Roll Bar in a street car discussion Options

[Scott S]

Hi All. I posted this over on Pelican, thought it might be relevant here too.

I know there have been many discussions on the safety putting a roll bar/cage in a street driven car. I am not a racer, so it really didn't pertain to me at all. However, yesterday I saw first hand the injuries that can occur.

16 year old girl driving her dads Miata with him in the passenger seat. There is speculation that she was driving on her permit, practicing for her drivers license. She was driving at a slow speed, simply making a right hand turn on to a side street. She clipped the curb - something we all have done. Curb was tall enough that it shook the car pretty good (again, speculation, but knowing the corner I would guess a wheel would have been bent and the car knocked out of alignment ).

Both are in the hospital with concussions, one of them needed several stiches from injuries caused by their heads impacting the roll bar.

I don't know if the dad autocrossed the car or what, or if the bar was just for looks. I do know the car had stock seat belts.

Scary stuff.

[campbellcj]

I occasionally take my car on public roads with the cage. It has racing seats and 6-point harnesses. The applicable tubes have SFI padding. Really, for what I do the main worry is a high-speed crash or roll, whether on track or on road, where the entire car and its occupants are in grave jeopardy. Therefore I'd rather have the cage's protection even with some small added risk of probs in a low-speed incident.

The same is true with my 997 and I'm seriously contemplating a half-cage/rollbar in that. It is purely a pleasure vehicle at this point and may see some track duty later. To me it makes sense.