rollbar / safety issues with harness (something like that)

[Eric Seppanen]

On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 05:08:17PM -0600, KIERAN A. LAVIN wrote:
> > Or are you saying a full cage minimum for harness use?

> A full cage in a street car would be a bad idea in the event of an
> accident.  I'm a *BIT* concerned with the rollbar in an accident on the
> street.  For example, if someone t-boned me hard, the other car's bumper
> might wrap around the rollbar hoop and catch me and pin me.  Ouch!

How is a street accident any different than a race accident?  A roll cage
is going to prevent intrusions into the cockpit from anything; you're
safer on the street, safer on the track, safer everywhere.  You're less
likely to get killed by collapsing bodywork with a cage; I think it's
pretty silly to try to come up with "what-if" scenarios where you could be
in worse shape when there's so many obvious ways your life could be saved.
(Besides, my definition of a "roll cage" includes door bars that would
prevent the situation you describe.)

The one big, big exception is that roll cage bars provide lots of nice
opportunities for you to smack your head into something hard.  Granted,
head-smacking into factory bodywork isn't fun, but roll cages and roll
cage padding are intended for use with HELMETS, and you should be real
careful that your cage padding is ridiculously safe if you intend to drive
on the street a lot.  I'm assuming that you would only use race harnesses,
even on the street, if you have a cage, because it becomes more important
that your head never reach the hard parts of the cage.