Your Car is Safer, It Just Seems More Dangerous

[cjforumadmin]

http://www.bangshift.com/blog/Your-Car-is-Safer-It-Just-Seems-More-Dangerous.html

[prlafayette]

Your Car is Safer, It Just Seems More Dangerous

The answer is to drive a bigger and heavier vehicle than the next guy. It is like the food chain.

The guy in the Prius may save the planet but the guy in the F-350 is going to win in any collision against a passenger car but probably not against the Peterbuilt.

[Schtauffer]

Re: Your Car is Safer, It Just Seems More Dangerous

How about the wingnuts that crashed a '59 Bel-Air into a new Malibu?

Jeez... I could tell you the results for a lot cheaper.

http://blog.cardomain.com/2009/09/16/crash-test-1959-chevy-bel-air-vs-2009-chevy-malibu/?utm_source=hp-exclusives&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=hp-exclusives

[38P]

Re: Your Car is Safer, It Just Seems More Dangerous

How about you learn to drive instead and then maybe you won't drive through the damn wall at all."

Amen!

The crazy part of all this "safety" is that its the products liability "expert" lawyers who veto the OEMs selling anything for the street with a competition-certified roll bar or roll cage . . . which would be something that actually would improve the safety of high performance cars.

I guess they're afraid that if they offer a factory-installed roll bar or cage in a street-legal Mustang, Camaro or Challenger, and someone dies on the race track or highway, their greedy relatives will sue. (The Cobra Jet drag car buyers are buying pure race cars and can be argued to have knowingly "assumed the risk." Besides, you probably sign a huge stack of waivers and disclaimers before they let you leave . . . somebody ask Brent Hajek)

Or probably the bigger worry for the OEMs is that NHTSA and the Naderites will declare cages as "state of the art" and start making them put cages in everything, which would give the Detroit bean counters and penny-pinching executives mass heart attacks.

But I'm guessing that there'd be hundreds or even thousands who would pay $1000 extra for a factory-installed NHRA/SCCA-legal 10 point in a new muscle car (and I think the factory could get the price that low with welding robots, integrated assembly techniques, and mass production). I know I would!

[Schtauffer]

Re: Your Car is Safer, It Just Seems More Dangerous

Until you bounce your bare noggin off a roll cage bar in a fender bender.

[Smack]

Re: Your Car is Safer, It Just Seems More Dangerous

Until you bounce your bare noggin off a roll cage bar in a fender bender.

Owwwwwee

[SuperBuickGuy]

Re: Your Car is Safer, It Just Seems More Dangerous

Until you bounce your bare noggin off a roll cage bar in a fender bender.

IMO the problem isn't so much whether or not the manufacturer would get sued for putting a roll bar in the car - rather, it goes contrary to the design of the crash systems. A car collapses on impact, thus taking the brunt of the force applied to the car.... roll cages are designed to work with the helmet, harnesses, and supplimental restraint systems that just aren't as convenient as the full surround airbags..... it really is the problem with the Smartcar - they have a full roll cage in the car - and it works quite well, except that if you're in the car your last thought will be "so this is what a baseball feels like when it gets hit by a bat"..... 45g force vs. the 7 to 9gs that a normal person can withstand and live so the car survives but you don't..... seems like a poor trade to me ;)

[38P]

Re: Your Car is Safer, It Just Seems More Dangerous

Until you bounce your bare noggin off a roll cage bar in a fender bender.

Owwwwwee

I wasn't suggesting an UNPADDED factory roll cage! (Anybody ever seen a Jeep Wrangler . . . .)

[
IMO the problem isn't so much whether or not the manufacturer would get sued for putting a roll bar in the car - rather, it goes contrary to the design of the crash systems. A car collapses on impact, thus taking the brunt of the force applied to the car.... roll cages are designed to work with the helmet, harnesses, and supplimental restraint systems that just aren't as convenient as the full surround airbags..... it really is the problem with the Smartcar - they have a full roll cage in the car - and it works quite well, except that if you're in the car your last thought will be "so this is what a baseball feels like when it gets hit by a bat"..... 45g force vs. the 7 to 9gs that a normal person can withstand and live so the car survives but you don't..... seems like a poor trade to me ;)

Are you suggesting that "crash systems" require DEFORMATION OF THE DRIVERS' COMPARTMENT? A car is more "safe" if the top is so weak it will collapse on you in a roll over becasue it deforms to "absorb energy?"

While I agree that modern cars are designed to deform in the front and rear clips to absorb energy, the integrity of the passenger compartment must be maintained to protect against injuries to extremities, crushed spines, head contact injuries, etc.

There is no way an airbag system would be LESS effective if the drivers compartment is protected from intrusion and deformation. In fact, the airbags would be MORE effective because they would not be "moved out of position" by deformation.

Cars that achieve five-star crash ratings resist deformation where the people sit. Cars that deform in the passenger area do not.

Given that street seat belts do not restrain as much as a good five or six point harness and helmets are not fashionable on the street, maintaining the most "space" possible for controlled deceleration of the occupants is much preferable to a flimsy cabin that deforms and collapses.

It should be pointed out that helmets and harnesses do not decrease the internal "g-loading" of a crash (which tends to be what kills you absent external injuries) . i.e. your brain and internal organs slamming up against your outer "shell." Consequently, if cages pushed g-loading over the edge, then the NHRA, NASCAR, SCCA, NASA, IMSA, ALMS, SCTA, ECTA, IHRA, IMCA, WOW and all of the other sanctioning bodies who require cages are REDUCING SAFETY. No one believes that.

Without actual instrumented crash data, both of us are talking out of our hats. However, my position is at least consistent with current safety engineering assumptions . . . and common sense!

As to how many "gs" a human can survive, I cannot agree with your statement.

"Human tolerances depend on the magnitude of g-force, the length of time it is applied, the direction it acts, the location of application, and the posture of the body."

1) Vertical axis g-force:
a) positive: untrained: 5 g; trained, with special suit: 9 g
b) negative (drive blood to the head): - 3 g
c) instantaneous: 40 g
d) deadly: 100 g (record: 179 g)

2) Horizontal axis g-force
"The human body is considerably more able to survive g-forces that are perpendicular to the spine."
Untrained humans:
a) pushing the body backwards: 17 g
b) pushing the body forwards: 12 g


3) "Strongest g-forces survived by humans
Voluntarily: Colonel John Stapp in 1954 sustained 46.2 g in a rocket sled, while conducting research on the effects of human deceleration.
Involuntarily: Formula One racing car driver David Purley survived an estimated 179.8 g in 1977 when he decelerated from 173 km?h−1 (108 mph) to 0 in a distance of 66 cm (26 inches) after his throttle got stuck wide open and he hit a wall."

Finally, if there's a "problem" with the Smart car, it's that there's no signficant crush space OUTSIDE OF THE DRIVER'S COMPARTMENT. In other words, the Smart car hardly proves that maintaining stuctural integrity of the "safety cell" is a bad idea. It merely proves that too much size reduction works contrary to the laws of physics in a high-speed collision.

[Matt Cramer]

Re: Your Car is Safer, It Just Seems More Dangerous

You don't actually want the passenger compartment to crunch up in a crash, only the parts at the ends. A roll bar could be built that would be both safe with and without a helmet; the trouble is most roof lines are too low to let you pull this off. However, I'm not sure it would help with most of the crash tests as you're more likely to see a car flip in racing than a street wreck.

The latest issue of Automotive Engineering International mentions something about the NHTSA being supposed to come up with "ejection mitigation" standards, as it seems there's about 52,000 cases of people getting thrown out of cars in crashes each year, particularly in rollovers. My first thought was, "Wouldn't it be better to just get 52,000 morons to actually wear their friggin' seat belts?"

[38P]

Re: Your Car is Safer, It Just Seems More Dangerous

You don't actually want the passenger compartment to crunch up in a crash, only the parts at the ends. A roll bar could be built that would be both safe with and without a helmet; the trouble is most roof lines are too low to let you pull this off. However, I'm not sure it would help with most of the crash tests as you're more likely to see a car flip in racing than a street wreck.

The latest issue of Automotive Engineering International mentions something about the NHTSA being supposed to come up with "ejection mitigation" standards, as it seems there's about 52,000 cases of people getting thrown out of cars in crashes each year, particularly in rollovers. My first thought was, "Wouldn't it be better to just get 52,000 morons to actually wear their friggin' seat belts?"

Of course, if you're putting the cage in at the factory, you could tuck it closer to the outer sheet metal and support structure than most retrofitters can, because the cage would likely be installed during initial body assembly and could be integrated into the interior trim. That being said, cages and roll bars do take up some extra space that will be noticed by some motorists (not Bangshifters)

I agree on seat belt usage. However, I've seen some information that suggests some ejections and partial ejections occur despite wearing lap and shoulder belts. Anyone who has seen the film of Richard Petty's rollover at Darlington in 1970 (Petty had a cage and a harness but was still partially ejected) can understand why poorly adjusted seat belts and weak roll over structures could contribute to the ejection problem.

Finally, although roll over crashes constitute less than five percent of all accidents, they account for more than thirty percent of all motor vehicle fatalities.

[bobby]

Re: Your Car is Safer, It Just Seems More Dangerous

Looks like they took a few bolts out ot the front end of that 59. Damn shame to see them waste the car

[Schtauffer]

Re: Your Car is Safer, It Just Seems More Dangerous

Here's the answer: save yourself from all injury in the event of a crash... who needs airbags when you have an ejection seat? :D :D :D