Your invitation to an intelligent discussion on vintage Porsche safety, Or random thoughts and a lot of questions, anyway.... Options

[horizontally-opposed]

The current post about r_towle's son and his close call with his 914 and a tree has been weighing heavily on me. It has also reminded me why it's important to be thankful to those who engineered the cars so well so long ago.

I posted the below in that thread in response to pictures of a race car with a ton of tubes in the floor to prevent intrusion, but think the subject probably deserves a thread of its own, and that it belongs in the Garage for several reasons, but mainly so the maximum brain trust can have its input. What we need is experienced minds, willing to think unconventionally about how to maximize our chances in the event of a collision on the road, track, or autocross.

I'm not sure I see roll bars as the solution, especially for street cars (and ESPECIALLY if it means your head is next to a nice, über hard bar), but I sure am willing to listen. Anyone who has experience with real crash testing or knowledge of applicable physics would be especially valued here.

Now, to my original post:

As to the bar-laden floor in the race car pictured above, it certainly looks like it will be harder for things to intrude into the cabin in the (let's hope VERY unlikely) event of an impact like the one seen in this thread.

However, one has to wonder if the energy absorbed by the 914 in this instance didn't play a part in preserving the lives of the two kids in the 914. Its "give" took a big chunk of the wallop out of what those kids would have experienced had there been rigid bars there, and the result (I suspect, but you'd have to do an extensive study to find out) was that their necks were subjected to a slightly lesser impact and their internals didn't have to slow down quite as quickly.

If the tree or pole had entered the cockpit a couple of feet back, it would have been a different story, of course. This demonstrates the erratic nature of car "accidents" and the difficulty (impossibility?) that faces engineers as they try to protect occupants. I think about the C-GT fatality in Fontana (having driven a C-GT there just before it happened...) and what killed those two was a side impact in which nothing intruded but the car simply came to a stop too quickly, too instantly. Their necks' didn't have much of a chance, if any. I sometimes wonder if they would have done better without helmets.

I've been thinking a lot about safety of late, and very unconventionally. Not so much because I think we should ditch helmets, HANS devices, etc., but because I think we should really be considering the lessons learned in production-car crash test engineering and how they might be adapted for race cars. Good seats are another key, and I agree with Patrick Long that we should modernize old race cars with modern seats, and wear HANS with helmets out there (extra weight of the helmet makes things tougher on your neck).

Problem is, all this is expensive, and I've seen very little discussion about how HANS or similar devices work without harnesses, i.e. with 3-point belts. Which then makes me wonder if those who autocross are actually less safe in modern street cars with a helmet on. Airbags and full-face helmets are just one thing that come to mind...

This is a hard subject, but there are good lessons for all of us to learn as we consider it.

The best news is we aren't studying it in tragedy with re: to Rocket. And for that, I am very, very thankful.

So let's learn from this near miss together...

pete

[Cap'n Krusty]

I think about accidents and their consequences often. Like every time I open the newspaper. It occurs to me that far too much emphasis is put on hardware, and not on operator education. Far too many unqualified people have operators permits ("drivers licenses"), far too many drivers, both qualified and unqualified, fail to take the task seriously, and far too many drivers put themselves in unacceptable situations because of bad choices. Our society's group inability to accept responsibility and our government's eagerness to protect us all at no inconvenience to anyone, and without thinking the problem through, has put us where we are.
If you operate a motor vehicle unsafely for road conditions, the likelihood of having an "incident" (NOT an "accident") is far higher than if you practice driving as common sense dictates. (Why to they call it "common sense" when it's so uncommon?) If you're distracted in any way from the task at hand, you should not be doing that task. PUT DOWN THAT BURRITO AND STEP AWAY FROM THE WHEEL!
Cellphone, too, and that CD you're about to change in the CD player. And slip back another 60 feet from that guy's rear bumper. That beer you had before you left? Get a designated driver! Just 'cause you're not a .08, doesn't mean you're not impaired ...............

Just my 2 cents worth, The Cap'n, the voice no one wants to hear .........

[horizontally-opposed]

I think about accidents and their consequences often. Like every time I open the newspaper. It occurs to me that far too much emphasis is put on hardware, and not on operator education. Far too many unqualified people have operators permits ("drivers licenses"), far too many drivers, both qualified and unqualified, fail to take the task seriously, and far too many drivers put themselves in unacceptable situations because of bad choices. Our society's group inability to accept responsibility and our government's eagerness to protect us all at no inconvenience to anyone, and without thinking the problem through, has put us where we are.
If you operate a motor vehicle unsafely for road conditions, the likelihood of having an "incident" (NOT an "accident") is far higher than if you practice driving as common sense dictates. (Why to they call it "common sense" when it's so uncommon?) If you're distracted in any way from the task at hand, you should not be doing that task. PUT DOWN THAT BURRITO AND STEP AWAY FROM THE WHEEL!
Cellphone, too, and that CD you're about to change in the CD player. And slip back another 60 feet from that guy's rear bumper. That beer you had before you left? Get a designated driver! Just 'cause you're not a .08, doesn't mean you're not impaired ...............

Just my 2 cents worth, The Cap'n, the voice no one wants to hear .........

With you all the way down the line, Cap'n. I didn't have to parallel park or get on the freeway to get a DL. Re-diculous. I wonder how people would drive if they all had to ride a bike one day a week. Or just once a month. Around other cars. Or, hey, just have them drive a 914 in SF or LA or NY or....

BUT, I want to talk about the moment past that, the moment when all the right decisions and all the best sense can no longer protect you -- the moment when it really is the car that must fight for your life and surrender its own.

Because it CAN happen to any of us, no matter how smart, how good, or how lucky. You are right for saying the first line of defense is the BRAIN behind the wheel. But I don't want to get into a tangent about smart driving.

I want to foster a discussion that might prevent someone from bolting something into their car that might kill or hurt them when they thought they were adding safety.

And get all of us to consider carefully the possibility that bad things can (and do) happen. That alone should make us safer.

Cheers,

pete

[PeeGreen 914]

I think about accidents and their consequences often. Like every time I open the newspaper. It occurs to me that far too much emphasis is put on hardware, and not on operator education. Far too many unqualified people have operators permits ("drivers licenses"), far too many drivers, both qualified and unqualified, fail to take the task seriously, and far too many drivers put themselves in unacceptable situations because of bad choices. Our society's group inability to accept responsibility and our government's eagerness to protect us all at no inconvenience to anyone, and without thinking the problem through, has put us where we are.
If you operate a motor vehicle unsafely for road conditions, the likelihood of having an "incident" (NOT an "accident") is far higher than if you practice driving as common sense dictates. (Why to they call it "common sense" when it's so uncommon?) If you're distracted in any way from the task at hand, you should not be doing that task. PUT DOWN THAT BURRITO AND STEP AWAY FROM THE WHEEL!
Cellphone, too, and that CD you're about to change in the CD player. And slip back another 60 feet from that guy's rear bumper. That beer you had before you left? Get a designated driver! Just 'cause you're not a .08, doesn't mean you're not impaired ...............

Just my 2 cents worth, The Cap'n, the voice no one wants to hear .........

With you all the way down the line, Cap'n. I didn't have to parallel park or get on the freeway to get a DL. Re-diculous. I wonder how people would drive if they all had to ride a bike one day a week. Or just once a month. Around other cars. Or, hey, just have them drive a 914 in SF or LA or NY or....

BUT, I want to talk about the moment past that, the moment when all the right decisions and all the best sense can no longer protect you -- the moment when it really is the car that must fight for your life and surrender its own.

Because it CAN happen to any of us, no matter how smart, how good, or how lucky. You are right for saying the first line of defense is the BRAIN behind the wheel. But I don't want to get into a tangent about smart driving.

I want to foster a discussion that might prevent someone from bolting something into their car that might kill or hurt them when they thought they were adding safety.

And get all of us to consider carefully the possibility that bad things can (and do) happen. That alone should make us safer.

Cheers,

pete

Pete,

When I was 19 My car hit ice and slid sideways into a truck. The truck hit me head onwith me going 45 and him going 45 for a total of 90mph. My car was ripped in half. My girlfriend died on impact and I should have died as well. Now, to address the point, there will always be these kinds of accidents that will happen and there is nothing you can do about them. No driver instruction or car safety is going to prevent this. However, because of this accident I questioned my driving ability and decided I should have been able to save the slide. I went up to the mountains and found ice to try to save some slides. I found that is was near impossible to do so and moved on with my life. Now I am a big advocate for getting anyone and everyone out to the AX courses as everyone will learn from it. We do need to have more courses for people before they get their license. Autocross would be a great thing to have people do for a drivers education. You don't have to go all out but it does teach you about emergency braking and other things about your car that you would never learn anywhere else.