mitch236

That's exactly what I feel. I never claim to have any answers and so, like so many of us, I rely on the experts to help me with my decision. Whenever I see a F1 drivier climb out of his shunted car, I see a HANS device. Now I don't necessarily trust NASCAR but I do have alot of confidence in F1 which is supposed to represent the pinnacle of engineering and who take pride in safety.

I wish the Isaacs device all the best. I hope headrestraint.org becomes all it can be. Maybe this is a job for the Snell foundation? That would make the most sense to me.

For now, I wear a HANS. I am not married to it and will switch in a second if something else proves superior. Truth is, everyone should wear something. Then again, everyone should have at least a proper race seat with head fences but I don't see that happening so soon. Folks are still arguing whether to use harnesses with stock, integrated headrest seats. Go figure....

RedlineMan

Mitch;

Your last post contains a lot of interesting fodder for discussion.

- You're impressed with F1. The HANS was really refined for use in such a cockpit. With very high sides and close proximity, the HANS will be restrained in lateral motion automatically. In this environment, it is at its best. When it is removed from that restrictive environment is when it starts to become of variable effectiveness.

- You mention seats with head fences, or halos. These are a good thing, but not on their own. Simply having a seat with head retention without retaining the shoulders equally is a dangerous prescription, probably just as bad as the reverse. For that reason, everyone should only look at FULL containment seats. MOST combinations of partial containment are NOT a good idea.

There are old style NASCAR "rib crushers" with nothing else. These are awful because it is in the shoulders where the upper body mass resides, and where the torso will need retention. There are wing seats with halos. These are lousy too because the wings may seem good driving around, but they won't do squat in an impact. Keep your head in place but let your torso go under? Nope.

The only single aspect containment seat that works is one with shoulder containment. stop the shoulders and the rest below it stops as well. These also reduce head/neck loads as well.

- Harnesses with OE seats do present problems. Dumping of the belts is a real issue. The key break point is whether this setup offers enough other advantages to overcome this potential dissadvantage. At the least, I would like to see everyone be aware of this point so that they may make an INFORMED decision.

kurt M

I would rather a "green" device that saves my life roughly or to a lesser percentage than the refined one than to wait for a better one and eat the dash in the mean time. There are a lot of folks that are walking, talking and still breathing due to the early bags. Same goes for anything else safety related. If there is an improvement you cannot discount it. All systems can be made better than they are now and it is incumbent upon us to do just that. Refine, improve or completely change for the better.

Chrysler corp. and Lee Iacocca was the biggest detractor to the air bags and the irony of it is they went on to be one of the hot selling points to Chrysler cars. Air bags made Chrysler money in the long and short run and put them back on the map. Safety is the most commonly used sell point for them and he was one of the biggest obstacles to air bags in the beginning. I remember him sitting in front of Congress making a case that air bags would cost too much and Americans would not want or be willing to pay for them. He is one of the reasons that other systems were used for a time,. Remember the seatbelts that moved back and forth above the door? They were a fought for compromise and were about as useless as they were despised. They had a habit of hooking you on the chin as you tried to get out of the way when you opened the door and many were just disabled.
Added to the minivan, airbags saved his co. as well as many lives. He went on to make TV and print ads spouting on and on about how Chrysler is looking out for you and making safe cars just because they care about you.

Larry Herman

I got off the fence before this past season and bought 4 R3 devices, one for me and one for each of my 3 sons. And if it becomes proven that there is a vastly better solution out there, I'll dump all 4 and buy 4 of what ever works. IMHO Hans, Isaac, or R3, you'd better be using something because BSF or even survivable major neck damage are real issues. Saving money on safety is a false economy.

Z-man

For those of you just joining this thread, what Larry says above pretty much sums up the past 22 and a half pages of discussion. Especially the 'saving money on safety is a false economy' part.

Well said, Larry! Thanks!
-Z-man.