Time to remove window nets?

[SDR41A]

Just reading the comments by Jason Richards regarding the roll over incident in New Zealand. Here he mentions that the window net had released during the roll over. Now you potentially have a spear of some 8mm to 10mm diameter, some 600mm in length, flying around the cabin with you. Imagine this being at the wrong angle at the wrong time and impacting against the ground or what ever and striking the head or upper body area of the driver. This rod could actually pierce a drivers helmet as well. Time to remove window nets?

[vortexo]

or have a look at the mounting points and rectify this problem.

[GTRMagic]

Thats more likely the problem vortexo, a number of drivers have been saved from having their heads hit walls by that net... having the window up wont stop it, just put more glass into the danger zone.

[barra]

yeah look at the mounting points or mounting set up, I have seen window nets save more people then they've ever harmed. However in a Roll over the mounts have been known to break

[jetsetter]

The window nets are a valuable safety device & should be left there although the fact that they are coming loose is a major worry & defeats the purpose of having them. I think in the interest of driver safety this issue must be adressed as soon as possible.

[rustyinsthoz]

I have read that the right hand mounting points of his seat broke , which caused most of his injury .

[dirttrack]

In speedway the window net is mounted to the rollcage. It is a much better attatchmet as they are currently only in the door of the v8s.

[GTV27]

How about ditching the net and fitting a "bulletproof" plastic window?

[Gaz170]

Could you remove the drivers window, and build a frame for the net in its place?????

[Crash Test]

It's a catch 22- you need something that can be removed from the inside or outside in an emergency, but in another emergency you don't want it to come undone!

It must have been fairly unlucky to roll a 1350kg car at 160km/h onto the part of the car that the window net is attached, but ****e happens sometimes...

[twig]

Why do they even need to have those tubes of metal on the top and the bottom of the nets? Sure, it adds to strength, but not as much as the danger value.

Why dont they just have an attachment to the car with the design concept of the cover on the back of the ute, with a ring, going around a button sort of thing. Removing the metal tubing.
And you could even cover over those clips and buttons with some other panel, so they probably wouldnt be ripped off in an accident - Or less likely to.

[dynamik gal]

The issue has to be solved because in the event of a window being down and the netting coming lose there is the problem of the drivers head making contact with the ground in the unlucky chance of the seating mounts breaking. If the netting is fixed to the door frame then in an emergency it may take too long to remove it, as drivers mostly use their windows as a quick exit. Bulletproof windows that are hard to remove/wind down in an extreme hurry cause a fatal wall so therefore it becomes difficult to pick what should be modified. Cars will, unfortunately, continue to have high impact crashes so they need to pass the safety tests. Think of the McLarens this year that didnt run due to saftey aspects not being met.

Perhaps they can elongate the rod and make it so that it slides inside the door fitting approx 20cm or so, a bendable plastic coated rod, so therefore if it requires removal from the door catchment it can be yanked out hard by a driver and they can then get out.

Not a saftey/car engineer so these are just thoughts, but its something that will have to have some more thought put into.

[Morris 1100]

They could always use the NASCAR style mount with two seatbelt buckles as the top mount.

[Crash Test]

Some people do that...

[PVDA]

If you ever saw the little Suzuki roll over the wall at the 'Chase in 1995 you would've seen the top of the door frame bend outwards and the drivers head/helmet popping in and out of the gap as the car rolls.

For this reason the net should be attached to the cage and not the door frame.

Also most experienced marshalls carry a good pair of shears (scissors) to cut through things like nets, belts and battery leads so it shouldn't add too much time to any rescue.

[GTV27]

Originally posted by Morris 1100
They could always use the NASCAR style mount with two seatbelt buckles as the top mount.

NASCAR has some of the biggest crashes possible, so looking at their safety procedures as an example wouldn't be a bad start.

I'd certainly prefer this system than a metal rod ready to come lose and impale me!

[Onlooker]

If you actually attached the back of the seat to the horizontal cross bar on the cage at the point where the belts come through it would stop the drivers from flapping about when the 4 little 8mm bolts pull out of the seat also.With all these seats coming out with wings etc around the drivers head you would think that keeping the driver in the seat would be the first priority

[GTRMagic]

Ah yes but isnt the issue the requirement for the car to fit multiple sized drivers? So they cant bolt the seat to the cage because the latest shorty pipsqueak driver cant reach the pedals

The driver should be in effectively a survival cell, in a similar manner to the weirdo application of same that Larko tried to implement in his very first M10 EF Falcon.

Maybe thats the next answer, build a cocoon structure for the drivers to sit in out of carbon fibre, like an F1 car....

[Onlooker]

Well they seem to manage it in NASCAR and Speedway so I can't really see the problem.A Carbon Fibre "tounge" if you like sticking out perpendicular to the back of the seat that can then have a 150mm wide strip of aluminium bolted from there to the cage would suffice.The teams no longer use tracks to any extent to accomadate different drivers like DJR used in years gone by and are opting for padding and dickie seats so it is very do-able.Heck 5 years ago or so they were bolting seats to the 0.6mm sheet metal that made up the floor.Anyone that saw Dugals seat that broke in half at PI would surely think it worth a look I would have thought.

[GTRMagic]

The driver should be placed in position, and the edal box adjustable to suit.... its how some teams do it.... and could be mandated in the regulations if they were serious about it

[Onlooker]

Well i think that Crompton said that the seating position was restricted now in the blueprint cars so their cant be that much different.

[GTRMagic]

There is a substantial difference in cars from different suppliers. An SHRT car for example is not the same as the CPR version of the same model, nor is it the same as a PMM unit. There is no specific design rules for the driver cockpit in the regulations if I remember rightly.

Considering this is supposed to be a controlled category on a technical level, I would have thought the logical extension to the existing process would be to mandate a driver cell of certain dimensions, with offset position from the RHS roll cage position, including doorframe bar size, dimension, materials etc etc all surrounding driver protection.

[Onlooker]

Well with the drivers so far back in the cars now days maybe they should look at putting one on the rear window as well

[GTRMagic]

So whats stopping a driver from having a central driving position, neither LHD or RHD in order to balance up the weight left to right.... the shifter can easily be relocated remotely, especially when they move to sequential shifting sooner rather than later....

Would be incredibly safe, although there would be fewer passenger rides

[Onlooker]

But the engineers would have a heart attack at the new centre of gravity and I think the sterring colum has some restriction on it also.
As for passengers ,just stick them in the back