> Ok, I didn't want to do this, but I HAVE to say something here.
> A statement
> like "I would have been more injured if I had used my seatbelt"
> may be true in
> individual rare cases.
Yeah, but two in a row isn't all that rare !
> However, generalizing this to apply universally
Except that I wasn't generalizing to apply universally ... I was talking
specifically about a stock (no roll bar/cage) TR3.
> Also, my family is
> alive from a nasty roll-over
Which was NOT in a stock TR3, now was it ? If you roll a TR3, you're going
to get a whole lot more than a little bop on the head. And being tied to
the car in an upright position pretty much ensures it WILL be fatal.
Besides, you don't know for a fact that they only survived because of their
seatbelts, that's just an assumption. Everyone does it, when they survive
without belts it's "even though they weren't wearing"; and when they die
wearing them it's always "even though they were". NO ONE collects
statistics on how many people were killed by their belts or survived without
them. And I know several people personally who survived "unsurvivable"
crashes without their seat belts. In one case, the trunk lid was forced
through the passenger compartment. If the woman driving had been wearing a
shoulder belt, she would likely have been decapitated. As it was, she was
bent over and the trunk lid only took off part of her scalp. She's alive
and well today, still raising her 3 children.
Restraints of any sort are more apt to hurt than help when it comes to any
sort of passenger compartment penetration/deformation.
> This is because people are surviving previously
> lethal accidents with the upper airbags and 3-point belts.
Not in a TR3 they aren't !
> But the less supported legs meet with the dash forcefully.
And all the belts in the world will not help when those legs are being
pinched between the dash and the floor. I disassembled a TR3 some years ago
(a very nice restoration) that had hit a pole at a fairly high rate of
speed. The bottom edge of the dash was almost touching the passenger seat
...
I'm not arguing that restraints don't improve safety, WHEN COMBINED with
other modifications like crush zones and passenger compartment
reinforcement/rollover protection.
But I stand by my assertion that adding them to a stock TR3 with no other
modifications gives a false sense of security and little or no improvement
in survivability of a major crash.
Randall
|