Incidentally, the helmet visers have, as a direct result of the Massa accident, been modified to further protect the driver while not wrapping the cars up in cotton wool.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Bezza
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Incidentally, the helmet visers have, as a direct result of the Massa accident, been modified to further protect the driver while not wrapping the cars up in cotton wool.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Bezza
Indeed. Why the need for a $5m incentive to win from the back then? Is this just the American mentality of 'spicing up the show'?Quote:
Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1
I think you're missing the point. We will NEVER eliminate all deaths within motorsport, it simply won't happen. But do you honestly think that cars having a higher chance of flying is a GOOD thing?!?!?!?!?!?Quote:
Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1
So far we've got Mark and Dylan H who say that a rear bumper wouldn't be the end of the world.
Motorsport was always dangerous, but throughout time it's become safer because accidents have been evaluated and near misses have been looked at and where appropriate changes have been made such as stronger helmets after Felipe's incident. Where was your complaint when the FIA chose to make stronger helmets compulsory? :confused:
No one is talking about giving the cars hundreds of metres of runoff area and removing 99% of the risk for drivers, a few of us are just talking about a couple of sensible changes which could stop serious and life threatening accidents from happening in the first place and minimising the risk to drivers in the event of an accidents.
It's funny that the very sorts of people who love Jackie Stewart seem to be the same ones who are against improvements in safety.
the comment below on Joe Saward's blog kind of says it all for me http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2011/...ch-post-massa/
I completely agree with that 100% and I very much suspect that anyone who disagrees probably has issues with me rather than the actual idea I'm advocating.Quote:
I don’t know why but the reaction to any new safety in the sport always takes me by surprise even though the reaction is always the same. It is 45 years since Jackie Stewart started his safety campaign and while we now ridicule the response he received, yet again with this article we see the same responses. I will never understand F1 fans. They want innovation provided nothing changes and any change regardless how small means F1 is not F1 any more.
I have seen more than enough drivers die and I have never felt I gained anything by a single death yet still we have people saying that the sport should not be too safe and the powers that be should use their efforts to do something other than improve safety. I would like someone to tell me what I have missed. What should I have gained by watching Senna die? My view is I lost a lot the day he died. I missed watching him race for the next few seasons and what he would have done when he retired. What should I have gained watching Gilles Villeneuve die? I lost the opportunity to see him take the 1982 world title and move to McLaren the following year where he would have been mighty in John Barnard’s TAG engined cars. I really would like someone to explain to me what is so great about watching men die. How many drivers per year should be killed for optimum entertainment?
When I watched Lewis Hamilton make his overtaking move at Copse on a soaking wet track a week ago I was marvelling at his car control and skill not at the level of risk he was taking. Motor racing to me is like any other sport in that the enjoyment comes from admiring the skill not from watching someone risk death. Would David Beckham’s free kicks have been better if he risked death if he missed the goal? Are the achievements of Roger Federer or Tiger Woods somehow less because they were achieved without risking life and limb? Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees just became the 28th player in baseball history to score 3000 base hits. Maybe had pitchers been throwing hand grenades rather than baseballs at him his achievement would have been more worthy and his skills greater?
We have not just had two freak accidents. David Coulthard came very close to decapitating Alex Wurz in Melbourne a couple of years ago. Pedro Diniz came close to very serious injury upside down in a gravel trap in Germany a few years before that. Would Francois Cevert’s accident have proved fatal had proper head protection been fitted to his Tyrrell at Watkins Glen in 1973? There are hundreds of examples of accidents where head injury happened or could have happened. Tom Pryce may not have been killed at Kyalami when he hit the marshal crossing the track for example.
It’s all very well for people to say how much better helmet design is but a helmet is attached to a head which is balanced on a very fragile human spinal column. It takes very little load for the spinal column to suffer serious damage. Helmets should not be designed like crash structures and be expected to handle a particular load. Helmets should be as capable as possible but the aim should always be that nothing goes anywhere near them.
Thing is, it minimises the risk, where's the harm in that? If you reduce the instances of cars getting launched by 20% then that's still 2 out of 10 flying cars which will stay on the ground.Quote:
Originally Posted by SGWilko
You seem to think that because it can't solve all instances of flying cars that it's not worth it.
Since you seem to want to eliminate risks as much as possible, shouldn't we implement a speed limit in F1? Let's say 80km/h on the straights, 60km/h in the corners. That way we could minimize risks and the impact speeds would be much lower. Why risk your life driving at 300km/h? the FIA must do something about it! :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
So telling me to pull the pole out of my keester isn't rude or inflamatory? :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by SGWilko
Of course if Dan's car hadn't hit the fence he'd still be alive, that's the whole point!!!!! If not for his car being sent flying he would most likely still be alive today. If you stop people flying in the first place then the catch fence could be made out of TNT and they could be racing in Baghdad and it would be safer than the race on Sunday.
The thing is the experts have already looked at IndyCar and put the bumpers on? :confused: What is there to wait for? We will never know whether they would have saved him for sure, you just never know do you? But making things safer is always a step in the right direction. That people on here don't want things to be safer and for there to be less chance of death is mindboggling.
The FIA does impose speed limits on motorsport. They do this through track design and in rallying they will cut a stage into two as was done in Finland a few years ago when Petter was a little too fast for the FIA's liking. The FIA have a target average speed through WRC stages is 130kph and when stages go above that average speed then the FIA take action.Quote:
Originally Posted by DexDexter
So whilst the idea of F1 cars only going at 80kph is just stupid, the FIA do already take action when they consider that cars are going too quickly.
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Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1
I missed the bit where he said nothing should be improved and that Dan's death was an acceptable byproduct of racing and nothing should be done to stop it happening again.Quote:
Alex Lloyd: "Is our job worth the risk? When you think of Dan's wife and children left behind, the answer is simple. No. But coming into this race you could argue that the risks are so remote that it was worth the risk to do what we love. Injury is possible, but we just haven't seen a death in the sport for a long time, and huge safety improvements have been made.
"Sunday we learned the hard truth: that no matter how much we can improve safety and plan for all eventualities, some things are impossible to prepare for. I think over this off-season we will evaluate what went wrong and how we can prevent this from happening again. And mark my words, we will learn from this.
"No one can be blamed for this accident. It is just that, an accident. We will learn and improve, but we will not blame."
I'm being painted as someone who wants to eliminate every single danger that exists in motorsport, I'm just saying that we should react to the accidents that do happen and try and minimise the risk that we have.
Do you honestly have issues with minimising risks and keeping drivers safe and alive?
If he thinks of it as a job, it's definitely not worth the risk.Quote:
Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1
I don't have a problem with that tbh. I doubt that any person in high level motorsport thinks of it as a job in the same sense that you or I think of our jobs. At the end of it all he gets paid for it or it's how he is famous and hence earns money through endorsements so it's his job.Quote:
Originally Posted by AndyL