Sell a Caterham to me on its SAFETY MERITS(!!!!)
Discussion
Could anyone please oblibe and provide full details ont eh saftey features of a caterha,m and theire real life use and application.
Can that roll bar really withstand turning ouver and into a muddy field at 60 mph without digging in, bending/snapping and at the same time allowing oyur head to bury itself 3 feet under too????
Can that one inch thick wall of alluminium really stop a range rover ploughing through you side-on after you stalled getting onto a roundabout??
The car is sold on every other aspect to me...but i want to stay alive to enjoy cars for evermore, not die trying to enjoy cars!!!
Can that roll bar really withstand turning ouver and into a muddy field at 60 mph without digging in, bending/snapping and at the same time allowing oyur head to bury itself 3 feet under too????
Can that one inch thick wall of alluminium really stop a range rover ploughing through you side-on after you stalled getting onto a roundabout??
The car is sold on every other aspect to me...but i want to stay alive to enjoy cars for evermore, not die trying to enjoy cars!!!
If you so wish you can have externally mounted side impact bars, and a racing roll cage fitted by Caterham. All of this equipment seems to be fairly standard when I have seen them racing.
But if you want airbags and abs, maybe that range rover you were talking about is more suited to you
Only kidding, had the same debate about this with a few friends a couple of weeks ago.
>> Edited by markda on Wednesday 7th May 13:51
But if you want airbags and abs, maybe that range rover you were talking about is more suited to you
Only kidding, had the same debate about this with a few friends a couple of weeks ago. >> Edited by markda on Wednesday 7th May 13:51
Forget the useless single hoop roll bars, they just fold apparenly. Get yerself a proper FIA type rollbar and turning over shouldn't be a problem.
If you an accident you shouldn't get any whiplash or "yank" type damage, as you're strapped in so tightly.
Er, leave your lights on at all times (including in the day) to make yourself more visible.
Um, superb handling and fast accelleration means you can get out of danger quicker.
Err .... struggling .....
If you an accident you shouldn't get any whiplash or "yank" type damage, as you're strapped in so tightly.
Er, leave your lights on at all times (including in the day) to make yourself more visible.
Um, superb handling and fast accelleration means you can get out of danger quicker.
Err .... struggling .....
Never drive anywhere with walls/hedges as you can't be seen over them 
Rollover bars MUST be 3" higher than the top of your head (helmeted if you're doing trackdays) and have a sturdy diagonal.
>Can that roll bar really withstand turning ouver and into a muddy field at 60 mph without digging in, bending/snapping and at the same time allowing oyur head to bury itself 3 feet under too????<
No. But you'd be dead in most cars if you rolled at 60mph. You'd also have to do something very very very stupid to roll a 7. In anything open it's purely luck as you could easily hit a branch as you rolled and get skewered.
>Can that one inch thick wall of alluminium really stop a range rover ploughing through you side-on after you stalled getting onto a roundabout??<
No. The side impact bars Caterham sell wouldn't help you either, but then you wouldn't want to have the same accident in most cars (side impact is effective, but a Range Rover (especially one with bull bars
) will demolish the SIP on any car at around 40mph.
Safety in a Caterham is mainly primary (ie. avoiding an accident): stop v. quickly, won't bite you if you have to swerve, inherently stable etc.
Secondary safety (ie. after you crash) is minimal, probably comprable to a mini, AX or 205.
Rollover bars MUST be 3" higher than the top of your head (helmeted if you're doing trackdays) and have a sturdy diagonal. >Can that roll bar really withstand turning ouver and into a muddy field at 60 mph without digging in, bending/snapping and at the same time allowing oyur head to bury itself 3 feet under too????<
No. But you'd be dead in most cars if you rolled at 60mph. You'd also have to do something very very very stupid to roll a 7. In anything open it's purely luck as you could easily hit a branch as you rolled and get skewered.
>Can that one inch thick wall of alluminium really stop a range rover ploughing through you side-on after you stalled getting onto a roundabout??<
No. The side impact bars Caterham sell wouldn't help you either, but then you wouldn't want to have the same accident in most cars (side impact is effective, but a Range Rover (especially one with bull bars
) will demolish the SIP on any car at around 40mph. Safety in a Caterham is mainly primary (ie. avoiding an accident): stop v. quickly, won't bite you if you have to swerve, inherently stable etc.
Secondary safety (ie. after you crash) is minimal, probably comprable to a mini, AX or 205.
I am not convinced a Caterham is for you, I think a Volvo maybe a better option?
If you want the fun of a Caterham, live with the fact it has no creature comforts. If you want to drive one hard enough on the road which may result in rolling into a field then you're certifiable.
I have not heard of many people having serious accidents in Caterhams/Westfields/Sylva's or the likes without doing something pretty bl**dy stupid in the first place.
But, if you want a really fun car you can't do better.
If you want the fun of a Caterham, live with the fact it has no creature comforts. If you want to drive one hard enough on the road which may result in rolling into a field then you're certifiable.
I have not heard of many people having serious accidents in Caterhams/Westfields/Sylva's or the likes without doing something pretty bl**dy stupid in the first place.
But, if you want a really fun car you can't do better.
I rolled my Caterham at Goodwood in 1994. 120mph down Lavant Straight, hit the brakes for Woodcote and spun into he tyre wall dure to an o/s/f caliper failure. Barrel rolled 4 times.
I walked away. I drove it back to the paddock afterwards.
Worst part of the experience was the £10k repair bill. No such thing as track day insurance back then....
>> Edited by fat arnie on Wednesday 7th May 18:05
I walked away. I drove it back to the paddock afterwards.
Worst part of the experience was the £10k repair bill. No such thing as track day insurance back then....
>> Edited by fat arnie on Wednesday 7th May 18:05
I don't have a Caterham - have an old TVR. If a range rover ploughed in to the side of me then I would probably die outright - same as I would if a range rover ploughed in to the side of me whilst walking down the street!
If you roll over in a field and the ground is soft then the roll bar probably won't help. If you buy a sportscar like that then you have to take on the responsibility of owning that car - you can't account for what others do - and let's face it - people die in Volvos.
Just splash the cash and die happy! The one good thing about being in a sports car (and especially a loud one) is that you tend to get noticed, so are unlikely to get hit. However, as I've said, you can't account for the unaccountable. You need to decide whether you want to have fun in your life or feel safe.
I guess people wouldn't bungy jump, snow board, paraglide, surf etc if they wanted safe but by being a little more 'edgy' they 'live' life.
I hope that cars like Caterham stick to what they do best - we have enough unimaginative square euro boxes on the road without adding more!
Go for it, cruise around and take it easy! If I die tomorrow, I'll take with me some great memories of driving the TVR.
If you roll over in a field and the ground is soft then the roll bar probably won't help. If you buy a sportscar like that then you have to take on the responsibility of owning that car - you can't account for what others do - and let's face it - people die in Volvos.
Just splash the cash and die happy! The one good thing about being in a sports car (and especially a loud one) is that you tend to get noticed, so are unlikely to get hit. However, as I've said, you can't account for the unaccountable. You need to decide whether you want to have fun in your life or feel safe.
I guess people wouldn't bungy jump, snow board, paraglide, surf etc if they wanted safe but by being a little more 'edgy' they 'live' life.
I hope that cars like Caterham stick to what they do best - we have enough unimaginative square euro boxes on the road without adding more!
Go for it, cruise around and take it easy! If I die tomorrow, I'll take with me some great memories of driving the TVR.
Can that roll bar really withstand turning ouver and into a muddy field at 60 mph without digging in, bending/snapping and at the same time allowing oyur head to bury itself 3 feet under too????
The standard bar is worthless. If your head is a good 2" below the FIA bar (which is approved roll over protection for racing so pretty substantial) then, provided you are tightly and properly strapped in, you should be ok in a roll. However if you are bigger than this or require the best available in roll protection for the Caterham, fit an R500 style cage (the one with the funky curved bits in the roof section).
Can that one inch thick wall of alluminium really stop a range rover ploughing through you side-on after you stalled getting onto a roundabout??
No, you'd probably die.
TBH if a 2+ ton RR ploughed into the side of an MX-5 / MR2 or any other small sports car you'd car to mention you'd be in pretty much the same boat. You can fit side impact bars to 7-esque motors and they are very effective at dealing with car to car contact between other 7's on a circuit however when talking about a off-roader, inertia and mass are always going to win and a single steel bar wont make a blind bit of difference.
But as said above, it's only as bad as riding a bike and where the RR driver is cocooned in his off-roader that offers all the passive protection in the world, you have to be like a biker and use your 'active' protection... You are far lighter than anything else on the road meaning you stop much, much quicker than anything else, steer around obsticles and accelerate out of danger. You just have to be more observent and treat everyone else on the road as if they're out to get you.
Personally I think all this driver protection is BS. They should fit a big spike to the centre of everyones steering wheel. That would make people focus their attention to the job in hand instead of making phonecalls, applying makeup, dealing with children in the back seat, etc, etc.
If that worries you then Caterfields/bikes are not for you, get a nice safe* Volvo instead.
*for the occupants
My tuppence worth...
Continuing on the Caterham/Standard car/bike safety comparison, the average Caterham will stop far quicker than the average (in fact almost every) bike, so what it loses in size/weight (being bigger than the bike) it gains in being able to enter corners at a higher speed, and also stop without being thrown over any handlebars. Four wheels are inherently much more stable than two under braking load too, so deceleration can be higher, allowing you to stop before colliding with that tractor.
And there's the low centre of gravity - something you certainly don't get on a bike. And you don't have to balance a Caterham! The lightness of seven type cars mean that in crashes, they will be punted out of the way to a greater extent than a normal car, as there is less intertia to overcome to get them moving. This 'give' reduces the effect of impact which would normally be suffered by the structure before inertia was overcome, (more applicable to a front or rear impact than a side impact though) and which could subsequently trap the driver in a mass of twisted metal.
There's more - a standard car roof does nothing more than keep the rain off. Have you ever seen a normal car which has rolled. Pancake. The roof offers no real protection, and is more likely to act as method of trapping you in the car. Think of all the dangers which come with that such as the car catching fire. Get the FIA rollbar, and you'll be far safer than most.
Four point harnesses as fitted as standard to most seven type cars are another plus point compared to the standard road car. I've known people to slip out of their standard belts in a high impact crash and end up through the sunroof. That's not going to happen if 4 pointers are worn. Due to their configuration they also cause less damage than inertia reel belts to the sternum and ribs in an accident, where a huge amount of stress is put upon the thorax (chest area). They spread the load because there are four belts, not two, and the shoulder straps spread the load vertically across all ribs, not diagonally.
Finally, the chassis' of most kit cars are stronger than the standard road car, which is given hte moajority of its strength by the body panels. Once these panels are dented, they offer no rigidity, and the car crumples like tin foil (think of a cardboard box compared to a wooden crate). I know there are cars out there which pay homage to rigidity, like SIPS in Volvos etc. On the whole though, I'm just pointing out that you are no less safe in a seven than in a normal family saloon, which you wouldn't think twice about driving. The risks are different but no greater, and in my opinion, only elevated because we all like to drive at speeds which would not be possible in a family saloon
However, you should satisy yourself that you are happy with the compromises a Caterham brings, and I wouldn't let anyone else make up your mind for you.
Continuing on the Caterham/Standard car/bike safety comparison, the average Caterham will stop far quicker than the average (in fact almost every) bike, so what it loses in size/weight (being bigger than the bike) it gains in being able to enter corners at a higher speed, and also stop without being thrown over any handlebars. Four wheels are inherently much more stable than two under braking load too, so deceleration can be higher, allowing you to stop before colliding with that tractor.
And there's the low centre of gravity - something you certainly don't get on a bike. And you don't have to balance a Caterham! The lightness of seven type cars mean that in crashes, they will be punted out of the way to a greater extent than a normal car, as there is less intertia to overcome to get them moving. This 'give' reduces the effect of impact which would normally be suffered by the structure before inertia was overcome, (more applicable to a front or rear impact than a side impact though) and which could subsequently trap the driver in a mass of twisted metal.
There's more - a standard car roof does nothing more than keep the rain off. Have you ever seen a normal car which has rolled. Pancake. The roof offers no real protection, and is more likely to act as method of trapping you in the car. Think of all the dangers which come with that such as the car catching fire. Get the FIA rollbar, and you'll be far safer than most.
Four point harnesses as fitted as standard to most seven type cars are another plus point compared to the standard road car. I've known people to slip out of their standard belts in a high impact crash and end up through the sunroof. That's not going to happen if 4 pointers are worn. Due to their configuration they also cause less damage than inertia reel belts to the sternum and ribs in an accident, where a huge amount of stress is put upon the thorax (chest area). They spread the load because there are four belts, not two, and the shoulder straps spread the load vertically across all ribs, not diagonally.
Finally, the chassis' of most kit cars are stronger than the standard road car, which is given hte moajority of its strength by the body panels. Once these panels are dented, they offer no rigidity, and the car crumples like tin foil (think of a cardboard box compared to a wooden crate). I know there are cars out there which pay homage to rigidity, like SIPS in Volvos etc. On the whole though, I'm just pointing out that you are no less safe in a seven than in a normal family saloon, which you wouldn't think twice about driving. The risks are different but no greater, and in my opinion, only elevated because we all like to drive at speeds which would not be possible in a family saloon
However, you should satisy yourself that you are happy with the compromises a Caterham brings, and I wouldn't let anyone else make up your mind for you.
Common myth propagation strikes again ! Immense longitudinal chassis strength is not a good thing. Crumple zones may make a car look a mess after an accident, but they are there to prevent unsustainable loads being transferred to the occupants. Many 50s and 60s cars are 'stronger' than cars of today owing to being constructed around either a twin rail chassis or having two hefty longerons as part of the monocoque, they are not however safer than cars of today. In both cars of this era and a great many kitcars a heavy front impact would simply rip the seats from the floor and/or crush the driver against the belts (I'll refrain from posting the pictures (well known Morgan-alike), they're too grim)
As for modern cars pancaking in a roll, not really, recent cars with bonded windscreens and reinforced A and B pillars are remarkably rigid in a rollover, unfortunately this ruins the primary safety because the glazed area is so small. Personally I'd ditch some rollover strength (rollovers accounting for < 0.5% of fatal road accidents in the UK) for smaller blindspots.
If you are going for racecar strength you need racecar driver location ie: full shell seats, minimum 3 pt harness and, ideally, energy absorbing foam on all the potential impact points.
You'd still be f'ed if you took a side impact from an SUV though.
As for modern cars pancaking in a roll, not really, recent cars with bonded windscreens and reinforced A and B pillars are remarkably rigid in a rollover, unfortunately this ruins the primary safety because the glazed area is so small. Personally I'd ditch some rollover strength (rollovers accounting for < 0.5% of fatal road accidents in the UK) for smaller blindspots.
If you are going for racecar strength you need racecar driver location ie: full shell seats, minimum 3 pt harness and, ideally, energy absorbing foam on all the potential impact points.
You'd still be f'ed if you took a side impact from an SUV though.
Jaydee - I totally agree that load transfer has a lot to do with it, and it isn't a good thing to have all the force of a hard impact directed through the occupants. I'm not claiming to be an expert, but why do race cars opt for a similar structure to a standard kit car rather than the structure of road cars (genuine question, not one of rhetorical irony)? I would think that there may be something of a compromise between safety and cost on road cars. Crumple zones are definitely a good thing. I think that there are compromises on safety in Seven type cars, but I don't think they are as bad as people think (at least I hoe not). Maybe I'm trying to persuade myself more than anything
BigFatV8 said:...why do race cars opt for a similar structure to a standard kit car rather than the structure of road cars (genuine question, not one of rhetorical irony)?
A racing car needs to be as strong as possible to avoid deformation of the cockpit in an accident. Energy dissipation can be handled by engineered crumple zones (honeycomb core ally wedge in GT cars, Aramid nosecone in F1) and putting a transient very high g-load into the structure is no problem because the driver will have a fitted seat, 6 pt harnesses etc. and will usually be a fit, young man.
Spaceframe construction is usually used in both race and kit cars because the tooling costs are minimal, but the unit costs are high. For mass-production cars the reverse is true - unit costs very low, but initial tools costs immense. A steel spaceframe is the best way (other than composite construction) of producing a superstrong chassis, but does not have the energy absorbtion/dissipation characteristics of a road car monocoque unless additional structures are added.
Good kitcar manufacturers or limited production manufacturers (eg: Noble, Neil Foreman, Ultima) combine a very strong central section with engineered crumple zones to produce cars that are likely to be as safe as a pressed steel monocoque in a road accident and also have the cockpit stability to allow the driver to survive racing accidents (subject to fitting harnesses etc.). This is a compromise though, all these cars could be lighter if optimised for one use or the other.
long winded reply, sorry
This is a shame. Noone could present to me anything other than the obvious things which as you can tell have not convinced me. Side impact is the main concern and all this stuf saying but you would die in any if your were hit in the side with a range rover is just crap...my point is that you are FAR MORE LIKELY in a caterham in its current state. Surely a longitudinal bar running form the back to the front like SIPS would offer something ...!!
As for my being over concerned and better off with a volvo Ill take as joke...but come on guys you cant just feel good about the situation by turning a blind eye to it...
As for having to drive stupidly to get it turn over is just stupid and naive. All you need is some stupid fukker in a modified fiesta whipping round a corner too wide on a muddy back road which you swerve to avoid and have to go into a field down an embankment. ....Id rather be in a fiesta at that point.
...oh but wait dying that way would be cool and almost heroic..."oh hes so cool he was a caterham driver"....NO!! What theyre going to say is "of course he died...he was in a bloody caterham...branches and rocks coming into the cockpit at all angles".
But listen guys the car is sold on EVERY OTHER ASPECT. ...unfortunately maybe these qualities only exist because of these coompromises..small and light but weak and unprotective. Bugger.
As for my being over concerned and better off with a volvo Ill take as joke...but come on guys you cant just feel good about the situation by turning a blind eye to it...
As for having to drive stupidly to get it turn over is just stupid and naive. All you need is some stupid fukker in a modified fiesta whipping round a corner too wide on a muddy back road which you swerve to avoid and have to go into a field down an embankment. ....Id rather be in a fiesta at that point.
...oh but wait dying that way would be cool and almost heroic..."oh hes so cool he was a caterham driver"....NO!! What theyre going to say is "of course he died...he was in a bloody caterham...branches and rocks coming into the cockpit at all angles".
But listen guys the car is sold on EVERY OTHER ASPECT. ...unfortunately maybe these qualities only exist because of these coompromises..small and light but weak and unprotective. Bugger.
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