Nader Fotouhi

Many more people die crossing the street than racing on the track!

Today's cars are the safest that cars have ever been. But, just because a car can reach 200 mph, it does not mean that I-95 or back side of your neighborhood is the place to test what it can do.

I also know of a number of people, including my wife who have suffered various injuries including broken bonwes in a fully prepared race car. Good judgement is better safety equipment on the street than any safet equipment from a race car. Just my 0.02

Allen

I think this is the key point.....

davePorsche

all interesting information.. keep it coming.. happy to hear the consensus is that these are pretty solid safe cars for the road..

Curious -- anyone have any hard evidence as to how long an air bag lasts ? i thought that might come up..

i have seen plenty of cars with rear roll cages that DE/augo x .. and many large brands sell them.. I never thought of it as a liability for daily driving. Is it kind of a toss up .. probably saves you some pain if you get hit from the rear or rear side. possibly hurts you if you roll over ?


this is what i was looking at when i wrote the original post.. just guessing what might have helped these people.. pretty easy to see that despite best intentions plenty of 911's end up in a bad spot..

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...ures&FORM=IGRE

Seamless

So I assume we can conclude that for the street, the safest setup is:

-An educated, experienced, alert, sober driver
-A properly maintained and serviced car. Modifications should be directed at improving performance on the street (ie tires, brakes, suspension) without sacrificing drivability on the very diverse road conditions we encounter.

nile13

OP, try to understand why rollbar is there. It's not really to protect you from a rear end collision. It's there to protect your head when the shiny side of the car ends up on the bottom.

I would argue that having the stiff rear cage would actually be detrimental in a rear-end collision. the car is designed to fold in case of an accident (yes, I know that older cars didn't really have crumple zones on the rear). That folding actually absorbs a lot of energy that would otherwise be transferred to the driver, causing severe internal organ injuries. Having the stiffest possible back of the car simply means that your corpse would look nice and undamaged on the outside in case of serious hit from behind.

nile13

There's one more thought that I think is important. Dave does not seem to take into consideration the "why" of the track safety equipment.

Simple question to ask yourself - how often have you seen a serious rear-ender on the track? Vs. how many times you've seen race cars ending up upside down (especially before NASCAR came up with flaps). This is just one example. Just take for granted the fact that track accidents are not really related to street accidents, thus safety equipment is different. Heck, the entire race car is different. For that same reason. And you would not want to drive a race car on the street. For, among other things, it would be completely unsafe there. Odd, eh?

kjr914

Dave,
That's like reading the obituaries and thinking "Wow, everyone is dying, I must be next".

Without knowing what happened to the driver/passenger in each of these, this is borderline useless. It only proves, yes, cars crash. As bad as they look, some of these are "walk away", and you are mixing race cars with street cars (different animals as pointed out above).

" plenty of 911's end up in a bad spot.." and even more Civics, Volkswagens, Camerys due to their larger production numbers....are you looking for a rollbar for the wife's car too? (Rhetorical question) These cars had to meet crash test requirements just like other cars. Just because our cars are "small" don't think "unsafe".

davePorsche

good point kjr914 ! i am not like freaked out by this or anything. There are page after page of modification posts -- to go faster - track - de - repair -etc. but not any i could find on regular safety for regular driving.. so thought it was interesting.

my wife drives a highlander every day so i can see how jumping out of that into the 911 gives her a very low to the ground small feeling.

i am a little torn though.. not saying anyone is right or wrong .. everyone entitled to their opinion.. but i find it odd that it doesnt seem safer to have a rear roll cage in the car on the street. seems that would be heavily discussed for guys prepping street cars for auto x and i had never heard these opinions before .so basically.. glad i asked .. and open to all information as i decide how to do this.. i dont track my 911 .. i do track a 912 and vw r32 and they are in different stages of track prep.

nile13

Autocrossing does not require roll bars for any car that can even remotely be driven on the street. HPDE events do not require roll bars fro non-convertibles.

I took my rollbar out of a CSP car. Because autocross cars don't flip and because it's 40 lbs of extra weight in a very wrong place. On the other hand, I've stopped using shoulder harness as you can't use it safely in a convertible without rollbar.

NC TRACKRAT

nile13, don't mean to be argumentative but I have seen cars roll at autocrosses. Not many, mind you but it can happen. I actually witnessed someone get killed at an autocross in Knoxville, TN and a couple got killed on a TSD rally I competed in near Tullahoma, TN back in the early '60's. Really puts a damper on an event when poop like that happens!

nile13

I have no doubt that an autocross car _can_ roll occasionally. In 14 seasons of fairly heavy autocrossing (let's say, about 250 events which would amount to 2,000 total runs by 80 cars on average or 160,000 runs) I have not seen a car flip locally. I do know that 1 Lancer flipped on a day I've decided not to attend back in 2005 or so. No big deal, it ended on the side, 1 broken arm.

So, can they flip? Yes. Can they do barrel rolls after like they can on a track by going two wheels off? No. In other words, it's a survivable accident even with no rollbar. We do wear helmets for some reason although I have not figured yet why

I'd think the chance of being killed at autocross is significantly higher for (sleeping) corner worker than a driver. Than again, we run at an old airfield, which means no curbs, trees, fences or other hazards. Which, again, brings back my point of horses for the courses. Based on above venue and my stiffly sprung ca I do not think it's trivial to roll it so I took the bar out. For a rally... I'm constantly amazed that a few people are not killed at each event. That's a rough sport. I did a few in Europe in an old 5-series BMW and came to a conclusion that I, personally, need a safer environment, thus I'm back to autocross.