Quote:
Originally Posted by Nial McCabe
About 10 years ago I was in an endurance race at Lime Rock when a driver wearing a HANS device (they were quite new then) struck another car. His belts slipped off his shoulders and his head hit the steering wheel. He did not survive. Under local law, police did an investigation and found that part of the problem was that the shoulder belts were mounted too far apart from each other. The HANS device (which was the old style without the ridges on the shoulder blades), may have actually "helped" the belts slip off. A terrible tragedy.
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1. I have been with HANS Performance Products for over 13 years and we receive accident reports from all over the world, whether race officials, sanctioning bodies, coroners or racers themselves. We have never heard of the above incident. I would appreciate any details or links you can provide.
2. Research has proven when shoulder belts are mounted too far apart your entire torso slips through the belts on impact. Whether you wear a head restraint or not this is critical safety information for mounting belts. In an impact the belts grip the HANS with about 10,000 lbs. of friction with the rubber on the legs. It cannot "help the belts slip off".
3. NASCAR maintains a database of impacts. In over 6,000 events they have never recorded a situation where the belts have come off. NASCAR events are usually high energy, with the car hitting multiple objects and/or flipping multiple times. If mounted correctly the belts do not move.
If you have any further question on HANS or cockpit safety please contact me directly. Thank you for the opportunity of posting.
Gary Milgrom
VP HANS Performance Products
gmilgrom (at) teamsimpson (dot) com