kurt M

kurt M

Restrained people are bendy too! What you feel when seated in the seat is far from what you will feel and what is seen during a G event. the H&N does not prevent your head from bending down and the top pointing at the impact point. If it did your face would try and extrude out of the eye hole or with an open face the strap would hang you. H&N systems manage the distance you head gets away from your shoulders. Your torso will come away from the seat in a frontal impact belts or not. The back plate will not have the seat back to lever against and the chest strap will dig into your made to be easy to compress rib cage. Without the shoulder belts holding the "T portion of the back plate the plate would simply move up your back. Watch the system in action in videos. The plate and chest strap help keep things in place before the impact. I think it is a good system just one that is given more than it is due.


Just remembered the case of a 911 that side swiped the blue bushes drivers left coming out of the toe of the boot at WG. Was during a DE and thus no window nets in use. Car had standard type race seats and belts. Car took a fair flat slap but was not totaled. Driver was OK, the drivers helmet had blue paint on it.

mglobe

42MPH impact without HANS


And with HANS

Sterling Doc

^^ Not a subtle difference! From personal experience, when I replicated a lawn dart flight path with my car in 2009 (flew over culvert and buried car's nose in soft ground -> endo), I had no neck stiffness or soreness whatsoever. Raced the next day in a rental 944. All thanks to HANS.

John's 991

Thanks Mike, that is a very interesting pair of videos, and clearly reinforces how the HANS (and probably other) restraints do help.

Regarding Glen's position that only cars with race seats, harness and HANS be on track, while perhaps ideal is not realistic. A lot of people like HPDE's and its a great way to keep people feeding into the car racing world. And there are a lot of people, myself included, that like to drive their non-race prepped car on track. While I would not push as hard in my street car as I would in the race car, the 991 is pretty fast and safety needs to be considered.

I have not heard back from Simpson yet, and am not sure I will. The question of the value of an R3 in a car with airbags still seems unclear. It would seem to me that it could only help, but it would certainly be nice to have some scientific proof.

Upstate101

Any thoughts on NexGen device?

Glen

I agree, it's completely impractical and unrealistic.

Until someone dies.

Then it's just stupid if you don't mandate it...42 mph...wow.

Instructors are a very courageous group for sure!

rlm328

The NecksGen is just a reincarnated Defnder. I had a Defnder and liked it a lot. In my opinion it is more comfortable than the HANS. Its one major draw back is the frame that holds the support straps. They are fairly tall and can interfer with helmet movement if you have a short neck. The helmet strap can take getting used to the HANS quik release is much easier to deal with.

Glen

Loold like R3 for instructing in 3pt cars, hans for harness cars for me then.
Many thanks!

mrbill_fl

I wore a collar when that was all there was.... in my many low speed impacts I thought they helped, especially in the side to side motion.

I wear the R3, w/ 6 points in my car, but also use it in the right seat.


Should I be concerned about sitting in the right seat of a stock car... even with the R3?

+ is that Leatt brace better than the R3 or issac types?

kurt M

That is a whole nother' thread. There are many ways to get hurt in a car besides a BSF. As instructors we have the existing (or not) safety systems and our selves as self preservation tools. One thing that is always in the students car is you.

Seems that many of the test videos that used to be easy to find are gone or hard to find and the one video sled test is all over the place. I note that there is very little body deformation in this set.

cds4402

Wow, those hans videos posted above are quite sobering. I've done two DEs in my completely stock Cayman. I'm probably going to do another one at the end of the year. Now I'm wondering if I should get an R3 or something for my neck.

Here's one for the instructors. If I'm an intermediate student wearing an R3 in a completely stock car, how are you going to feel if you only own a HANS device and can't use it in my car? Is that going to freak you out?

mglobe

Well do keep in mind that you are looking at what happens when you wear harnesses with and without a HANS. A three point belt is going to allow your body to decelerate at a lower rate, which it seems to me protects your neck actually better. You also have air bags, which like them or not, should help protect you.

This is not to say that additional protection won't help, just to point out that those videos really only address the case where you are wearing harnesses.

mglobe

Airbag video

cds4402

My wrist hurts just watching the video. It definitely looks better than a harness w/o HANS situation though.