Roll Bar in a street car discussion Options

[Steve]

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This has been brought up many times before. It's a good reminder for idiots.. There's also another thread about driving on old tires or keeping the original fuel lines.
Darwin and Murphy are alive and well. If you install a non padded roll cage in a street car and use stock retractable seat belts, then you get what you deserve.

[DBCooper]

Why did my 914 become less safe when the distance from the rollbar to my head is no closer than the distance from the door-frame on my Jetta to my head?

I didn't say that Andy, you did. Re-read the first post. The discussion was about wisdom of adding a bar or cage to a street car, in other words modifying the SAME car, before and after. I have no idea about Jettas, but wasn't your Jetta designed by an engineer specifically for passenger survivability? Different seats and belts? Cabin crush differently? More and different pladding inside, all different materials? Have airbags? In fact EVERYTHING about the car acting differently in a crash? It's not as simple as clearance distance, your question is about apples to oranges, and the answer is 'who knows?' Which is why the discussion was about putting a roll bar into a street car and not why Jettas are safer than 914's. That's a totally different discussion.

I am profoundly confused by your logic.

You fully accept the margin of hazard in my Jetta but when i add something to my 914 that brings me within the same margin of hazard, it's instagib brainmush unsafe at any speed.
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Again, I never talked about Jettas. But by the same before/after logic if you did add a roll cage to your Jetta you're creating exactly the same situation with your Jetta, by reducing clearances. More hazard than a 914? I don't know, can't know, you'd need to talk to someone else about that. But more hazzard in the Jetta with the cage than without? Before and after? Yes, the same logic applies, and worse, if you block the Jetta's airbags.

My point has been that with that modification you're reducing clearances in THAT car, be it 914 or Jetta, which, by itself, makes THAT car less safe, before and after. In a race car you have a race seat, restricting movement, race belts, restricting movement, and a helmet, for exactly the type of impact described in the first post. If you add all those things to the street car along with the bar/cage then yes, safer. Without them the bar/cage adds a new safety hazard to the same car.

I didn't invent any of this, you know it all already because it's conventional wisdom. So is conventional wisdom incorrect? How is that?

[stugray]

Not really. Without a roll bar there was nothing there for their heads to hit. They added a bar TO THE SAME CAR, there was then something for their head to hit and they hit their heads. IN THE SAME CAR. They changed the car and the change made it less safe.

You are generalizing so much that you miss the fact that a roll bar is a SAFETY DEVICE in the first place.

The Same argument could be made about a fire extinguisher: "In an accident a fire extinguisher could come out of it's hold-down bracket and hit you in the head, therefore having a fire extinguisher makes the car less safe"

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.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) Exactly! I will trade the slim change of hitting my head against rollover protection any day. I actually HAVE rolled a car before.
I have never clipped a curb and nearly snapped my head off.

In fact could one make the argument that if the rollbar had not been there to stop their heads, both passengers MIGHT have had more serious neck injuries. You don't know do you?

[sixnotfour]

The End

They wonder the same thing Miata guys that is.....
Safety of roll-bar on the street - any hard data?
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&a...119745492,d.amc

[jeff]

At least everyone is enthusiastic about this discussion, really there's no easy answer to weather to cage or not on the street.. Personal preferance really, I've been a Firefighter/Parameddic for 20+ years now and I really wish I could forget about some of the things I've seen and had to work on,accidents never come out like you'd expect, I've had Honda car vs suburban where the Honda rolled the suburban over and killed the driver, I could go on and on with stories... I'll say I'd rather go with a well built padded cage than nothing in an old car like a 914.. The new cars full of air bags are much better now....