...if that car had just had a safety devices bolt in cage with door bars and a diagonal would the car have been much more badly damaged?You see rally cars on a lower budget with this kinda cage and i wonder how much stronger is a grp a type cage in the event of a roll?Are cages like rated to how fast you can hit a tree and get out?

 

would a cage be any good at all if you hit a tree?

didnt help michael parks

 

as you offering your services as a test dummy?

 

hit a tree hard enough and you are in trouble no matter what cage you have!

 

A cage that is spidered into everything has got to be tougher as it adds more rigidity and strength across various axis. But then again it depends on the circumstances of the prang. I think both Martin and Porkie would say they were very lucky after that Gumball crash

 

the trees win everytime

 

So Martin if you had the cage i described would you still be alive today after that crash in your opinion?

 

hard to say but is it worth having the cheaper one?!

 

Depends on budget...

I just wondered how just a 6 point bolt in cage got FIA approved..what are the stipulations.....

Are they purely only any good if you roll?

 

there's more of them!

 

A bolt in cage is a MINIMUM requirement cage, Group A cages as you call them also offer shell strength to improve handling so they are doing more that holding up the roof.

 

fil, it depends what theroll cage is designed to do.

does it offer some protection in the event of the car rolling? yes, therefore its handy

will it save your life if you hit a tree head on at 180mph? probably not... bts its not designed to do that.

hint's in the name... ROLL CAGE

 

As Danny has said it acts as more than just a ROLL cage Yes the shell even with my cage feels stiffer....

 

remember also its the sudden stop that will kill you every time

 

The new fiesta st150 rally car's have bolt in cages! these are bolt even up the a post. Must be safe or they wouldnt do it?? Things have come on since the sort you are thinking of!

 

Bolt in cages will not work as well as a real cage 90% of the time.

Proper cars have proper cages - FACT.

 

Am just saying that now adays they are a better standard as they wouldnt put them in brand new rally cars??

this is my roll cage after it rolled 3 and a half times this year and didnt even touch it!!

So i would personally go for weld in!!

 

Absolutely !!!

 

stupid thread. i hit a tree at 70 mph in my cossie, straight in the middle of the front and suffered no injuries at all and that wasn't fitted with a cage.

you will suffer less injuries if the car (and you being strapped into it) is slowed down gradually, hence why road cars have crumple zones and not bloody great tubular structures everywhere.

the point of a 'roll cage' is to give added strength in the event of a roll so that pillars don't collapse and the roof doesn't get crushed in. but if there is a roll, the effect of a stiff structure will be to make the car roll again and again as there is little energy being taken out.

as danny b has said, it's done in motorsport to let the suspension work better in addition to any safety benefits that it may or may not offer.

 

Exactly. Modern WRC cars are now strong enough to survive enormous accidents in a shape that still resembles a car. But its the G loading on your body and particularly your internal organs that will get you.

 

what car was that mate? was 70mph the closing speed?

 

well i hit a tree in my saf and rolled onto its roof, i came away with only minor injuries

speed of impact was around 60 -70 i think lol

heres what the car looked like



it all depends on what u use the car for, if high speed trials, track etc then yes it would be wise to fit one, everyday car i dont see and issue unless you drive like a complete arse all the tim ethen your just endangering yourself and others, i admit that i was driving a bit fast when something snapped and was not a very nice experience at all, im just thanking god that the passengers i had in the car earlier i told them to get a lift with someone else

 

70mph may be a bit of an exaggeration i left the road at 70, went down a 6 ft frosty grass slope and into the tree. i had the brakes on down the slope, but i wouldn't have slowed much.

car was a mint 2wd sapphire













what saved me was that as the car hit the tree fairly squarely, the back end lifted up so high that the energy was absorbed by the front cross member, the bonnet, the engine and then the roof.

 

[quote="xr4x4rs"]well i hit a tree in my saf and rolled onto its roof, i came away with only minor injuries

speed of impact was around 60 -70 i think lol

heres what the car looked like



ffffffffffffffffoooooooooooooooooooooookkkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnn hhhhhheeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllll that not t-cut out

 

just as i thought! hit a solid object head on at a closing speed of 70mph in a car that crashes badly and i doubt you would be here to tell about it!!

 

Low budget rallycars tend NOT to be doing high budget speeds.

You can't compare Phil

 

[quote="cressy"]lol

be surprised what survived though, only really lost the shell, and still got the engine from this day,4 years now such a shame as it was my first and only cosy since

 

martin-reyland well i am here to tell you it was near to 70mph. i don't care if you believe me or not. the pictures tell the story. the floorpan and roof were twisted and the seatback snapped. i was obviously lucky, and the guy that got out of a car that was behind me and saw it happen could not believe that i could get out and walk up the bank to use the emergency phone. but the shell was in mint condition and obviously gives more protection than you think. that and i'm a double hard bastard

some might not believe that you were doing whatever speed you were when you rolled on the gumball, but you're still here to tell about it. you might put that down to your roll cage, but that would not have helped in the kind of accident that i had. it's better to let the shell deform to dissipate the energy, and that clearly happened in my accident.

 

Point is your car does not look badly damaged, I have had cars in that have hit solid objects at 40mph and you wouldn't believe the damage that causes. Whatever speed that has been banded about regarding my crash could be believable as we didn't hit anything... we simply rolled until it stopped. For an insight on what damage is caused by a head on crash at 40mph take a look at the n cap crash test site....

 

I've been repairing crash damaged cars for well over 10 years and to be honest i've repaired worse that have hit objects at 30mph!!

 

i hit a lampost at over 70 mph
im just glad the 2 people that were going to be in the back took a difrent car.left me in hospital with a fractured skull they would have not made it to hospital
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...i/genral/3.bmp
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...i/genral/2.bmp
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...i/genral/1.bmp
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...i/genral/4.bmp

 

Would it not be possible in a crash to be speared by the roll cage i allways think about it loadsa metal tubes around u?Or will this not happen because of the type of welds?

 

What a cracking thread (no pun intended)...i hear what the German bloke is saying but disbeleive the speed sorry

 

weld in versas bolt in, how much difference?

 

Bosch-Man, you'd be amazed at the state alot of wrc cars end up in when they crash badly. The cages on those often crumple completely. You have to think about stuff like seat mounts etc holding when you crash as well. A roll cage is there to give the driver/co driver as much chance as possible to get away from the crash alive. No cage will ever protect the occupants from every possible crash

Dont like saying this but I imagine if the reyland car had hit anything solid etc it would of been a very different story for the two involved. Thank god it didnt...

You have to take into account the rigidity of the structure. Steel tubing is only rigid in certain directions.

 

Martin, maybe you should question how solid the object was rather than how fast the speed was?

70mph into a tree that is supple and gives is going to damage a car less than 40mph into a 3 foot girth english oak

 

I witnessed an accident in Clumber Park where a guy in a Saff 4x4 hit a big [over 2ft across] lime tree square on at 80mph [according to the Inquest] and the Saff was totally unrecognisable before the Fire Brigade chopped the roof off the shell to remove the driver and passenger who were both killed on impact. I doubt any cage would have saved them as its the inertia of the sudden stop that killed them.

 

by what he says below it sounds like a pretty solid tree to me....

"what saved me was that as the car hit the tree fairly squarely, the back end lifted up so high that the energy was absorbed by the front cross member, the bonnet, the engine and then the roof."
_________________

 

you can see from these 2 photos quite clearly that the point of first impact is right in the middle of the crossmember. you can also see that the tree trunk was less than a foot in diameter, but i don't think that you get a lot more movement from one that size than a 3 foot wide one.




the accident happened as i was coming down the slip road of a motorway just after i'd bought the car. it was a cold day and the car was on 245 wide summer tyres at the rear and the bloke had been trying to tell me that one of the rear dampers was knackered. anyway, i came down the sliproad and joined the main carriageway and booted it in third and the boost came up and kicked the arse end out at about 4500 rpm. obviously i wasn't looking at the speedo at the time that i was trying to catch the arse end but i didn't lose a lot of speed in the time it took to fishtail off the side of the road and down the bank.

at the end of the day, i don't know at what speed i actually hit the tree, and i don't care what anyone else thinks either. i just feel lucky to have survived it without any physical damage, although i have some symptoms of brain damage caused by the front of the brain impacting on the inside of the skull under high deceleration forces

 

Nick - without prying......... what symptoms?