So as I understand this, SCCA is probably going to force a lot of Solo
participants to buy a new (and some would say LESS protective) helmet
because an EXPERIMENTAL airbag designed to reduce injuries to F1 drivers
hitting a wall at 200+ mph with their face directly in line with the
steering wheel "MIGHT (my emphasis) cause a jaw fracture" !?!?
WTF? How does that translate to AXing a stock street vehicle where a
(reasonably deduced) much less powerful airbag of a totally different design
may be deployed in line with the driver's CHEST in a 60 mph incident. Why
didn't they ask Tasha what happens in that case, I don't remember her having
any jaw injury complaints???
Unless they can show actual case(s) where jaw injuries were the direct
result of a passenger car airbag contacting a full face helmet in SCCA
competition, IMHO the person that came up with this should be sent out to
the truck to check the equipment for next season because they DEFINITELY
have too much time on their hands.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Andy" <mark@sccaprepared.com>
To: "Evolution Discussion" <evolution-discussions@egroups.com>; "autox
mailing list" <autox@Autox.Team.Net>
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 11:31 AM
Subject: Re: Potential new helmet rule would affect autocrossers
> Howdy,
>
> On Thu, 18 Nov 2004, Rocky Entriken wrote:
> > I really do not believe we can prevent this -- "safety" issues
always
> > seem impervious to any objections -- but we might get it imposed in a
more
> > user-friendly manner (if a new helmet you must buy, would you not rather
be
> > able to get a Snell 2005 than a Snell 2000 that already has 4 years of
its
> > rulebook life gone?)
>
> Go read the report before you happily kowtow to the company line.
>
> That said, I don't know where you can (properly) get a copy of the report.
> The one I have (which I will not redistribute since I don't know if that
> violates copyright or whatever and the paper itself doesn't say) which has
> the title "Hubert Gramling, FT3/AF, 18.5.1999 is a study focused on
> comparing airbags and the HANS device in formula one cars. While the
> study does mention (in a passing manner) that the airbag hitting the chin
> area can cause damage, they make no mention whatsoever of that chance of
> damage being lessened by an open face helmet and don't appear to have
> tested that configuration. Nor do they appear to have tested using airbag
> geometry common to passenger cars, vs. F1 cars.
>
> In short, basing a safety decision related to passenger airbags and full
> face vs. open face helmets on this particular study would appear to be
> complete folly to me as the study is answering very different questions.
>
> And if you think its "good enough" and can be extrapolated to cover the
> situation, I beg to differ. In the paper, they talk about spacing the
> airbag another 50mm (~2") closer to the dummy and have what appear to be
> significant differences in performance. I'd submit that if 2" makes such
> a difference, certainly the different body position in a passenger car vs.
> a formula one car would make a difference.
>
> Not to mention that THEY DON'T TEST THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AIRBAG IMPACT
> WITH AN OPEN FACE HELMET VS. A CLOSED FACE HELMET!
>
> I sincerely hope that Tech Services or whoever issued this bulletin has
> other supporting information.
>
> Mark
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