Way back in '68

Some good outside and inside video when Danica Patrick is bumped off the track into a barrier at Daytona.

Shows how amazing modern safety features of cars and tracks help to protect the drivers.

Interesting what she does with her hands during the crash.

[ca.autoblog.com]

Not reflexive, and could also protect her head from injury. Remember Felipe Massa's hit?
[cache.jalopnik.com]

the commentator stated that what she did was based on her open-wheel experience and taking her hands off the wheel before the crash prevented possible injury to her hands/wrist, especially when something fast and violent changes the steering links and gets translated to the wheel and anything connected to it, all in a flash.

Quote
Kimo
the commentator stated that what she did was based on her open-wheel experience and taking her hands off the wheel before the crash prevented possible injury to her hands/wrist, especially when something fast and violent changes the steering links and gets translated to the wheel and anything connected to it, all in a flash.

.....and that's the opposite of what most people would do in the event of an accident. Much better to let the seatbelt and airbag do their job. With split second timing, that's the kind of thing you have to practice and train for.

Guenter
2014 Boxster S
GT Silver, 6 Speed Manual, Bi-Xenons, Sports Suspension (lowers car 20mm), Porsche Sports Exhaust, Porsche Torque Vectoring, Auto Climate control, heated and vented seats, 20" Carrera S Wheels, Pedro's TechNoWind, Sport Design steering wheel, Roll bars in GT Silver
[www.cyberdesignconcepts.com]

The perpetrator Rubins Baracelo was at sears point today testing with kv racing. Open indy car testing tomorrow also. FREE.

I think my unfortunate instinct would be to hang onto the steering wheel, with a death grip. I wonder if a person could train himself not to do it, without having actual 'hands-off' accident practice.

who didn't believe in using seat belts said he would just hold onto the steering wheel in a crash. I told him that if he hit a wall at 60 mph, he would fly through the windshield at just about 60, still gripping the wheel.

I had a '67 Beetle and I didn't like wearing a seat belt.

Then I read the news report of two BMW's, same model and year travelling at about the same speed colliding head on in heavy fog. The one driver undid his seatbelt, got out of his car to talk to the other driver who wasn't wearing a seatbelt, who was dead. At that point, seatbelts became a much more attractive option to me. Law or no law, I wear them for me.

Oddly enough though, I would've been decapitated* in the most severe accident I ever had, which was flipping an Alfa Spider. It was the rare case of literally being thrown clear as being the better outcome.

* Well, I probably would've been ripped apart at the sternum level. You should've seen the car; smashed front, bottom, tail, right side and everything gone from the belt line up. The car was green, and there was green paint smeared next to a tear on my pants leg. I got a concussion and probably got hairline fractures in a couple vertebrae that went undetected in x-rays.

and killed.

[usnews.msnbc.msn.com]

Our Boxsters have structural rollbars. Lots of reports of them saving lives.

A friend, who likes cars, but who doesn't share our passion for them, took great comfort in what he thought were factory rollbars in his new Miata. But they aren't; they're 'style-bars'. I'm not making this up. 'Style-bars'. For the love of god - what's next - 'style' brakes?

[i222.photobucket.com]
[i222.photobucket.com]

... while my Dad was driving a 1964 Buick Skylark Station Wagon, with my Mom in the passenger seat, they hit a stalled, empty 18 wheeler which was in the middle of the road, at night with no lights.
My dad was wearing a seatbelt, my Mom was not.
My Dad told me that when he came to, he looked over to the passenger's seat and all he saw as an H-beam which had gone through the center of the passenger's seat and into the back seat.
My Mom had slid into the footwell with the impact.
Neither of them was seriously hurt, just minor cuts and bruises.
I guess when it's not your time, it's not your time.
If my Mom had been wearing her seatbelt she wouldn't be here with us now.
It took her a couple of years for her to convince herself that it was safer for her to wear them.
She always has that inkling not to wear them because of that accident, but she does.
Happy Boxstering,
Pedro

Pedro Bonilla
1998 Boxster 986 - 311,000+ miles: [www.PedrosGarage.com]
PCA National Club Racing Scrutineer - PCA National HPDE Instructor - PCA Technical Committee (Boxster/Cayman)

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Racecar spelled backwards is Racecar

"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting" ... Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney in "LeMans"

"If you wait, all that happens is that you get older"... Mario Andretti

"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose" ... Ayrton Senna

accident just outside of town. My dad had me in the car and we drove up on the accident scene and in fact stopped.

We walked up closer and I spotted 3 young men lying in someone's front yard. They ended up there as the car they were in missed a turn and crashed into a large tree some distance away. The impact threw all people out of the car. The car was an older car, not a hotrod, just a pre-50's car which of course had no seat belts.

I watched as I guess the coroner kneeled down next to one of the victims as he gave him a check. I hope I never again see a body move the way that body moved as the coroner checked the body for signs of life and probably signs of foul play.

Even at that age, and having never seen a dead person before, it was clear from where I stood the man was dead and in fact all 3 young men were dead.

The car we had at the time didn't have seat belts but the next one did my mom and dad bought had seat belts (3 in across the front and 3 across the back -- bench seats of course) and I never had to be told to use my seat belt.

Sincerely,

MarcW.

Hände hoch!
[album.gofeminin.de]

If you look closely, not only did she get her hands off the wheel right before the crash to avoid arm injuries, but she also gets her legs up so her legs aren't crushed by the front end pushing into the driver compartment. Her training is impeccable, she cooly knew exactly what to do in an unavoidable catastrophic crash.