5 point harness unsafe in street cars?

check this also

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJw-Jt1OfY8[/ame]

kind of explains what i am trying to say.
Even if the car has a full set on, it still doesnt react as a "brick" hitting a wall.
It absorbs a big deal of the impact

 

You make some good points. I also installed the Sparco seat rail sliders. They are much better better with the dual lock over the stock ones. I didn't know they were designed with controlled deformation.

I'm sure that most anything will help in a 40 plus year old car that I imagine has little to know designed crumple system as in the video you posted.

 

If you intend to get a harness, I would think a 6-point would be preferable to a 5-point. Assuming you are a male.

 

You are far better of with a rear half cage in a car that gets used on the street. In the even of a roll over it'll still prevent the roof caving in on your face (unless you hit something at a VERY unfortunate angle) but you won't hit your hit your head on the high side bars, something that can cause very serious head injuries and have indeed killed people, padding or not.

Install a proper racing seat instead, it'll keep you in place very well (get a seat that fits you well) but is not as inconvenient as a 5/6 pt harness.

 

Thanks for the cage idea. I have Sparco race seats, which fits well. Big difference from stock.

 

Aside from all the pros and cons, I would just thing it would be uncomfortable and impractical for daily use.

 

You have gotten some great advice here. My advice would echo what Entropy said. In general once you start with one thing, you really have to do the whole system including HANS. Just adding the harness doesn't help and can make it worse.

 

I actually have hit a wall in a street car at 50 mph sort of head on and was glad my car did not have air bags. The 3-point belts worked just fine. I was always under the impression that harness for the street with a roll bar/cage can be riskier for the passengers. In fact your insurance company will have something to say about it. You want to use them on the track with a helmet, they cannot be beat.

Personally, I will not add a roll bar to my car and would only install harnesses if they work better than the mice.

 

I have harnesses in several of my cars (some w/ cages, some without) that get driven on street w/o helmets plus we 99.9% always remove helmet driving the transit sections during rallyracing events, even driving briskly on forest roads. Trust racing seats w/ harnesses over factory equipment anyday.

HANS on the street is stupid. It prevents you from being able to turn your neck enough to be able to look out side windows at most intersections.

 

Once you smash your head against an unpadded section of the roll bar, you will change your mind. The stock configuration is designed to let your skull bounce off stuff. Introducing more hard surfaces is a hazard. Harnesses on the street are ok with me so long as there is no roll cage and I can get out of them quickly.

 

Why would I not have padding where I can hit my head? Strapped in, if you are hitting your head at all with racing seats and harnesses, then something else (harnesses, seats or both) has failed. Plastic w/ metal directly behind it is not any softer than certified rollcage padding. None of my cars w/ harnesses have cushy airbags.

I've worked in collision industry 10 years. I've rolled in cars probably more than anyone on this forum, sometimes down mountainsides and other times hard enough for cage to fail and been straight off over ravines and into the forest hard enough for harnesses to break sternum and most ribs. Had HANS reps calling me in their development years after they saw my in-car of their device performing inverted. I have seen it all or crashtested it myself.

Prefer harnesses and racing seats to factory equipment.

 

Mr Juan drives on the street like it's his last race ever time so a roll cage make sense for him..lol!!!

I must admit. I am guilty of driving a race car with a roll cage on the street too. It's a risk and a lot of fun. But I don't recommend it.

I am now padding my roll bar in my challenge cars. I almost got knocked out with my helmet on without padding on a off track expedition. My bars are padded.

 

I put a five point harness in my Scud but also added a 2 pt roll bar behind the seats - not over my head - the bar for the harness connects to the roll bar - also added a fire safety system with the button in the spot for the cigaret lighter - when on the street, I use the regular seat belts

 

The answer no one has given so far is that you can't use 5-point racing harnesses on the street (in the US anyway) because they are not DOT approved for street use. Especially if you are driving a car with an airbag, stick to the 3 point harness on the street. When I had my Z06s, I had racing seats and 5-point harnesses, and always used a HANS device on the track. But on the street, I still used the original 3-point belts rather than the 5-point harness.

Oh, and that is the other thing to consider, racing seats. 5-point harnesses are not meant to be used with stock car seats. You need a proper racing seat, otherwise the shoulder belts will not line up right and you can potentially come out of the harness in a crash. Just because you install a harness bar doesn't mean that the harness will fit properly, and just because your stock seats have holes doesn't mean they are properly designed for a racing harness.

 

p.s. Something else to consider -- insurance. Look at your racing harness. It says in big bold letters "NOT APPROVED FOR STREET USE" or similar warnings. If you use a 5-point harness on the street and you are injured, your insurance will likely deny coverage if they can attribute your injuries to the use of a non-DOT approved seat belt harness.

 

All very valid points. We Stooges were discussing at lunch a couple of weeks back the whole harnesses for the street issue (including the use of proper seats, roll bars and cages and the difference between 3, 4, 5 and 6 points). We noted that they were not approved by DOT.

However, it's probably not that they wouldn't be, it's just DOT has not tested and passed them. Probably because it ends up being an owner or 3rd party installation and there is no guarantee that all was done properly. As it is now, the industry is on the hook because it's all factory installed and the government is just fine with that. If you mess with it, there's no one to hold liable from a product standpoint if it fails.

I always wondered about the whole air bag thing. I personally don't like them because too many of my friends have incurred far more serious injuries from a low speed accident that detonated air bags when bouncing off a tightened shoulder harness would have been more preferable. So I was curious about personally removing them, but apparently the government frowns on that, not to mention my insurance company.

So, after all this - 3-point on the street and harnesses for off road use only.

And seriously, Dave, try to keep your cars on the paved stuff and upright going forward.

 

+ 1

Forget about using a Hans device on the street.

They are very restrictive. Most properly executed 6 point harness systems will leave you unable to move out of the seat enough to properly operate the car in a non racing environment.

Why do you think street belts allow for movement?

The rollcage in my track car is padded but I'd hate to hit that thing without a helmet on which is very likely to happen if you're in a street accident.

Forget about a rollcage if you're going to drive the thing on the street.

Get a cross bar in the back and have two sets of belts, one for the street and one for the road.

It won't be perfect but it will be a lot better than nothing. Lots of people do this for non racing "track day" events.

Still half assed.

Also, with your body glued to that seat by a 5 or 6 point harness what's going to happen to that bowling ball on your shoulders during a big impact? Think Earnhardt.

With street belts and airbags it's less likely to happen.

 

Check out the video at the HANS device website:

Video

The very first video shows what happens to the head in a high-speed accident. The HANS device is designed for race cars with proper harnesses. The air bag and 3-point seat belt system is designed for street cars. Two different systems, two different purposes.

 

There are DOT approved harnesses.

https://www.schrothracing.com/engineering

One of the hang-ups getting harnesses approved was the seatbelts had a requirement of a red release button. I guess w/o this the transportation rulemakers thought that EMTS and first responders would be too stupid to open anything else even though they'd just cut the belts anyway.

Schrolth was the first to manufacter harnesses w/ the red button to be DOT compliant.

https://www.schrothracing.com/img/quickfit.jpg

 

Thanks for posting the link about belts.

But isn't a rollcage in a street car still illegal? I can see sooo many issues with this.

 

Why would safer be illegal?

I know 2 women who were both hit by trucks (1 T-boned by a pickup and another run over by an 18-wheeler on interstate) that were driving VW Golf rallycars who wouldn't be w/ us if it weren't for being in a caged car.

I've used pretty much every major brand harnesses. There are no such BIG BOLD letters, just the tag w/ the certifications it does have and manufacture and/or expiration date.

Last I checked, when I go to the hospital for an racing or street accident, my medical insurance does not validate how I was injured. They still pay if I was injured doing jackass stunts; hang-gliding, sky-diving, drift-trike, naked bungee jumping,....

If someone else hits me and I file claim against their insurance to be reimbursed my losses, they'd still be responsible no matter what safety equipment I had or was using or exceeded manufacterer equipment. People who didn't even have their seatbelts fastened still collect.

 

You are missing the obvious - in the case of it coming out that this equipment was in your car, your insurance company would inform you to have it removed or be cancelled. Next, if suffering a loss of property or being subejct to a liability lawsuit, your insurance company might not pay the losses if you were so equipped and so warned.

This is not an argurement so much about which suite of items is safer, but rather what is covered by your insurance carrier. Medical insurance is another matter. Automobile damage loss and liability is what's concerned. I would rather not give my insurance company anything to think about in denying a claim since I am already on thin ice because I own an exotic car.

 

Its the opposite because you own an exotic. 90% of the collision repair I see is exotic, luxury or high end sportscars. Insurance companies value your business because you pay the high premiums. Because of that, repairing them I can demand from insurance adjusters exotic labor rates at double what a Toyota or Honda labor rate is and they pay it.

Have had all kinds of cars including trackday cars (R8, GT3s, ...) with racing safety equipment and sometimes even wreaked on the track including obvious that they weaked on the track (towbill from the track to shop insurance paid, armco paint embedded in scrapes, door #s) and the insurance companies have always paid out BIG time.

Its the idiots w/ the lowered ricer car w/ bottoming out suspension or redneck lifted truck or SUV that crash because they've altered their vehicle that are in jeapordy of having claims denied if accident can be attributed to suspension alteration. Many policies have clauses regarding alterations included and if your mods are listed, well you can be worried. Have yet to see one that asks if you have a rollcage.

 

The roll cage could potentially hurt your very badly if you're not completely tethered. That's why I suspect it's illegal everywhere. Someone rides as a passenger without a helmet and maybe street belts then a minor mishap occurs but they smack their head against the roll cage.

It's also not a part of the OEM's engineered safety system.

Now as for me I'd love to have a roll cage as long as it fits and there were no issues about it causing injury.

 

Please provide a link to any federal regulation or state statute outlawing rollcages. Most every state has had performance stagerallies where caged cars transit on public roads and if it were illegal, doubtful the organizers could hold such events.