Re: Roll Bar a Risk on the Street?

[Jefrem Iwaniw <jiwaniw@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tim (and anybody else in the same boat),

I suggest you find a car that has a roll bar and look at it.  Front seat
occupants have as much chance of hitting the bar as they have of hitting
anything else hard in/out of the car -- the bar is *behind* the front
seats, not running across your field of vision.  If you're flopping around
the inside of your car such that you possibly could hit the bar, your
going to be hitting alot of other hard stuff as well.  This is not a valid
argument against the bar.  

IF YOU'RE WEARING A HARNESS, YOU NEED A ROLL BAR OR ROLL CAGE (yes, I was
shouting).

Hope (that you don't roll) is not a very sure thing to bet your life on.

I've got a full cage in my 02, with padding everywhere.  The padded cage
is softer than most of the other interior pieces of the car, and it would
be very unlikely that in any "incident" the bar would put me in any
greater risk of head injury (i.e. I have enough clearance).  How much of
the interior of your car has 1 inch of padding between you and a hard
part?

A good friend has a very nice tc kline or Turner roll bar (I can't
remember which) in his E36 M3, and its way out of the way.

Bolt-in roll bars are relatively unobtrusive -- you'll be drilling 16
holes in your car, that you can subsequently close/seal if you do sell it.
If somebody notices, and they make you knock-off a couple hundred for it,
that's a small price to pay for having increased your chances of surviving
a roll-over significantly.

As usual, YMMV.

- ------------------------------------
- -Jefrem Iwaniw, jiwaniw@domain.elided, '72 2002, '94 525i
 Keller, TX

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