I've had a 6 pt. wolfe bar in my car for a couple years and have heard some stories about having a bar in a street car being bad because you can hit your head on it easily (I don't think any of us wear helmets driving to work). I have actually smacked my head on the side bar once being dumb and whipping donuts, it hurt. I get to the track only a few times a summer and mainly just use the car on the street. I'm debating pulling it out (its a bolt in). Its not technically legal anyway, but close. I know rollbar padding is supposed to help cushion the impact if you hit it, I just don't know how much. If I took this to the track every weekend by all means it would have a legal roll cage, I just never seem to have time to get to the track.

It might be easy enough to just reinstall it for track use, I dunno.

Thoughts?

 

Mine saved my life!!!!!!

 

I've heard both good and bad stories about them, thats why I'm torn.

On one hand you have the guys who have spun out or flipped and it kept the car from crushing, thus saving their lives.

On the other hand you have guys who have smacked the **** out of their head on a bar and sustained injury.

One thing I'm concerned with is my son will probably start riding with me next summer and I don't want him to get a head injury from an otherwise minor impact, like if some idiot T-bones me.

I don't run door bars on the street anyway, so all its doing is providing roll over protection I guess.

 

i put padding on my bar and i think i'll be alright, my main hoop is far enough behind my head that i don't think i'd smack it directly.

 

I put sfi padding on mine and I never saw it as a problem to be honest. Plus, if the bar is positioned correctly, and if you have a race type seat in teh ar I can't see you hitting your head, my head physcially can not touch the bar, and it's padded everywhere near my head anyway.

 

I have stock seats and a fat ***, so my head is pretty close.

I don't want to install racing seats or harnesses just yet.

 

I have a 6 pt on the street and like already said... no possible way of hitting my head with my race seats.

 

Thats why i place the main hoop BEHIND the drivers head so he can´t make contact and padding on the sidebar to soften the impact for you elbow

 

You might want to check with your insurance company on weather they permit it or not.I was told by my agent when i went to insure my new trailer this spring,he asked if i raced the car,then he asked if i had a roll bar in the car,and told me that if i was in a wreck with it on the street that my coverage would be terminated,because of the roll bar.Your insurance might be different though,i would check!

 

What insurance company wouldn't want you to have something that makes the car safer? They're always harping about how everybody should be buckled up. A young man here rolled a low ten second gen. 3 camaro and the impact of going over four or five times knocked out the windshield and his helmet came off. Since he was about 6'5" his head hit the roll bar several times and he died on the way to the hospital. The bar stayed intact even though it was only about 6 point but the insufficient padding proved fatal. The helmet wound up about 75 feet downtrack for who knows what reason, not strapped on tight enough or some other reason. Accidents show you how good or how bad you've antisipated all the things that you'll encounter and obviously sometimes your not ready for the test of your preparations. Most pros walk away from real bad wrecks but circumstances sometimes dictate the outcome of any accident. Lots of room to slide without contacting anything solid is the most important thing to lessen damage to a driver or passengers.

 

insurance company sees a rollbar, then they know you are racing the car, and that's why they will drop you.

My advise don't tell them it's there, and don't get in an accident where they have to pay.

As for someone's helmet coming off in a wreck, I've never heard of that, obviously it wasn't strapped on or was nowhere near tight enough, because that should never be able to happen

 

i totally agree,but original poster said he rarely gets to the track,drives the car mainly on the street.

 

I am insured with state farm, not sure about their policy on the roll bar thing. They haven't seen the car since it was stock-ish. I'll call and ask tomorrow.

 

As far as I know NO mainstream insurance company will insure your car for liability if you have an aftermarket roll bar in the car. I realize some agents are 'cool' about it but dont expect that same level of coolness when the **** hits the fan.

IMO if its truly a street car I would take my chances without one if the interior is pretty stock and all the airbag stuff in intact, these arent 65 Chevy IIs and are have fairly stiff roll over structures, plus the airbags and stock seatbelts would offer much more protection in a frontal crash (most likely to happen on the street) then strapped tight into a racing seat. Also the side bars on a roll bar/cage are not there to keep a diesel pickup truck off your lap if you get hit in the side, that bar is there to keep you inside the car if the door flies open and offers little side impact protection.

Its really a messed up situation these days with roll bars and street driven cars, 20 years ago you could drive a shopping cart and allstate/state farm didnt care as long as the car had legit plates on it. But there have been so many lawsuits involving modified cars lately that they are being a little more careful what they insure. As far as your own personal safety that could be debated forever, one guy claims the roll bar in his street car saved his life and the others say it can kill you. But if you have a roll bar and stock seat belts thats a dangerous combo IMO, if you have a 5pt harness in the car it is not DOT approved plus you just defeated millions of dollars of crash testing in your car. Its a tough subject that street car guys and insurance companies have been tiptoeing around for years. I'm surprised none of the bigger 'collector' car companies havent picked up on coverage for cars that get raced and are street driven occasionally also. Some companies will insure a fully caged 'pro street' street car but if you tell them you race the car once in a while they will not insure it for liability on the street. My guess is they dont want to be stuck in a situation where if you hit someone at the track and get sued they would have to get involved legally since they insured the car. Lot easier just to say 'no' and move one I suppose..

But then if you do take the car to the track and bust off a 10 second pass with no roll bar/harness you are usually asked to leave. Its a pretty messed up situation that you either have to BS your insurance company or BS the track tech guys so you can make a couple passes.

 

I would start by saying there is no safe place for your child to ride in your car unless the Airbags are removed.

Next I would like to say that two weeks ago the combination of a roll bar and (mainly) sug-frame connectors kept one of my friends from injury. I will not go into the details other then it could have happened to any of us and wittnesses who saw it agreed.

He wound up sliding into a telephone pole at 30MPH sideways. Full side impact. Any of you who have seen one of these cars after a pole to side impact know they do not do well...and usually break in half.

He walked away with a heavily brused Ego(Lots of safety and driver schools) but the car was a loss. Most every thing on the car is savable but the Chassis is gone.

The pole stopped crushing the car when it hit the sub-frame connector, the entire uni-body frame rail is crushed flat against the connector. You can also see where the Roll bar contacted the interior roof areas side to side. The roof line and T-Top left a 2in gash in to pole and the pole moved 4-6in.

Over all we were very satified with the safety that had been added to the car.

The insurance was through a collector car company and is not settled yet. Things are going well and the car was insured for a real life replacement value

 

Yeah, the airbags in my car are disabled (driver side is gone actually) and the passenger one is disabled awaiting removal soon.

I wish there was a way to have it be easily R&R'ed and be semi legal. Its not technically track legal anyway (needs 2 joints welded, no biggie), but at 135+ MPH I feel safer with that steel around me.

I guess I'm walking that fine line where the car is fast enough to justify having alot of safety equipment but at the same time used on the street enough to justify not having it. Things like this are probably one reason alot of guys just go "all race" with their cars.

I have way too much on the line to not have insurance, so I will check on that.

 

FWIW insurance dropped my car and i had a rollbar.

 

I wouldnt tell your insurance you have a roll bar or mention drag racing in any way.

But yea, thats why I dont drive my car any more (insurance agent seen my web page and about **** himself), after checking with the specialty insurance companies not one of them would insure the car if I told them I drag raced it. Well i could just say I dont race the car but since thats what I do 99% of the time with it thats not exactly close to the truth and I have too much to lose if something happens on the street. So I opted for drag race car coverage, its way better coverage then anything else I found BUT the car cannot be registered for street use.

Just cant win it seems these days, thank the lawyers

 

roll bars are for race cars, if your out playing on the street your not going to get good races with a cage.

 

Kevin-

What about two policies? A policy w/a mainstream carrier for street liabilty.... where if the vehicle was involved in an honest run of the mill traffic accident that wasn't percipitated by street racing, they'd pay...... and a drag race car policy that covered the vehicle at the track?

Dunno if this is possible, and would certainly end up costing double your current policy premiums, but would be the best of both worlds if one was so inclined?