[SETI20]

Another CRX crash

Car doesn't look too bad. Hearsay is he has a shattered hip and femur besides the obvious bruises.

A simple autopower street bar would have enabled him to just walk away.

 

[ComposiMo]

A simple autopower street bar would have enabled him to just walk away.

Not likely... it would have caused the car to not be quite as crumpled, but with a roll cage installed, such as an autopower, if it had ANY halo-bar, he'd be dead from hitting the side of his head on it, and if it has a door bar, that would be a long object sticking out away from the door about 1 5/8" from the door between it and his body... it would have been like hitting him in the side with a 2000lb baseball bat. He wouldn't have walked away.

The car did its job, and crumpled up nicely, and the latch did its job, and stayed attached even though all forces were trying to open it inward. I think everything worked out nicely in that accident the way it was designed to.

 

[mattminerDOTcom]

im ready to instlal demolition man style protection. secure foam for the win



[email protected]

 

[SETI20]

Well, a good halo bar is -well- behind the seat. But I agree that a full front care is real easy to squash your head in with.

However, I've seen several similar crashes with cars that had a simple cage that protected the passenger compartment more. I remember that tan colored crx (can't remember the guy's name) that hit a telephone pole at speed. He was up and about in a week, where without side bars he would have been killed.

A good seat and belts should go with the cage to keep you from flopping around.

 

[ComposiMo]

Well, a good halo bar is -well- behind the seat. But I agree that a full front care is real easy to squash your head in with.

However, I've seen several similar crashes with cars that had a simple cage that protected the passenger compartment more. I remember that tan colored crx (can't remember the guy's name) that hit a telephone pole at speed. He was up and about in a week, where without side bars he would have been killed.

A good seat and belts should go with the cage to keep you from flopping around.

"Halo" to me means the A-pillar bar that runs from the Roll Hoop (which is whats behind the seats) across the top of the door, and down to the floor by your feet... which the Autopower has.

Think what you might Bas, but i'll NEVER drive a daily with door bars and a halo... i've sat in them, raced in them, and built them... and i'm not naive enough to think that it is a safe thing to have there in a STREET vehicle.

Look at any good road racing cage (NOT Autopower)... they are designed to be hit in the side, and have bars that protrude INTO the door for protection. NOW, if he had a road-racing/NASCAR style protection bar in there, yea, he may not have been hit as hard, but those bars are nowhere near you, and they assume that the driver is secured in a full-coverage racing seat so that the body wouldn't go over that far. In a stock seat, the first thing that'll happen, is that your ass will slide over, and your full body will STILL get hit by the side of the car.... nascar-bars or no bars.

And before you say "well, thats why you get a racing seat and belts".... well, now we're not talking about much of a street car, are we? :rolleyes1: Been there, done that... sounds like a neato plan until you actually have to live with it on a daily basis.

Enjoy your roll cage.... i'm cutting OUT the Chromoly 6-point one that came to me in the chassis that i'm building for myself... 8)

 

[SETI20]

OK, that's not what I mean with a halo.
I agree that the front cages without padding and a helmet are more dangerous than nothing at all.

I can't find the roll bar/cage that I had in mind, so it's obviously not autopower. Anyway...

I think those side bars are too close to the shoulders. I think it going down straight to the floor, and a support bar to the front, but angled lower, would help maintain a bit more of the integrity of the car. Altho crumpling is good in dissipating energy. I would hate for it to crumple into me. I prefer some of that energy dissipating through the cage.

The so called "door bars" in the stock CRX don't do that much to begin with. We don't have them at all here in europe even.

You make a good point on the seats. But I've been using sparco seats for a couple of years now in my daily driver, and haven't regretted it yet.

Some of my passengers hate them tho. Did you know those seats can double as an "ass-o-mometer" as well? If you can't fit in my car, I can't take you home :lol:

I'm not talking about a road racing cage. But our cars are basically rolling sardine cans. Apart from using your damned eyes before you run a stop sign, how would you suggest making the passenger area a bit more crash resistant?

 

[ComposiMo]

Well, that roll-hoop that you pictured wouldn't do a single thing to save the guy in the red car any more pain than he already endured... if you look at the car, and where that roll hoop would have been bolted to, the door of the car still would have pushed in and shattered his hip and broke his femur. Actually, seeing as though thats all that happened in that accident, i REALLY think that the car did a great job protecting him!

You make a good point on the seats. But I've been using sparco seats for a couple of years now in my daily driver, and haven't regretted it yet. Some of my passengers hate them tho.

Different people have different levels of "pain" they are willing to deal with. Like A/C for instance... but i'm talking about realistic, not masochistic

Did you know those seats can double as an "ass-o-mometer" as well? If you can't fit in my car, I can't take you home :lol:

Actually, that used to be a justification that i used to use as well for wanting to put racing seats into my car... but then i grew up, and realized that it simply isn't practical... especially over here in the US, where we have heavier friends. You euro guys never eat anything for some reason, so y'all are skinny... haha! So while it would be great as a "testing gauge" for girls you're taking home at night, it wouldn't be great when you want to take friends for fun rides around town... :lol:

Apart from using your damned eyes before you run a stop sign, how would you suggest making the passenger area a bit more crash resistant?

I'd love to say that there is a good way, but there really isn't... unless you put an exoskeleton on the car... lol!

Look, if you're so worried about getting hit in a CRX, then maybe the CRX isn't the right thing for you. Its kinda like riding a motorcycle... you KNOW the risks while driving the car, accept them and move on, and don't do dumb things, and drive defensively.

 

[SETI20]

hmm...I think the protection level is a matter of progression.
Crash helmets have improved over the years... but cars are sortof at a standstill. Wich is the main reason I installed those seats for instance.
"Some" extra protection would be great.

Let's look at this example.

This is a so called 'street' cage.
Would you benefit from a design like this, if you were to mount the side beams to around hip-height?

 

[Dodo]

I would think that instilling one of those roll cages would make it really hard to get in and out of on a daily basis.

 

[ComposiMo]

Dodo: it does, and that is one of the things that makes it not really practical... but there are a lot of people that deal with it, just like the no-a/c analogy

Bas: That would be even more dangerous i think... now you've got the bar right near the hip, ready to slam into it and shatter it. In a racing seat, it may be worse, i dunno... the crash could be hard enough to run that bar right into the side of the seat, crushing you even better. But that thought aside, you have a neat cage in your car that you now wouldn't be able to use for racing... rules specify that the bar needs to pass by your arm between the area of your shoulder and elbow when seated in a racing position... so that wouldn't pass tech at any track.

I suppose you could say anything is better than nothing, but sometimes something can be even more harmful.

I don't think that car safety is at a standstill at all... they are getting safer and safer every day... but your CRX isn't going to progress obviously, and thoring a bolt-in cage in there isn't the answer if you wanted one i don't think. You want a truly safe car, you're probably driving the wrong one... a large Volvo might fit the bill for you though.

 

[SETI20]

Well it's those volvo's that I'm worried about sometimes! :lol:

I don't really care about track rules. But I'm wondering. IN case of an impact, is that bar really going to shift that much to be running in to me?
I'm not sure if I'm willing to put this to the test if it's an unknown. But you'd exbect a big fat hoop and tubes welded to put up a good fight.
Well... at los speeds like the crash above at least.

Not sure how much good it will do you at higher speeds.

I've seen CRXes hold up great in crashes.
Meaning- the car was FUBAR. But the driver was ok.
Some, like this one, posed more of a problem for the driver.

It's all in the type of crash I suppose. And especially point of impact. Side strength is terrible.

 

[Dodo]

The car in this crash seem to fair pretty well, it was the rescuer that cut up the car. Cant blame them, I'd rather be out of a car living then in the car dieing.

 

[mattminerDOTcom]

I already posted the answer, secure foam! thats all we need. someone just has to go develop it.

Im with john on the no cage in a street car though. My friend hit his head on a cage in his car and cracked it open pretty good. W/O a helmet, racing seat, harness, you wont catch me in a car with a cage.

[email protected]

 

[Kwicko]

I'm not talking about a road racing cage. But our cars are basically rolling sardine cans. Apart from using your damned eyes before you run a stop sign, how would you suggest making the passenger area a bit more crash resistant?

Step 1: DO use your eyes. Also your ears, brain, hands, and feet.

Step 2: DON'T run the stop sign.

As for making the passenger area safer in the event of a crash, I'd say if you're terribly concerned about it, you have to go all the way. Look at spec-built race cars, and their cages. The cage forms a "safety cell" for the driver, all of it built as far away from the driver's body parts as is possible. This includes gutting the doors and the interior so that you can get the side beams all the way out by the outer door skins. Once you have that safety cell built around the driver's compartment, you need to keep the driver from flopping around inside it. Race seat, five-point harness, helmet... all these are designed to either keep you from hitting the car, or to lessen the impact if you do hit part of your car in a crash. They're all proven technology, but as John points out, they're not terribly practical in a daily driver. Given that I'm not going to wear a helmet on my commute from work, I'd rather have my head hit the somewhat softer "sardine can" of my car's chassis than have it hit a solidly-built, unyielding roll cage bar.

Also, like John says, if you're overly concerned about your car's safety, you might be in the wrong car. I don't know about Europe, but Americans seem to want ever-safer cars so that they can do ever-UNsafer things in them, things like eating a buffet meal while talking on the phone while Googling porn on their laptop while looking up directions on their nav system while changing the playlist on their iPod while reading the paper while putting on their makeup while watching "Cars" on the DVD player. They'll do seemingly ANYTHING to avoid having to pay any actual attention to the DRIVING part of their drive. So while cars keep getting safer, we still manage to kill 44,000 of us on the roads every year. Seems like we need a bit of an attitudinal change about safety...

Mike

 

[Dilbert]

a large Volvo might fit the bill for you though.

That volvo might be pretty dangerous too! A lot of the new 'high end' cars have side impact bars that if hit correctly from the front actually work as a deadbolt and will be pushed back into the B pillar. The bars are so hard that the firedept cannot cut them with the Jaws of Life! So it ends up taking WAY longer to get you out of the car!

 

[downest]

Just a question, how safe is it to just run that 4-point bar in order to mount a harness? I'd like to have a harness just for autocrossing, and keep the seatbelts for street use. I've seen this setup in other cars, but none with a roll bar, most use the rear seatbelts, which is bad because I don't have rear seats (obviously) and also I don't think it's a good mounting point.

 

[ComposiMo]

Tom: Well one things for DAMN sure... without some sort of roll-hoop, racing harnesses are WAY too dangerous to use. "some" people think that just because it is an autocross car, and the speeds are minor, that any wreck you will have will be minor, and you won't roll over. When the shoulder harnesses are connected that low to your body, any forward-motion will result in spine-crushing motion. Also, if it rolls over, your body cannot deflect when the roof crushes in, and there goes your neck.

A standard 4-point is pretty much the only safe thing to consider for a street car, and it is the ONLY way to run racing harnesses in a car safely and properly. And if you are racing, a side benefit is that it'll be a roll hoop that'll be legal down to a 10.99 run if iirc... you could have removable door bars for the track to, like what we're doing with the Restoration CRX... it's got a 6-point cage, but the doorbars are removable for street use:

Although, with the right kind of impact, with no helmet, this can still be deadly... but much less-so than an actual "roll cage".

 

[downest]

I'm talking about using this:

And using harnesses only for autocross, and using the factory belts on the street. I have been in cars with 4 and 5-point harnesses and I really felt like the stock belt was better than the 4-point, I understand why the 5th strap is called the anti-submarining one.

 

[downest]

I guess I should add, I just want somewhere to mount harnesses for autocross, I could weld in a bar for the top harness mounts I suppose. I have been in a car with harnesses only, and I don't like it, you can use the radio/glovebox or shut up the radar detector.

 

[dohcrxl]

Also, if it rolls over, your body cannot deflect when the roof crushes in, and there goes your neck.

Yes, and as in the picture below... EDIT: uhhh pic no worky no more for some reason... NM