Quote from legoflamb :

If you wait, in karting, for the person to recover you will most likely get passed by 10+ other competitors.

That's kind of the point of this question. If you disadvantage someone else (so that those 10+ other competitors pass THEM because of what you did), are you willing to put yourself that far back just so that one person you put off can re-pass you?

Like others it depends on the situation. If I know I am at fault and I can let the other driver back without killing my race I will do so. If the accident caused the other to get badly damaged, or into a place where he can't catch up to me easily, then I will continue on driving and say sorry after / deal with it after. This happens in real-life as well, it is very situational. (Although as mentioned in real-life a crew is being updated as to what the officials dish for penalties or not.

From the administrative side, this is a huge issue with the Head-to-Head system. The type of knock-out racing can be greatly changed by a little contact. Even penalizing the person at fault after the race, the victim of the incident walks away with less points than they may have otherwise. There were some very controversial races in the last couple of seasons. To have real-time judging of these incidents would be the solution, however I don't feel comfortable judging something with that importance under time constraints. Maybe in the future this will be resolved; but as it is I like seeing the sportsmanship that exists in that league, however there are times when the competitor should have continued going, faulty or not.

I didn't vote because there isn't a correct answer in my mind it is a situational issue.

If it was a real nasty one, I let them past but not if they rev it like 2 mins in the sand to get out. It's a nice gesture to let them go by, but it won't really change the fact you knocked them out, so unless it's a really nasty hit (without too much time loss) there's no need to be that kind on a race track.

Quote from lEl E Talon :

i dont really think that its a good system though. it basically makes everyone suffer rather then just the dodgy people. it eliminated close racing from the league because no matter what, someone was getting blamed for the incident and someone was getting all their points taken. Racing incidents are gone. Ofcourse you will be able to narrow it down to someone to blame if you are watching in slow motion from rediculous angles but they are just racing incidents.

Talon, there have been many, many cases in our league where it has been judged a racing incident by the judiciary. I would be keen for your to pm me any issues you have regarding our system, including your ideas for a better one.
Everyone please note that Talon and I have raced many time together, without any issues and I consider him a friend, this is not an attempt by me to shoot him down.

yeah mate I wasn't having a go ay I was just pointing out the issues I had with the system. There are drawbacks to every way to do it and was just pointing out one for that setup that always frustrated me. I thought racing there was great and once there is something in lfs for me again I will definetly be back. I just always found it frustrating not being able to take risks as much in a race because of the penalties for not pulling it off and this I felt took out alot of the close racing. Probably changed some since then but that was the issue i had at the time.
It honestly wasn't a dis on the league.
I think there is a great solution found in another game but that has to be implemented by the devs rather then the league.

I did notice though when I browse your forum every now and then that there are a heap more incidents just settled as racing incidents now where there were very few or none when I was there which is good.

An interesting penalty in past seasons of Road Sport Cup was 'let the driver by, or face being placed behind them in the finishing results'. So if the victim didn't finish, the one who caused the accident is also unplaced.
Bit harsher than +10 seconds

Continue racing on normally and let admin deal with it post-race.
Polite races do the first, real races to the one seen below. Depends on personality

Quote from pik_d :

That's kind of the point of this question. If you disadvantage someone else (so that those 10+ other competitors pass THEM because of what you did), are you willing to put yourself that far back just so that one person you put off can re-pass you?

If I might have potentially killed the other competitor I would stop immediately. If not, and my kart is undamaged, I would continue.

In the case of LFS, for along time now, I have not rammed anyone on accident or very hard. Unless it is a rear end tap on exit I keep my space while racing. If I end up putting some one off while racing side by side mid corner it is most likely a lag crash. In that case I would not stop.

Off topic:

Something I hate in LFS are those people who push their luck racing too close side by side with a lot of light contact even on the straights and braking zones. Eventually lag puts me in the dirt in the braking zones/the person complains that I crashed them, or we both get taken out of the race and they complain that I took us out.

Leaguing, if it's something I can quickly rectify without disturbing other parties on track I'll do it if I think I'm at fault. Otherwise, close calls or something really bad I'll just drive on and let the admins handle it.

Public servers, mostly depends on what mood I'm in with the relative carnage but I usually try to be pretty nice about my mistakes.

Sometimes its hard to understand that it was your fault.But if i can see that the one to blame is me,i ofcourse let the ''victim'' pass.

Thats the only way sim racing should-could work i think!

Its more important for me to be respected rather than to gain 1 position.

If I cause an accident, I always slow down, let everyone pass them and meanwhile I talk to the one I crashed and say sorry and so on.
Then I carry on as normal.

So by making him crash (my fault then) I lost more than I gained on it.