Drew_K

This is basically the structure required by SCCA and NASA for your racing license. As you get older, you are required to have more frequent physicals. Not saying it's right or wrong, just FYI.

Manifold

IMO, safety equipment requirements for DE shouldn't be overly strict, but there should be good education on the benefits and limitations of the various safety options, so that people can make informed decisions. Sometimes people don't improve their safety systems simply because of ignorance.

I don't think we should be mandating putting safety equipment in street cars of student drivers which compromises the use of those cars on the street. But, at the same time, instructors should always have the option of choosing not to instruct in cars they don't feel are safe enough, including fast cars which don't have added safety equipment beyond OEM.

fatbillybob

^^^^^^^
THIS!

Why do other people always think they know how to fix something? What is the fixation with finding a solution in search of a problem? There are no stats for medical events while doing HPDE or racing. Those events probably aren't any different for sailing or sex. What happened to promoting personal responsibility instead of mandatory age requirement exams of questionable value? Last year I was racing at Homestead. I flew all the way from California to race. I came in before the end of the Saturday race and the crew chief asked if there was something wrong with the car? I said "no the car is fine, I just got tired." When it is 90F ambient I don't race. 85-90F I will start a race with cool suit and coolclava but I may or maynot elect to finish it if I get too hot. Sometimes I have an off day. I don't race that day just because I paid for it. I have raced for a long time. One more or less race on my resume doesn't mean anything. Enjoying my day does...

AO

IMO, the fixation comes from the insurance underwriters. They want to minimize their exposed risk. If they cannot, then they will simply either increase their rates which may make HPDE insurance coverage unaffordable, or just stop covering these types of events. In that vain, I think the mentality to de-risk things is telegraphed to the affected population, namely us track junkies. We know there is risk associated with HPDEs. All of these suggestions are just suggestions on how to de-risk this activity. As I said before, there is no way to eliminate ALL risk. But there are some ways that will reduce risk more than others.

I personally do not believe a medical exam will accomplish reducing risk, but would rather shift the risk to the medical professionals who signed off on the person. It's very similar to tech inspections on the car. Some groups require a license mechanic to inspect the car, others don't. It may placate the underwriters, but those guys are pretty smart and will likely have some actuarial table to see if having a medical exam actually decreases risk.

One has to think about what are we trying to de-risk? Basically, there are threats of loss to property and threats to life. Let's talk about those independently.

Loss of property: This one is probably the easiest to deal with. First, there is the threat of loss to one's own property. Pretty easy here. Either you roll the dice, or you buy supplemental insurance. Then there is threat to other people's property. This is a little bit less black and white. If you hit someone else's car, current practice is that each party is responsible for their own vehicles, unless someone owns up to their screwup and offers restitution. If y ou damage other property (e.g. track features like armco), then often the track will levy a fine. In short, there is a system in place that generally keeps the legal system out of the equation. Far be it from perfect, but there is a system.

Loss of life/injury: This is the one that complicates things. I can say with pretty much certainty, that everyone who attends a HPDE, expects to go home afterwards in the same condition as they arrived. When an accident occurs and there is a loss of life or injury, that's when the lawsuits begin which is where the underwriters and the lawyers get involved. Minor injuries like a broken arm, minor abrasions, etc. are pretty easily dealt with IMO. What really complicates things up are serious injuries and death. Hospitalization is expensive, and no one wants to pay out of their pocket, so they will expectedly go after the party that "caused" the injury. Similarly, if a death occurs, the estate may also go after the party that "caused" the death. BTW, even in this case, I would say a slick lawyer can make a case for wrongful death in case of the driver, and in case of the instructor, well, that's even easier. And despite all the waivers that were signed, the classroom instruction provided, and all the safety equipment required, a significant accident occurred, and I would be very surprised if lawyers did NOT get involved, especially since PCA has quite significant cash reserves. At a minimum, when the insurance comes up for renewal, there will be a question to the effect, "In the past year, did a death occur at any of your HPDE events?" This alone may make the cost of insurance unaffordable, even for PCA.

Again, in my opinion, I think one way to reduce the threat to life and injury, is to reduce the number of people in any given car. I believe this will be the future whether we like it or not. I think students can effectively learn through lead follow exercises, reviewing video, and analyzing data. I was talking to a fried last night who said Ross Bentley won't ride with students and instead uses data and video to analyze and coach them. Perhaps he's more of a pioneer than we know.

Veloce Raptor

Does anyone remember Jim Fixx?

sbelles

While a DE session may not be as physically demanding as running the 12 hrs of Sebring, It can still be very stressful on the body, especially for beginners. Hell, I'm sometimes stressed in the right seat and I'm not doing anything. Enormous amounts of adrenaline alone can lead to an event if you have underlying disease that you don't know about. I don't know that a mandate for a physical for all DE participants is necessary but educating people certainly is and denying that DE can ve stressfull doesn't help anybody.

Gary R.

"Complete Book of Running", made a fortune, dropped dead running.. age 52

LuigiVampa

Here is the problem with personal responsibility - we are all in this together. If someone decides to play the fool and gets hurt or killed the insurance rates either go up or they get cancelled. I'm a libertarian at heart and hate telling others what to do as much as being told what to do. But there are times, for the greater good, when you have to introduce some minimums.

But don't worry - none of this will happen until the insurance company mandates it and at that point none of us will have a choice!

Veloce Raptor

Yep. In stellar and perfect health by every measure.

Manifold

But let's not forget that many instructors enjoy instructing in the car, and many students really appreciate and enjoy having an instructor in the car (as I did). Some of my most rewarding experiences in my life (not just at the track) have been while instructing. For many people, this student/instructor experience is an integral part of the DE experience. People choose to not instruct in the car for various reasons (some of which are unrelated to risk), and we shouldn't infer from those who drop out that everyone else wants to drop out too.

If we look at the available data for DE, the absolute risk levels aren't high compared to other activities like driving on the road, and it would be wrong to conclude that the whole system is fundamentally broken each time something bad happens. So it may be more practical to look for ways we can incrementally improve safety on a continual basis, rather than trying to radically reform the whole system.

stownsen914

I guess there are a couple ways to look at personal responsibility. One is that if you don't take care of yourself, your car, your safety equipment, etc, you run the risk of paying a heavy price. I'd argue it's not that simple. There's the possibility of another driver getting hit if a driver has a medical incident. People on the novice end of the spectrum may not be aware of all the risks they are signing up for, so may not know what preventive steps to take. They look to event organizers to guide them. We can't "legislate" safety to reduce all risk, but when situations like this come up, doesn't it make sense to assess whether it makes sense to take some additional precautions? It wasn't that long ago that no one wore HANS devices, and seat back braces were not in common use. People died. Some rules were instituted as a result. If you go further back in time, lap belts and open face helmets were the norm. Fortunately they are not anymore. Sometimes things change for the better as awareness is raised. And Luigi bring up a good point that those who don't choose the path of personal responsibility run the risk of making all of us pay - either in $$ or possibly in curtailing of some aspects of the hobby we all enjoy.

Would a health screening prevent all medical incidents? Nope. But it might prevent some. It's about risk reduction, not prevention of all incidents. If it keeps an instructor from being hurt or worse, or prevents another driver from being plowed into, due to someone having a medical incident during a track session, that seems to me like a reasonable price to pay.

Beantown Kman

Yup. Remember him and his books well. Very a propos to this discussion. Stuff happens. And when it happens at the track the stakes can be very high.

Lots of good points in this thread. I'm in the camp with those who believe we need to do a better job of taking care of each other out there. Less so on trying to enforce certain minimum health standards. Jim Fixx is a perfect example of why those standards won't work.

matttheboatman

This tragedy has opened my eyes. I'm re-thinking the safety status of my street car set up. Particularly as to the effect on the head of a side impact with a normal seat and belt.

Videos of Roebling crashes on youtube make it appear to me that an upsloping "burm" sucks as a barrier. And, I get it - surely it is better than the alternative with those trees just beyond it. All the green at Roebling seems inviting. Yet, now the cold hard armco barrier is making more sense to me. Not sure armco would have saved an unconscious driver nonetheless.

Collectively, contributors to this thread have a lot of experience with accidents and outcomes on track day. Bob's untimely and very sad passing has me really thinking about what tracks to run.

What do feel is ultimately the safest set up for a road course with a difficult turn; sand pits? armco? large runoff? open space?

apex32

Full cage w/ nascar door bars, window net and containment seat, etc. Most people are not running cars equipped to this level, however.

This thread is very sad, but a good reminder of reality. I began instructing a year and a half ago, and have never had to deal with these types of incidents the veteran instructors have shared. It definitely makes you reconsider sitting in the right seat, many of times in cars that have no additional safety but tons of power.

Manifold

The best scenario is to gradually slow down without hitting anything or rolling. If something is going to be hit, the car should be decelerated to the extent possible before hitting it, and the thing which is hit should be designed to absorb energy to reduce crash deceleration and/or redirect the path of the vehicle without too much crash deceleration (trees and unprotected ends of barriers are pretty much the worst things you can hit). The FIA has developed software for this type of safety engineering: http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ftpw010.html. By contrast, what we see at DE tracks often reflects no real safety engineering, because there are no established standards or regulations which compel track owners to get qualified people involved in designing their track safety systems; instead, you have people who are essentially laypeople making safety decisions based on their (often faulty) intuition and things they've heard. I have engineering background in this area, have done detailed safety reviews of several tracks, and have seen some appalling things ...