You are very lucky you didn't suffer head trauma in that roll over without helmets. Roll cages in road cars are dangerous, despite your good luck. Your experience is not evidence to the contrary.And sometimes (from personal experience) this happens:
It is a soft top. With a FULL FIA homologated cage, we were not wearing helmets. We did not have our brains strewn all over. Anyone want to suggest having a cage in a road car is stupid?
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Picture of your car (2012)
- Thread starter Hisdem
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It is a race car that is road legal, we were in 4 point Williams harnesses, the only trauma suffered was a fractured rib from the force on impact smacking body into carbon seat. I can only say that in this type of car it is naive to suggest that roll cages are dangerous when you realise that in the case of a roll over at any speed the head would be the highest structure before the body tub that would take any weight. There are no A Pillars, the screen collapses when you lean on it...The bars are there to protect you, there is a head rest on the rear cage at head height, then the front cage comes around the door frames and attaches to bars in the footwell, which in turn are connected to bars in the sills. Which are crucial in a side impact as the chassis is only a foot wide in the middle section of the car, and also they prevent the tyre and suspension from collapsing into the driver/passengers ankles. I would not want to drive this car without a roll cage, it is VERY simple. It is far more dangerous to drive without one, ie, you will die.
Jeez...use some common sense. If you are in a wreck -- not a rollover -- there is significant risk of head trauma from an installed rollcage. I went to a seminar on safety equipment for the track at a BMW CCA event where a professional race driver explained and illustrated to the group why a roll cage is so dangerous in a street car and should NEVER be used without helmets AND a 4/5 point harness.
Stop claiming it's safe, because it just plain isn't. Sure it saved your asses in a rollover, but you were still extremely lucky not to get head trauma from not wearing helmets. But outside of a rollover, there is significant risk and danger in the case of all other types of accidents, or even extreme driving that causes sudden transfer of weight.
I would never put a rollcage in a street car. It's just plain nuts to do so.
All you have to do is search via Google. Over and over again: rollcages are dangerous in street cars and cause fatal head injuries.
Roll bars are OK, if and only if properly installed with the correct seat, headrest and bracing. Many PCA regions mandate a seatback support plate fastened to the roll bar, because in a rear impact with enough force the seat rails can break lose and send your head into the roll bar at high speed, even if it is several feet back.
I don't get the misunderstanding. Without a proper harness your head has a high risk of being smashed on that upper side bar. Couple that with the fact that you are probably not wearing a helmet when you are driving around town in the streets and it's a recipie for disaster. The chances are slim that you will actually roll your can in a street car while on the public roads unless you are driving around like a douche endangering other people's lives including your own, in which case you're totally in the wrong anyway. So if you weren't getting yourself into these situations then why would you need one in the first place? Only track cars and street legal track cars justify a roll cage (excluding off road vehicles), and even with a street legal weekend track car you should be in a proper harness. Why do you think side impact airbags are more and more common.
That being said, it's a free county, so I'd you want to take the risk, that's up to you, it just defies logic.
Bottom line, if your car doesn't see the track, then a roll cage by itself without all the other safety equipment is pretty moronic.
Ok so this makes all the right sense, but what I cannot see is how you can flatly deny that it is not safe, and more dangerous. Think; in a crash, if you have hard sponge around a cage, this increases the time taken to slow down, which decreases the overall force exerted on your head (f=P/t).. Therefore, having a properly prepared roll cage gives just the same (although not to the same capacity) sort of protection as a helmet does, at least that it intends to increase the time that the body is involved in the accident. So, therefore it's all right me saying that 'it saved my ass' but in the end, there is some logic behind it? Am I at least coherent?
Coherent, maybe slightly. Making sense? Not at all.
You cannot compare a helmet that is coupled to the head with restraints to a padded rollcage, the latter acting as a barrier to motion and impacting an unprotected head at speed.
I'm going to reach back in my hazy memories of college physics to try to explain with my limited expertise in this subject
F=ma
Helmet is moving at a certain velocity towards an object. A force is exerted based on the acceleration from motion to rest given the properties of the object. The helmet's properties absorb some of this force, then transfers some of it to your head inside the helmet. Since the relative speed of the helmet and your skull is almost the same, the acceleration from motion to rest is much less. That is why your helmet must be properly fitted and not have any "play", so as not to allow your head to bang against the helmet. So with smaller to no acceleration, gives less force and less chance of injury.
Without a helmet, even with padding, the forces applied is much greater because there is no buffering of the increase of forces affected by acceleration. That's my theory and I could be wrong, but it makes sense. In the end, you are supposed to have a properly prepared rollcage WITH padding AND a helmet, which is always better than padding and no helmet, or no padding with a helmet. Makes sense doesn't it?
I think it did save your ass, but there was a chance that it could have harmed you in the process. With a helmet, that chance is greatly reduced.
My 2012 Passat SE TDI
I've had it for about a month now. Great car. Getting 45-50 mpg with it on average. Will be handing it off to the wife next year and looking to get an Audi S4.
I've had it for about a month now. Great car. Getting 45-50 mpg with it on average. Will be handing it off to the wife next year and looking to get an Audi S4.
U mean the stock bumper? lol. It takes some getting used to but I like it for sure
They both look like they could both? I'd love the Audi avant as my everyday car
That's no ordinary Avant...
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