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

[andys]

The original post was a discussion of the safety of a 914 rather than how competance plays into that scheme. There will always to be, and will continue to be situations and circumstances where driver competance has no effect on the outcome. The car however CAN have an effect, and that's what I think Pete is focussing on. I don't mean to be abrupt, so appologies for that if that's how it seems.

You may consider yourself a good driver displaying good judgement and road skills, but the "victim of circumstance" potential will always be there so we rely on the car to help us survive.

Andys

[horizontally-opposed]

The original post was a discussion of the safety of a 914 rather than how competance plays into that scheme. There will always to be, and will continue to be situations and circumstances where driver competance has no effect on the outcome. The car however CAN have an effect, and that's what I think Pete is focussing on. I don't mean to be abrupt, so appologies for that if that's how it seems.

You may consider yourself a good driver displaying good judgement and road skills, but the "victim of circumstance" potential will always be there so we rely on the car to help us survive.

Andys

Exactly.

I am a HUGE proponent of driver training, and have benefitted from more training than I am sure anyone would care to hear about plus AX, track time, club racing, vintage racing, and LeMons racing (doesn't get much hairier than LeMons...). Learned a lot in all of it, as well as volumes in LeMons before deciding it was too, uh, wild for me and my sensibilities. I too have been very, very "lucky" on the road over the years and tend to move along invisibly (but usually quickly/efficiently) and drive extremely defensively. That said, living in San Francisco for a decade taught me to drive not aggressively (have never liked being in the car with those who do) but assertively. I want people to KNOW what I am up to, but it doesn't have to be done rudely. I see the horn as part of active safety, and don't care if I annoy someone a bit from time to time. Pretty sure I've saved the 914 (and other cars) dozens of times thanks to a hand ready on the horn BEFORE I needed to push the button when that subtle "something" told me the other driver was about to do something stupid.

But I really didn't want to get into driving resumes and talk about being a safer driver. The former usually gets ugly (though it hasn't here), the latter is obvious. Well, maybe not obvious enough.. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

No, the point of this thread is for that ice patch, for those idiots who dive-bomb brakes the right hand turn to a point PAST the limit line (he knows he'll stop, but you don't), etc. For the variables AFTER you've done your all as a driver. Or, AFTER you, as a smart, responsible, and safe driver have made a mistake. We are all capable of them. If we can prevent one 914worlder from adding something that could cost them dearly on their "off" day, then we'll be onto something. I'm already seeing good feedback, if nothing else then on how NOT to make our 914s more dangerous.

Now, like JP, I need to go knock on some wood.

pete

P.S. And Eric is right, it was MB that first did crush zones, thanks to the brilliance of Bela Barenyi, the father of passive safety -- and a man who has done more to save more lives than a great many advocates of worthy causes to preserve and protect human lives. Let's see if we can take his example and, in some small way, maximize the lessons our 914s learned from his ground-breaking idea.