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

[Mrchatsworth]

Well head on collisions result in the addition of both speeds so a collision of two cars on a two lane highway going 80 is like hitting a steel. Wall at 160. But to be fair I’ve wrecked a few cars. One was at 80, airborne, rolled multiple times landed upside down, car on fire, my girlfriend at the time and I kicked out the back window and escaped. It was a Jetta and to this day the safest car I’ve wrecked.

 

[F_Marturana]

I ”totaled” a minivan a few years ago with my son in the car. He was in the car seat.

The other driver and myself were unharmed, and she was able to drive her car. My son was frightened, but safe in his car seat.

I’m thinking of my old family car. My dad bought it 50 years ago about. No shoulder seat belts, just lap belts. No car seat, as a baby/ toddler I used to sit on my mom’s lap in the front seat.

I’m glad we never had an accident in that car.

 

[Inquiry]

It’s actually like hitting a steel wall at 80. They tested this on mythbusters.

 

[Mrchatsworth]

Ok. Ten characters

 

[JanR]

Well, first of all, not all racing drivers emerge unscathed from crashes. Look at what happened to Dale Earnhardt – and he was inside of a closed cockpit, which should have afforded him greater protection than those open-cockpit racers. There have been numerous other race car drivers killed in crashes over the years, so those vehicles and the protections the drivers wear aren’t foolproof, by any means.

I think that if regular passenger cars were tricked out like the NASCARS, people might be encouraged to drive faster and be more reckless due to taking for granted an increased sense of security, which could prove to be false security. Why further encourage bad driving?

By the way, laws prohibiting talking on hand-held cell phones aren’t stupid. Nor are the laws that prohibit texting while driving. Both activities take our eyes off the road and/or our attention off of our driving, and are very unsafe. Those laws are in place for the protection of everyone on the road. Considerate and safety-conscious people keep their phones turned off while they drive, and pull over and stop in a safe place if they need to use them. Many fewer calls into 911 could result from just a little more thoughtfulness.

 

[runningdude]

If you put 4 people in a NASCAR, it would be just as deadly as any other car (even assuming it were designed with four seats). Training and context are the main factors in the relative safety of NASCAR.

Race cars are engineered to protect professional drivers from high speed collisions in a race environment. Race car drivers don’t weave through mixed speed traffic on the freeway and tailgate people who stop suddenly. NASCAR drivers don’t cut off big trucks or drive at excessive speed through blind turns. If they were used by everyday folks for daily errands and commuting, the death and injury rate would only be modestly lower. NASCAR drivers do not drive recklessly on the track, which is a contributing factor for a distressingly high percentage of accidents.

Similarly, a regular cars driven in a race environment would only be moderately more dangerous. All the cars are traveling at roughly the same speed and heading in the same direction. There is no two-way traffic, preventing head on collisions, and no intersections for people to run red lights through, preventing t-bone collisions with crossing traffic. The race track is a controlled environment, with fewer opportunities for failure. There are still spectacular accidents, but roll cages, five-point harnesses and helmets, and protected track barriers can mitigate most accidents.

Stepping a little further back philosophically, no normal person is going to wear a helmet or five point harness willingly. It takes a considerable amount of time to get strapped in and out of a five-point harness properly. Too loose, and it is useless. We have to ticket people to get them to spend 5 seconds buckling up! Spending several minutes carefully adjusting a complex harness is not going to happen. Even it if did, the harness is designed for collisions at 150 mph, not normal highway speeds. It is overkill, and using them would make people less safe, because they wouldn’t bother.

In essence, it is all matter of personal responsibility. People must drive safely and competently. If people drove race cars unsafely and incompetently, the race car would be just as unsafe or even worse than a regular car.

 

[AdamP88]

Because the chances of any one individual being in a fatal car accident is pretty small. And most people just aren’t willing to pay for that extra safety gear. If you’re concerned about safety, buy a Volvo. They’re the safest cars on the road.