Cage Time I Belive...

[mikeyde 1]

if you drive your car on the road hard enough to require a cage, then imo you don't belong on the road.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Im sorry "CB-Dave" but yet again i have to restate my point that you do not have to be "driving a car hard enough" to be in a serious crash. there are thousands of bad situations that a person may find themselves in whilst driving that have absolutely nothing to do with the way they have been conducting themselves on the road. I am sure a number of members on this forum will agree with me on this point.

 

I would like you to remember that i do not REQUIRE a cage. If you read through the thread correctly i simply wanted to know details about them as i am worried about the 205's levels of protection in a crash. I had seen a cage as a safety precaution, that now appears un useable due to issues concerning protective headgear, buckets and harnesses.

 

Thanks to all that could help me with my question sensibly , and not form the opinion that because i felt the need for a cage i must simply be a dangerous driver.

[rich_w 0]

Someone i use to work with knew someone who died in a 205 GTi doing a ton ish down the motorway.... (And lets face it, who HASNT down a ton down the motorway in a 205?)

 

You can always deal with the actions of other people on motorways unless you can read there minds

[Buddha 0]

I have buckets and harness's fitted in my car, which i would recommend everyone to do before fitting a rollcage, though personally, in my situation, i'd much rather have a rollcage fitted than not. with the harness' fitted properly there's no reason why my head should come in contact with the cage. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Ummm.. If you rolled your car in its current state, how would you go about ducking your head down as it went over?

 

Not sure I like the sound of that

[pug_ham 244 3 Cars]

Try asking mattcony (old forum member) if he'd agree with you. He had a rather nasty accident in his 1.9 turbo technics over in france, lets just say he wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for his cage. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Simmy, Matt's crash wasn't in France, it was up in either Lancashire or Yorkshire on his way home before heading to Elvington (which he never made).

 

There are plenty of topics discussing this, just finding them is the hard part.

 

Graham.

[Guest CB-Dave]

Im sorry "CB-Dave" but yet again i have to restate my point that you do not have to be "driving a car hard enough" to be in a serious crash. there are thousands of bad situations that a person may find themselves in whilst driving that have absolutely nothing to do with the way they have been conducting themselves on the road. I am sure a number of members on this forum will agree with me on this point.

 

I would like you to remember that i do not REQUIRE a cage. If you read through the thread correctly i simply wanted to know details about them as i am worried about the 205's levels of protection in a crash. I had seen a cage as a safety precaution, that now appears un useable due to issues concerning protective headgear, buckets and harnesses.

 

Thanks to all that could help me with my question sensibly , and not form the opinion that because i felt the need for a cage i must simply be a dangerous driver. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

lol @ the snide little comment at the end - so, list some of these "thousands of bad situations that have nothing to do with the way you have been conducting yourself on the road" - I'll lay a challenge down - you list 10 and I'll say how they can be attributed to your own driving.

 

10 isn't too many, especially if there are thousands...

 

the detriments of cages "in road use" outweigh the benefits, they are only really to protect a car in the event of a roll over, hence the name "roll cage" - they're not called "crash cages", they will do nothing in the event of a four-on-the-floor crash.

 

my initial point was if you feel the need for a cage, then you will also be requiring a helmet and full padding, a five point harness and race seating with lateral protection.

 

how about "if you're that scared of everyone else's driving that it makes you feel like you need a cage, then you shouldn't be on the road" - I'm not saying you're a dangerous driver but to roll a car you need to perform some major acrobatics to get a car out of shape enough. You don't just go into rollover situations in a sedate drive to the shops...

[Guest CB-Dave]

 

That is a car in a rollover incident...

 

 

That is the first two frames of the little animated gif - the white blob outside the car is the driver (LHD vehicle) - this is a fully race-prepared car, harnesses, cage, seats - etc. All the trimmings, but the forces generated are enough to put their head outside the window, luckily whipping it back in before that side contacts the ground.

 

How about this one:

 

 

same deal, race prepped car with *correctly mounted* harnesses, and look what happens, this time the helmet smashes the side window...

 

have a look at this website: http://www1.tpgi.com.au/users/mpaine/rollover.html

 

I'll quote the bottom bit:

 

This analysis raises several issues about roof-crush and injuries.

For simple side-on rollovers the vertical impacts with the ground are likely to be of sufficiently low speed to not be a direct problem with typical car roofs.

End-over-end rollovers and launching rollovers, where the car C of G gains significant height above the ground, involve much larger vertical impacts and roof strength is more critical.

Roof lozenging (side-sway) is a cause for concern. Possible effects are that the side window may shatter and that the occupant is exposed to greater risk of direct contact with the ground or partial ejection.

Restrained occupants who are partially ejected may be subjected to a whipping action which forces their upper body out of the side window. They are then violently pulled back inside the vehicle and at this time the inboard side of their head may contact the outside upper edge of the side window frame (crash investigators take note!).

Most of the energy absorption appears to take place when the wheels and underside of the vehicle contact the ground. Therefore a stiff roof structure is unlikely to prolong the roll.

 

(emphasis added by me)

 

now do you see why I'm saying if you want a cage, wear a lid and have the correct seating etc - safety equipment is there to save your life, you can't just do one thing or the other and have the benefits - with stuff like cages and harnesses you could actually be doing more harm than good.

[Robsbc 0 1 Cars]

Regarding accidents I was speaking to my Peugeot bodyshop manager and I mentioned how poor the 205 is in a severe crash...He seemed to disagree and said they take impacts fairly well i.e the occupant is still safe inside the shell even though the car looks a right mess....

 

One thing he did point out, it doesn't help when people start fitting aftermarket panels especially the bonet as the internal braces of the bonnet is design to fold when the car is involved in a head on. Some aftermaket ones are not and this can be like having knife coming though the windscreen.

[mikeyde 1]

The reason for this post was to find out, in detail, information about cages. I will say that you (CB-Dave) have definatly helped me out in this respect. i have at no point quarelled with the idea that a cage may be dangerous for the driver and i did not know this before starting this thread.

 

i belive that the majority of those on the road are capable but i also feel that there is always a danger whilst driving. if you think that every situation can be controlled then we shall have to agree to disagree, as i am strong in my belief that its utter crap.

 

i simply had an idea of fitting a cage for safety, not because i am frightened of other drivers in a paranoid manner, but becase i have lost; my best friend and a neighbour to car crashes in the past 6 months and i have had a few close encounters myself as either a passenger or driver.

 

if you belive that all dangerous situations can be controlled by you then you could possibly be the most talented driver in the world, i for one will admit i am not. its for that reason i put safety first, safety in this case will not include a roll cage.

[adam_young 0]

I'm glad we have had this post, because I to was thinking about putting in a cage. As 99% of my driving would be on the road I've now decided its a bad idea.

 

Unless its a track car I reckon we would be better off spending our money on better brakes, tyres etc that might help stop us going off the road in the first place.

 

What do people think about having decent seats with harnesses then?

[Anthony 1,003]

lol @ the snide little comment at the end - so, list some of these "thousands of bad situations that have nothing to do with the way you have been conducting yourself on the road" - I'll lay a challenge down - you list 10 and I'll say how they can be attributed to your own driving.

I've seen dozens of cars on their roof as a result of a blowout or being sideswiped and spinning/sliding onto the grass. To blame these on the people's driving is madness - these things can, and do, happen and the simple point is that you will stand a better chance of surviving with a cage.

 

Take a trip down your local scrappy some time, and I bet you'll find several cars in there that have been rolled, most of them no "boy racer" cars either so it's reasonable to expect that they weren't being driven at speed or recklessly.

 

Having seen the remains of Mattcony's car in person, I am in no doubt that the cage saved his life - the whole car is basically bent around the cage.

 

Also, don't forget that most rollcages have side impact bars and this will dramatically increase your chances of walking away with minimal injuries in the event of a major side impact. If you've ever seen a typical 80's small car that has had a major side impact, you'll know why I'm saying this - it's not pretty.

 

Indeed, front corner crashes can be the same - do a search for the photos of Perfecto Pug's accident in his Steel Grey GTi. He wasn't driving in a reckless manner from what I recall, but there was a head on accident with a MPV (Espace I think) and the cabin intursion into the drivers footwell/seat was no pretty - a cage would have dramatically reduced this intrusion and resulting injury.

 

Cages can increase the risk of head injury and I'm not denying that, but this can be reduced with correct padding and certainly this isn't enough in my eyes to outweigh the potential benefits. Harnesses and bucket seats (which alot of people have) are a far bigger potential problem, as in a roll type situation, you have no way of ducking or moving out of the way if the roof caves in.... not pretty at all.

 

Also worth remembering that cages stiffen the cars structure and suspension mounts up, leading to less chassis flex and allowing the suspension to do its job better.

[Guest CB-Dave]

I'm willing to bet that about 85% of the people with harnesses and buckets haven't fitted them correctly anyway, and in the event of a crash, they won't have to worry about the roof caving in as the harness will have crushed them into the seat long before that happens.

 

ok I take it back, not every accident is attributable to the driver but a good majority of them are.

 

most rollover crashes are caused by overcompensation - ie the driver not knowing what to do when the car is out of shape, or trying to steer out of a crash on moving ground (ie gravel, mud etc) and as such the wheels dig in, and flip the car. In this case, flip is the operative word - most times the roof won't actually come into contact with the ground unless they are carrying major velocity in the roll (ie racing on a track and hitting the kitty litter).

 

Mattcony's seems to have been more of a flip than a roll - I can't say for sure as i'm not a qualified accident investigator but it looks to me (from the damage) that the front left dug in, flipping the car to all intents and purposes front over back before landing square on the passenger side rear quarter. That kind of crash a rollcage will help - as you can see, what it won't help with though is a broadside roll, which is what you will see in scrapyards.

 

Also, next time you're in a scrapyard take a look at those rolled cars - the passenger compartment for the most part of them is still in a decent-ish condition, ok the pillars may have collapsed a little on the leading side (ie the side that takes the impact of the roll) but the forces excerted in a roll mean the occupants will be flung to the outside of the roll - so if you go right and roll to the left, the driver will hit the drivers window then fall towards the gearstick area as the car rolls, the opposite if it rolls to the right - in both cases though, the impact side of the car is the opposite side to where the driver will end up.

 

You say that a cage will increase your chances of walking away in a side impact? not so - if you were t-boned (on the side of the occupant ie drivers side or passenger side) with a cage and escape breathing in and out I'd be surprised. The person in the seat doesn't just go with the flow of the car - the car will move and the occupant will follow, if you're hit with any speed in the side of the car the neck and back of the occupant will flail towards the impact as the car is moved from underneath them, if you hit the cage at any kind of velocity, it's lights out

 

(and this I know for a fact as I lost a friend in a car crash similar to this, the car was out of control and ended up sliding sideways into a large road sign, injuries were broken legs, broken neck, broken back, internal bleeding)

 

Most corner crashes will lead to the car bucking and stopping, unless you're going far quicker than you should be on the road - I'm not talking about cabin intrusion here (which roll cages won't help with unless they're triangulated to the front suspension mounts through the dash and firewall, but then we're well out the realms of a road usable car). If you manage to flip a car from a corner impact (leading to a front flip) then even in most cars you will be dead anyway as the forces excerted in rapid deceleration when the seatbelt grabs you back will snap the muscles that hold your heart in place and if that happens, it's lights out. (we're talking speeds here in excess of 100mph at least)

 

Stiffening the shell will also change the original designed safety features of the car - this is doing the exact opposite of crumple zones. Back in the 50s, cars were made like tanks, absolutely solid - what ended up happening though was in a crash, the car remained relatively car-shaped, however the occupants were turned to mush as the forces excerted during the crash weren't absorbed by the car, and instead transmitted straight into the centre of the passenger compartment. Car crashes of the time saw massive deceleration based injuries, this is what lead to crumple zone research more than anything else - what a cage (on the road) is doing is effectively reversing this engineered in safety. Remember, if a car crashes violently then the forces have to be displaced somewhere - if the car shell and chassis can't absorb this force, then it will have to end up going somewhere. In the case of crashing into someone else (who is uncaged) then their car is going to take the lot and they'll probably die, if not be in a PVS.

 

If you just end up rolling or hitting something immovable, then the car isn't going to deform as much as it was designed to. Granted, the passenger safety zone on a car designed in the mid 80s isn't as good as one designed now, but by stiffening the shell for response, you could be making things a lot worse for safety unless (again) all the appropriate safety matters are taken into consideration, harnesses, padding, cage, seats, all correctly mounted (and that doesn't mean just unbolting the seatbelts and whack a 3 point harness set in, bolt the seats to *movable* subframes and keeping the rear seats because they might get used).

 

Sorry to keep banging on about this but a road car has absolutely no requirement for a cage unless the driver is going to drive hard enough to make use of it (and in which case then it ceases to be a road car and is more of a race car)

 

I don't know how much force people think it will take to cave a roof in, but if you just simply roll a car at slow speed, it ain't going to happen - you have to actually flip the car entirely off the ground and have it land on the roof to cave it in to intrude sufficiently into the passenger compartment (or be extremely tall, ie 6'5 and up). How many cars in scrapyards are piled on top - 2, maybe 3 high? going by the way people fear their roof caving in, then going by the force excerted in those yards, the bottom car should be a pancake - take a 3 high stack of cars, bottom one will have at the very least 1800kgs of pressure pushing on the A, B and C pillars, but most of the time the glass is still complete - in chassis distortion the glass will be the first thing to go, as it can't 'give' as much as metal can before rupturing.

 

anyway, I've said my piece. Sorry if I seem way too anal about this but its really not nice to say "he died because he made his car safer"

[feb 47]

Mattcony's accident seems terrible. He was very lucky to walk out of that. What happened?

[Guest CB-Dave]

oh mikeyde - something that keeps reverberating round my head when I was writing this is "it's not your fault, it's the other prat's" - and you're right, it is correct.

 

I wasn't meaning to get tosserly argumentative before - mind you, the majority of people on the road are *not* capable of doing anything other than start, steer and stop (or is that just the people I meet on the drive to work!), you are right and I do take it back - not every accident can be attributed to the driver entirely, and yes - things do happen that are out of personal control (which is the whole point in the word 'accident')

 

I maintain though that by driving at urban speeds, the chance of rolling a car is as close to nil as possible, of course as speed increases then the chance of the car going side over side does too, but most of the road driving populus of this country are smart enough to know that a car going at 70/80mph hitting another one at 70/80mph is going to be the start of a very bad day!

 

Most crashes occur under the speed limit (I hate speed limits btw - I'm not a leftie!) and the majority of them are low speed fender benders, the best thing someone can do for safety (and I mean this) is to do an IAM driving course or practice other forms of defencive driving - rather than make the car a rolling teutonic block of death, people should train themselves up more so they know what to happen when things go wrong...

 

best of all - IAM stuff is usually free or available for a teeny small fee, I think the IAM test costs about £40 or so (it's been a while since I looked into it)

 

www.iam.org.uk

[feb 47]

A very informative post. Thanks for sharing this info CB-Dave. What is your profession btw?

[Guest CB-Dave]

you wouldn't believe me if I told you - it's got nothing to do with vehicle dynamics or crash testing (that's just something I'm interested in!)

[Anthony 1,003]

I can only talk from what I've seen with my own eyes and from the limited amount I know about accident forces and car design.

 

My ex managed to roll her car (Citroen Saxo 1.4) into a field at around 40-50mph, and to this day I do not know how her and her passenger walked away. This one was driver error in that the tail slid out, and she paniced and stood on the brakes... but the result was truely shocking.

 

Like I said, this was at about 40-50mph and from what myself and the police could tell the car rolled twice before coming to a rest on the roof. When I went down to the accident recovery place to remove the stereo for her, I couldn't actually get in the drivers side before the roof had come in so far, basically being a straight line from the bottom of the A-pillar to the top of the B-pillar.

 

I'm pretty sure that the only reason no one was killed is because my ex was quite short and thus wasn't crushed by the roof, and the passenger was fundementally OK because the seat back collapsed in the accident - had it not have done, I think he'd have been in serious trouble as he was taller than me (and I couldn't get in and sit up after the accident).

 

 

Many of the rolled cars I see at the scrappy have had the passenger compartment badly compromised, although many aren't as bad as say Mattcony's or the Saxo above.

 

I'm certainly not saying that a cage is the be all and end all of safety, and certainly it can cause problems in itself, but I do believe that it does have a useful benefit in the event of an accident involving a rollover.

[Guest CB-Dave]

the picture of that saxo looks just like how most cars that have been rolled do - the area where the driver is is (for the most part) uncompromised because of the sheer strength of the b-pillar.

 

remember also that in a roll situation the occupants are flung to the outside of the roll (like a fairground ride) - the roof coming in that much wouldn't make any difference to the occupant purely and simply because they're not in a "driving" position per se. (this is why people usually say they ended up in the footwells when their car rolled).

 

I'm not sure on this btw, but I've seen a lot of rolled cars where the seats have collapsed - but I can't see anything that says they're designed like this. Mind you, the ratchet that holds the seats up is not massive, so any kind of force and it's going to snap, especially one that dumps you back in the seat after a roll (depending on how ferocious the pretensioner on the seatbelt is).

 

There's loads of different things that influence what happens when a car hits the ground after rolling, but sticking three inch CDS tubing two inches from the drivers head isn't a recipe for safety unless you have a head plus a helmet!

 

I will say one thing though, there's not much scuffing evident on the a pillar (on this side anyway) which suggests to me that the car went front over back, which I put above is where a roll cage would help - as having steel tube across the front bracing the a-pillars would stop the folding in effect. If it went front over back, this would also lend itself to the reason the seat collapsed (I'm not inferring anything here but I'm guessing the passenger was male, and therefore would be stockier built than a female) - if you dump back in a seat and weigh around 15/16st, it's going to collapse, your ex (presuming you're not a pink pug driver! ) was probably a lot lighter, which is the reason the seat didn't collapse on that side?

 

What is interesting though is that the airbag hasn't deployed - so there mustn't have been much of a frontal impact...

 

like I said before, i'm not a qualified accident investigator - I just find car crashes like this - morbidly interesting...

[Guest CB-Dave]

just noticed you did say the passenger was male... that's why I reckon the seat collapsed.

[cybernck 402 1 Cars]

but the forces generated are enough to put their head outside the window, luckily whipping it back in before that side contacts the ground.

 

wouldn't those window nets help with this issue?

[Anthony 1,003]

I'm willing to bet that about 85% of the people with harnesses and buckets haven't fitted them correctly anyway, and in the event of a crash, they won't have to worry about the roof caving in as the harness will have crushed them into the seat long before that happens.

I completely agree with this, and frankly it's scary - there are ALOT of people on this forum in the same boat as well. The harnesses shouldn't be at any more than a 45 degree angle, or in the event of an accident, you risk being crushed and your spine broken due to the fact that you will be violently pulled downwards into the seat rather than just limiting your forward travel.

 

The other problem with harnesses is the lack of give, which can lead to worse cases of whiplash as the head is still free to move (and this is what killed Dale Earnheart (sp?) and lead to the introduction of the HANS safety device that you see in most top forms of motorsport.

 

Also, next time you're in a scrapyard take a look at those rolled cars - the passenger compartment for the most part of them is still in a decent-ish condition, ok the pillars may have collapsed a little on the leading side (ie the side that takes the impact of the roll) but the forces excerted in a roll mean the occupants will be flung to the outside of the roll - so if you go right and roll to the left, the driver will hit the drivers window then fall towards the gearstick area as the car rolls, the opposite if it rolls to the right - in both cases though, the impact side of the car is the opposite side to where the driver will end up.

Some I've seen have been nigh on undamaged, some as you describe, and some the roof is almost flat with the doorline.

 

You say that a cage will increase your chances of walking away in a side impact? not so - if you were t-boned (on the side of the occupant ie drivers side or passenger side) with a cage and escape breathing in and out I'd be surprised. The person in the seat doesn't just go with the flow of the car - the car will move and the occupant will follow, if you're hit with any speed in the side of the car the neck and back of the occupant will flail towards the impact as the car is moved from underneath them,  if you hit the cage at any kind of velocity, it's lights out

 

(and this I know for a fact as I lost a friend in a car crash similar to this, the car was out of control and ended up sliding sideways into a large road sign, injuries were broken legs, broken neck, broken back, internal bleeding)

But alot of older cars you'd be dead or seriously injured anyway, as the door etc will often end up being where the drivers seat was pre-accident! A cage will stop that happening and leave the passenger compartment mostly intact, but yes, I agree that you could still be seriously injured or killed for the reasons you give.

 

Most corner crashes will lead to the car bucking and stopping, unless you're going far quicker than you should be on the road - I'm not talking about cabin intrusion here (which roll cages won't help with unless they're triangulated to the front suspension mounts through the dash and firewall, but then we're well out the realms of a road usable car).

Perfecto Pug's accident that I was thinking of (that I can't seem to find when searching) had the front part of the door and the wheelarch pushed right over taking over half of the drivers footwell and space were his/her thighs would be. A cage would of had one of the front legs mounted there, and (in theory) this would have reduced intrusion into the cabin and the resulting injuries to the drive.

 

Stiffening the shell will also change the original designed safety features of the car - this is doing the exact opposite of crumple zones. Back in the 50s, cars were made like tanks, absolutely solid - what ended up happening though was in a crash, the car remained relatively car-shaped, however the occupants were turned to mush as the forces excerted during the crash weren't absorbed by the car, and instead transmitted straight into the centre of the passenger compartment. Car crashes of the time saw massive deceleration based injuries, this is what lead to crumple zone research more than anything else - what a cage (on the road) is doing is effectively reversing this engineered in safety. Remember, if a car crashes violently then the forces have to be displaced somewhere - if the car shell and chassis can't absorb this force, then it will have to end up going somewhere. In the case of crashing into someone else (who is uncaged) then their car is going to take the lot and they'll probably die, if not be in a PVS.

True.... but, you're not messing with the crumple zones for the most part (and were crumple zones even designed into cars in the 80's?) as they're generally everything outside of the passenger compartment. After all, the general point of a crumple zone is to absorb energy and to leave the passenger compartment intact - by fitting a cage you are still maintaining most of the front/rear crumple zone, but adding an additional frame to stop deformation/intrusion into the passenger cabin.

 

Sorry to keep banging on about this but a road car has absolutely no requirement for a cage unless the driver is going to drive hard enough to make use of it (and in which case then it ceases to be a road car and is more of a race car)

Requirement for a cage? No. Potential to be involved in a situation where a cage could or would be of benefit to saving your bacon? Yes.

 

I don't know how much force people think it will take to cave a roof in, but if you just simply roll a car at slow speed, it ain't going to happen - you have to actually flip the car entirely off the ground and have it land on the roof to cave it in to intrude sufficiently into the passenger compartment (or be extremely tall, ie 6'5 and up). How many cars in scrapyards are piled on top - 2, maybe 3 high? going by the way people fear their roof caving in, then going by the force excerted in those yards, the bottom car should be a pancake - take a 3 high stack of cars, bottom one will have at the very least 1800kgs of pressure pushing on the A, B and C pillars, but most of the time the glass is still complete - in chassis distortion the glass will be the first thing to go, as it can't 'give' as much as metal can before rupturing.

Isn't force magnified by hitting something at speed though, effectively increasing the weight of an object? Drop a car from 10ft onto the roof of another, and I bet the damage is much much greater than if it was place on top or dropped from a foot or two onto it - and this is why a car typically suffers worse in a rollover accident than if you and a few friends were to roll it over and push it onto its roof.

 

(I'm sure there's a better way to explain what I'm trying to, but my mind has gone dead)

 

anyway, I've said my piece. Sorry if I seem way too anal about this but its really not nice to say "he died because he made his car safer"

I agree, but it's also not a nice thought to think "they'd still be here if only they'd fitted a cage".... half a dozen of one, and six of the other me thinks.

[Anthony 1,003]

the picture of that saxo looks just like how most cars that have been rolled do - the area where the driver is is (for the most part) uncompromised because of the sheer strength of the b-pillar

 

remember also that in a roll situation the occupants are flung to the outside of the roll (like a fairground ride) - the roof coming in that much wouldn't make any difference to the occupant purely and simply because they're not in a "driving" position per se. (this is why people usually say they ended up in the footwells when their car rolled)..

For me to sit in that seat, my head would have been through the roof. OK, it doesn't help that she was quite short and thus has the seat a fair way forward (thus the roof being lower) but it clearly shows why I don't like harnesses in cars without cages - with a harness, you cannot duck or be thrown out of the way of the roof coming in!

 

I will say one thing though, there's not much scuffing evident on the a pillar (on this side anyway) which suggests to me that the car went front over back, which I put above is where a roll cage would help - as having steel tube across the front bracing the a-pillars would stop the folding in effect. If it went front over back, this would also lend itself to the reason the seat collapsed (I'm not inferring anything here but I'm guessing the passenger was male, and therefore would be stockier built than a female) - if you dump back in a seat and weigh around 15/16st, it's going to collapse, your ex (presuming you're not a pink pug driver! ) was probably a lot lighter, which is the reason the seat didn't collapse on that side?

The car slid off the road, dug into the soft mud and rolled over into a wet field, which is why I suspect that there is limited scratching as there was nothing hard/soild to dig into the paint - the panels all down the passenger side are in a mess though, implying that the car did land on that side at least once.

 

If I had to hazard a guess btw, I'd say that the male passenger probably weigned the same as or maybe less than the female driver - the bloke was really skinny, and the female wasn't the smallest lass. If it was anything other than conincidence, maybe it was the result of the driver having the steering wheel to hold onto and brace themselves on, and the passenger having no such luxury and thus being thrown around more (and hence putting more load on the seat?)

 

What is interesting though is that the airbag hasn't deployed - so there mustn't have been much of a frontal impact...

You'd of had to of landed the car heavily on the nose to deploy the airbag - generally they won't go off unless you hit something pretty hard (say 30mph+ combined impact speed).

[Guest CB-Dave]

Requirement for a cage?  No.  Potential to be involved in a situation where a cage could or would be of benefit to saving your bacon?  Yes.

 

potential to cause person harm in saving of said pork - very high...

 

Isn't force magnified by hitting something at speed though, effectively increasing the weight of an object?  Drop a car from 10ft onto the roof of another, and I bet the damage is much much greater than if it was place on top or dropped from a foot or two onto it - and this is why a car typically suffers worse in a rollover accident than if you and a few friends were to roll it over and push it onto its roof.

 

(I'm sure there's a better way to explain what I'm trying to, but my mind has gone dead)

 

oh yeah definately - which is why a cage helps in front over back accidents (as the impact moment has a greater force) - in a sideways roll (which is the most common, as the car can dig in and the centre of gravity is a lot closer to the sides of the car than it is the front and back), a roll cage will do next to nothing except potentially harm the occupants by lateral trauma injuries.

 

If you manage to flip a car onto the roof from the wheels sideways, then it will have had to have spun 540 degrees laterally (ie flipped in the air without touching the ground and landed on the roof) - it takes some doing to do that. At the start of the thread someone talked about a low speed accident leading to a car rolling - it is possible but the roll will be at low speed too, and as such won't impede into the passenger compartment.

 

I agree, but it's also not a nice thought to think "they'd still be here if only they'd fitted a cage".... half a dozen of one, and six of the other me thinks.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

imo not necessarily, I know a few people who have rolled their cars laterally and other than a stint in hospital, have been ok - of those I bet that if they had a cage in their car, I'd have a lot fewer friends breathing in and out.

 

say you did clout a cage, and survived - you would pretty much be in a PVS, and that is no way to live your life - don't you agree?

Edited January 24, 2005 by CB-Dave

[Guest CB-Dave]

For me to sit in that seat, my head would have been through the roof.  OK, it doesn't help that she was quite short and thus has the seat a fair way forward (thus the roof being lower) but it clearly shows why I don't like harnesses in cars without cages - with a harness, you cannot duck or be thrown out of the way of the roof coming in!

 

I'm in full agreement with you on the harnesses aspect, I said before - if you're going to have a cage in a road car you will have to use all the other safety acoutriments, harnesses (correctly fitted with anchor points), padding, skid lid etc.

 

As I said also, you wouldn't be sitting in your normal driving position after a roll like that, you would probably end up somewhere around the passenger side footwell if you were the driver - it would be awkward, painful and downright horrible to be there, but you will be alive (provided you aren't harnessed upright into your seat!)

 

The car slid off the road, dug into the soft mud and rolled over into a wet field, which is why I suspect that there is limited scratching as there was nothing hard/soild to dig into the paint - the panels all down the passenger side are in a mess though, implying that the car did land on that side at least once.

 

Ahhh right, I was going on limited evidence there, thanks for clearing it up. The mud will have helped slow the velocity down (although if it went sideways into the mud it would have probably pinged the occupants from one side to the other as the car would be decelerating from 50mph to 0 rather rapidly, and the occupants wouldn't (think fairground ride again) That's also probably why they came out relatively unscathed.

 

If I had to hazard a guess btw, I'd say that the male passenger probably weigned the same as or maybe less than the female driver - the bloke was really skinny, and the female wasn't the smallest lass.  If it was anything other than conincidence, maybe it was the result of the driver having the steering wheel to hold onto and brace themselves on, and the passenger having no such luxury and thus being thrown around more (and hence putting more load on the seat?)

 

I'm really not sure, like I say I've seen collapsed seats like that in a lot of rolled cars. The only rational explanation I can give is that at the moment of the car going over, the passenger was pinned to the doorskin, and the driver flung into the passenger seat - the combined weight may have made the seat give way, then the car came over onto it's roof - the driver ended up going back where they were originally seated and the passenger (who's seat has now collapsed) found themselves lying between the centre tunnel and the back seat.

 

You'd of had to of landed the car heavily on the nose to deploy the airbag - generally they won't go off unless you hit something pretty hard (say 30mph+ combined impact speed).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Very true, prior to this I thought that was a front over back roll which is why I highlighted the lack of deployment - as it was it was side to side, which means no impact on the front of the car.

 

 

(edit: fixed quotes)

Edited January 24, 2005 by CB-Dave

[richard 0]

From what i remember of Perfecto's accident, it was his wheel that hit the other car as it was on lock at the time. This was sufficient to trap his feet under the pedals due to the intrusion within the cabin.

 

However the rest of the car was relatively undamaged in terms of instrusion. So a cage wouldnt have done much in terms of helping him out, and may have actually caused more damage.

 

Matts accident is a totally different kettle of fish. Without that cage Matt would not pop up on my msn list as active.

 

When i get the challenge car sorted both my co-driver and me will be wearing the HANS device, SD challenge cage, 5 point harnesses, buckets as well as the window webbing just in case anything bad should happen.

 

Aside from fitting this lot, the car will be used only for competition. However fitting all this sort of kit to a road car would rapidly turn into a major PIA. And you could guarantee that without this lot fitted you would end up as one of the statistics. Most accidents occur within a few miles of your home. So would you strap up your HANS, webbing etc just to go to the shops around the corner?

[Butler 0]

Interesting reading. Ok CB Dave, you appear to have a strong opinion about this, so how safe is my car? How would describe fitting harnesses and seats properly?

 

I have a caged road car fitted with sparco buckets seat and 4 point harnesses. I totally agree that a cage with standard seats and harnesses is a no no. The seats are on custom runners and welded into the car. The seat now sits a fair bit lower. The shoulder straps are mounted to the floor, but virtually in the boot so I think they with the 45degree limit.

 

I don't think the my head can reach the cage, since the seat is low, but it is padded anyway.

 

So what in your opinion is safer:

 

Standard car or caged car with correct seats and harnesses???

 

I also agree that wearing a lid is obviously safer, but that would apply to a non caged car anyway.

 

I don't 100% aggree with everything you have said, but respect your opinion.

 

BTW I have been toying with the idea of getting the 5th strap for my harnesses.

Edited January 24, 2005 by Butler