Why can't regular cars be as safe as NASCAR cars?

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I’m sure that by now, many of you have seen the incredible video of Ryan Newman walking out of the hospital with his two beautiful little daughters only a few days after a crash that looked like it would kill him and leave little of him left in the car except ashes and a few bone shards!

But many of us have friends and family who have been killed in auto accidents that were far less “spectacular” than that NASCAR crash this weekend. Sometimes, people die when someone hits them from behind–they don’t have a scratch on their bodies, but the impact snaps their neck and kills them!

MANY people die in auto accidents in the U.S. It’s not rare, it’s common.

So…why don’t we drive cars everyday that are as “death-proof” as our NASCAR cars? And when we drive, why don’t we wear clothing and restraints that the NASCAR drivers wear?

Oh, I realize that it would cost a ton of money. But our cars already cost a ton of money! I have friends at work, in my lab (not doctors!) who drive cars that cost almost as much as my house! Many cars cost thirty thousand dollars or more–not luxury cars, just large family cars! And even the little compacts (which are more likely to be deathtraps than the family barges) cost over twenty thousand dollars!

And we are willing to spend that money to get extras like “SIRIUS” and “heated seats” and a kiosk for our coffee beverages, and all kinds of other doo-dads–why aren’t we willing to spend the extra money to stay alive and keep our kids and our parents alive?!!

All kinds of stupid laws are made that supposedly protect drivers (e.g., can’t be talking on a hand-held phone while driving).

But people keep getting killed. So why don’t we make our cars and our driving apparel virtually-death-proof, even if we do something stupid like fall asleep and drive over the edge of the ramp and collide with another car just innocently toodling along after a day at the antique mall? If BOTH cars–the sleeper and the toodler–were built like NASCAR cars–and if the passengers in BOTH cars were all wearing the protective gear (e.g., fireproof suits, helmets, boots, gloves, goggles, etc.) that the NASCAR drivers wear–well, the drivers and passengers of BOTH cars would step out of their mangled wrecks and laugh because they are STILL alive!

Why are we willing to pay for terribly expensive products and health-care, but not willing to pay for something that would, in all likelihood, end a major cause of tragic deaths in the United States?

What would it take?
 
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From an engineering standpoint, the challenges in making a NASCAR car safe are only partially relateable to the challenges in making a regular car safe. Types of collisions, speed of collision, passenger location, and driver experience all vary and that means you need different solutions to combat them. A lot of the stuff that can be transferred between the two already is.
 
Many of the NASCAR safety features would make a car impractical as a vehicle for carrying passengers and getting groceries. For example, to make the body stronger, there are no openable doors; the driver has to crawl in thru the window. To prevent the kind of broken neck that killed Dale Earnhardt, the driver’s helmet is firmly attached to the back of the seat (the HANS device). Then there are the improvements that would have to be added to the roads, starting with lining them all with SAFER barriers.

Why don’t we just start with getting people to use their seat belts, put their devices down, and in general just drive like their intelligence is just a little bit more than that of a chimpanzee?

D
 
You’d have to get people to actually wear all that protective gear, for one.

Two, there’s a pretty big element of randomness in general. Two people can be in very similar wrecks, even with the same or equivalent vehicles. One is killed; the other walks away unharmed. NASCAR wrecks do kill people.
 
F_Marturana said:
Like sonar that alarms the driver of another car too close.
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Works for those who hear, or who are willing to wear hearing aids when they can’t hear.

That excludes my father-in-law, and I’m guessing many other older folks who have not been able to accept their own limitations and insist on putting themselves and others in danger by driving. But what else are they to do? We, their few adult children, are still working! We can’t just leave work in the middle of the day to take our parents to the local cafe for coffee and pancakes, and then come back and pick them up! There are rides services provided by local aging organizations, but the rides have to be arranged several weeks in advance, so no impetuous drives down to the WalMart just to look around and maybe buy some candy for the grandkids. As for Uber–ha ha ha–the idea of my father -in-law using an I Phone is Tonight Show comedy material, except it isn’t funny. He can’t even use his flip phone anymore! Can’t see the buttons, can’t hear the ringtones, can’t hear when someone does manage to get him to pick up the phone and answer it.

Why can’t we all just admit when we have weaknesses?!
 
DaveBj said:
Why don’t we just start with getting people to use their seat belts, put their devices down, and in general just drive like their intelligence is just a little bit more than that of a chimpanzee?

D
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I agree with you–but we’ve been doing that since I was a toddler (I remember the commercials on TV about “safety belts” and my parents both ignored them).

It doesn’t seem to be working.

Almost every car that I pass on my commute home from work has a driver who is using an I-Phone to either contact someone, text, or play some stupid game.

If it there were an easy way to report these drivers, i would do so. But I can’t report 20 or 30 drivers! I would be the one driving distracted!

But if the driver was holding a gun while driving, everyone would be calling the cops.

I’m guessing more people are killed or injured in car accidents involving phones than are killed or injured in car accidents involving guns.
 
DaveBj said:
Then there are the improvements that would have to be added to the roads, starting with lining them all with SAFER barriers.
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The day that happens…well, it won’t happen. We still have potholes in our city big enough to swallow a small car. All of Illinois is pretty much the same. There are certain bridges that I avoid because I know that they will one day crumble and collapse–it doesn’t take an engineer to see the obvious flaws.

I don’t know. Perhaps we all have a death wish in this country.

BTW, I think that engineers are smart enough to figure out how to make a stronger car body that still allows people to enter a door rather than crawl through a window. Or perhaps I’m just over-estimating their intelligence?

Sigh.
 
You aren’t overestimating their intelligence you are underestimating the significance of that change.
 
Peeps said:
Works for those who hear, or who are willing to wear hearing aids when they can’t hear.
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The dashboard also has a monitor with an icon indicating what side of the car is too close.
 
I’m older. I can remember when crashes were much more deadly.

Cars used to be built on large chassis with two steel bars going from the front to the back. They were heavy and solid. When the card hit something, though, all of the force of the crash was transferred to the occupants. The car would survive, but the people wouldn’t.

Now, there are multiple crush zones and other things to dissipate the crash forces. The people live, more often, and the car dies.

We still have a long way to go. One thing to remember - the Department of Transportation no longer calls these events “accidents”. They call them “crashes”. Why? An accident seems like, “Oh, well, nothing we could do”, whereas a crash is meant to convey that it was preventable, with more skill, more attention, etc.
 
Just how many miles per gallon do you want?
NASCAR race cars gets about 3 to 4 miles per gallon.

I am sure we could make a car just as safe, but I doubt we would enjoy MPG’s much past 10.
 
Auto racing gave us windshield wipers, seatbelts, review mirrors, monocoque chassis and other devices we now consider standard. The problem with the production of safe personal cares is that the auto makers are sure that: “Safety doesn’t sell.” Consumer tastes (or perceived tastes) determine production.
 
I would think that wearing a helmet would make it hard to negotiate city streets and intersections, particularly since auto racing helmets attach to the seat.
 
We knew a doctor that always wore a helmet when he drove on the interstate. He had seen too many head injuries in his career from car crashes.
 
1 money
2 trained drivers
3. A smooth circle of left turns and no oncoming or cross traffic
4 uniformity in cost and quality and mainenence of cars.
5. Sponsors and having each driver pass an athletic and knowledge test.

Just for starters
 
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