To all:
I've been watching and reading the information on this subject with interest.
As someone who has some experience in the Automotive Restraints business ( I
used to own a company that made squibs for firing airbags and seatbelt
pretentioners), I dealt with the major OEM restraint system suppliers (like
TRW,
Autoliv, Breed, General Safety, etc.) on a regular basis and saw seatbelt
design,
manufacturing, and testing first hand.
First, I would definitely be interested in seeing the hard data and test
results that has been alluded to in many of the articles on this subject.
And, I
can certainly agree with the premise that a six-point system is better than a
5 point system. But what I seriously question is how the performance of the
webbing and attachments can degrade by 50% over two years!?
Perhaps if you sprayed the belts down with BrakeKleen or Carburetor cleaner
every time you washed the car, maybe.
Seatbelt manufacturers (i.e. occupant restraint system suppliers) and OEM car
manufacturers must certify that belts will meet NHTSA crash test requirements
for at least 10 years, and in some cases, the requirement is going to 15
years expected life. If seatbelt materials (webbing, mounts, etc.) degraded
this
much, I seriously doubt these systems would be qualified to pass these
rigorous tests. But they do.
I can understand accelerated UV aging and many other factors that can come
into play in racing belts are different than street car belts, but they must
both do the same job of protecting the occupants.
I am suspicious that either SFI, or SCCA, or the belt manufacturers
themselves are trying to cover their butts from being sued in the event of a
rare
failure. I would further suspect that MOST of the belt failures have more to
do
with improper installation and maintainence than manufacturing or material
defects. And, by the way, I wonder how much business would increase if we said
our belts are only good for 2 years now, instead of 5!
What's missing in this discussion are hard test results and facts that make
this argument more convincing. I'd be willing to bet my 5 year old belts with
probably 25 total race weekends on them are just as rugged as a brand new
set, should they be tested.
Does anyone know where to find the actual, so-called TEST DATA that
precipitated this decision??
Regards,
Myles H. Kitchen
1965 Lotus Cortina Mk1 #128
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