Cage for the Street

I know this is a good way to brain yourself, but are there ways to do it safely?

This, for example, seems like it would be pretty safe from knocking your head on a bar, especially if you used five point belts every time you got in.

In michigan, cages are illegal (or so a cop told me when he saw mine) and most 5-point harnesses are illegal as well. The DOT-approved harnesses are pricey as well.

In reply to DrBoost:

It is only illegal if you get caught.

I still don't understand why harnesses are illegal on the road if the car has a roll bar. Government stupidity FTW.

93EXCivic wrote: In reply to DrBoost: It is only illegal if you get caught. I still don't understand why harnesses are illegal on the road if the car has a roll bar. Government stupidity FTW.

I think it has something to do with the potential hazards of a fire in a caged car without driver protection (firesuit). Getting out of a caged burning car is hard enough with fire protection...try it without.

The race car pic OP posted looks like there is at least $10k+ in safety equipment there...that is not exactly a grassroots cage/seat/harness setup.

Also, cages in a street car are just a bad idea. A expensive waste on a street car, no less, but also a great way to hurt yourself. Why do you want/need a cage anyway? If it is a street car, after all, what's the point? Sure they add stiffness but also WEIGHT.

In reply to SlickDizzy:

I was talking about a roll bar though not a full cage...

I heard one issue with the harnesses are the fact that supplemental restrains like airbags are designed to work with a known amount of body movement that comes with standard 3-point harnesses and inertia-reel belts. The cage is a more logical issue. If you aren't wearing a helmet and you are t-boned your head has 3-4 less inches of movement before it smacks into something.
All that being said, I drove a track car, fully caged with 5-points for years. Here in Michigan, you can register a skateboard that's missing a wheel as long as your check clears.

I don't see how a roll cage can be illigal in any state. Either that or all Jeep Wranglers are illigal!

I also don't buy the 'you will die upon entering any car with a cage but no helmet' argument as ditto Jeeps all have coverd cages. Also our old Geo Tracker has totaly bare metal A amd B pillars, not the same, but those things are supposed to fall over in a stiff breeze giving plenty of oportunity for head cracking.

DrBoost wrote: I heard one issue with the harnesses are the fact that supplemental restrains like airbags are designed to work with a known amount of body movement that comes with standard 3-point harnesses and inertia-reel belts.

Which might be true if your car has airbags...

Honestly I have just given up caring about laws on cars and just hope I don't get caught (the Civic is all kinds of illegal with the windshield tinted)...

Adrian_Thompson wrote: I don't see how a roll cage can be illigal in any state. Either that or all Jeep Wranglers are illigal! I also don't buy the 'you will die upon entering any car with a cage but no helmet' argument as ditto Jeeps all have coverd cages. Also our old Geo Tracker has totaly bare metal A amd B pillars, not the same, but those things are supposed to fall over in a stiff breeze giving plenty of oportunity for head cracking.

It is an OEM-vs-non thing. Wranger bars are HEAVILY padded and pretty far away from passengers, relatively speaking. Think about something like an E30 that doesn't have a whole ton of room to start with. I breifly drove a friend's E30 drift car last summer, I had to wear a helmet because at 6'3" my head would graze the cage if I bent my neck the right way.

SlickDizzy wrote:

Adrian_Thompson wrote: I don't see how a roll cage can be illigal in any state. Either that or all Jeep Wranglers are illigal! I also don't buy the 'you will die upon entering any car with a cage but no helmet' argument as ditto Jeeps all have coverd cages. Also our old Geo Tracker has totaly bare metal A amd B pillars, not the same, but those things are supposed to fall over in a stiff breeze giving plenty of oportunity for head cracking.

It is an OEM-vs-non thing. Wranger bars are HEAVILY padded and pretty far away from passengers, relatively speaking. Think about something like an E30 that doesn't have a whole ton of room to start with. I breifly drove a friend's E30 drift car last summer, I had to wear a helmet because at 6'3" my head would graze the cage if I bent my neck the right way.

I get htat, but show me the law that says it's illigal. There are many legaly registered kit cars, inc Westfields and Caterhams that all come with at least a roll bar and a windscreen with an exposed metal surround. In Mi you need a screen and wipers to legaly register a new kit car so no fly or aero screens

Oh, and in my younger days I was stopped more than once in my Mustang with a roll bar and (stupidly) no padding. No cop ever commented on that.

Roll cages are not in and of themselves illegal, but some quick research shows that most people who get stopped for them get written up for:

-Obstruction of view -Improper/obstructed operation of shoulder belt -Safety equipment tampering or removal

So, they are kind-of sort-of illegal. Still unsafe IMO.

my datsun replica has a bar, not a cage, but I have a clever way around the seat belt issue. Since it is a 1930s replica, and FL passed the SEMA-drafted law, it doesn't require ANY seatbelts. I will try to register it without belts, then add the belts I want.

I expect that anybody under a similar law with a car from the mid-1960s or older could slip by the nanny state the same way.

DrBoost wrote: All that being said, I drove a track car, fully caged with 5-points for years. Here in Michigan, you can register a skateboard that's missing a wheel as long as your check clears.

LOL. I do love living in Michigan for that reason as well.

No emissions checks, no inspections, and about as close as you'll get to automotive freedom. That said, a cop in a bad mood can write you up for a variety of generic interpretable codes. Just don't tint your windows (below 4" from the top)... cops here don't like that.

I run my rabbit to/from the track or auto-x with a full cage. I agree with the overall notion that there's ways to mitigate the risk. The notion of cage on street = instant death is silly. There's no reason a legitimate discussion can't be had to discuss "safer" ways of doing something, even if the base behavior is inherently unsafe.

Also keep in mind, Rally cars tend to be road legal as they many times have to transit on public roads.

Keep in mind, Cops rarely know all of the rules (who can? Honestly) and many times they will try to BS you if they think they can get away with it. Next time, take the ticket and challenge it in court after looking up the laws in your area. Its all publicly available information.

With that said, would I drive a car on the street with a cage? Probably not for a DD because it would be a huge PITA to climb over the door bars and do up the harness all of the time. For occasional trips? Sure.

We all die and I suspect that if I'm in an accident bad enough that my head reaches the bar, I'm likely going to be in pretty bad shape due to the age of the cars I tend to drive. If I had a kit car like a Locost, etc. I would expect at least a bar to be installed for safety and track days (why wouldn't you build one you can at least take it to a track?)

I know of at least 2 caged street cars here in SC. They get around the 5 point belt deal by having both the 5 point and the stock 3 point belts in the car. Switch as needed.

There's always this option:

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?6005221-BMW-M63-A-V10-E30-from-SA

SlickDizzy wrote: Roll cages are not in and of themselves illegal, but some quick research shows that most people who get stopped for them get written up for: -Obstruction of view -Improper/obstructed operation of shoulder belt -Safety equipment tampering or removal So, they are kind-of sort-of illegal. Still unsafe IMO.

Not difficult to build a cage where you can leave the shoulder harness in place/operable. Also the replacement of the stock belt with a DOT legal harness would shut them up as well.

Does anyone have a link to some of these DOT-legal harnesses? Do they come with the locking retractors like a factory 3-point?

As far as harnesses, I think there's two main points here:

It's not DOT-approved. This is true of a lot of things. You can't use a fireman-spec or military-spec fire suit when you go racing because it's not SFI approved, even though it might be safer. Some safety equipment isn't legal in some places/sanctioning bodies and legal in others. You gotta play by the rules of wherever you want to play. When in Rome...

With a 3-point seat belt, rescue workers can cut the belt in any one place and remove your body from the wreck. With a 4- or 5- or 6- or 7-point harness, that's much more difficult. When you're unconscious, you can't explain these things to the guy who's trying to pull you out of your car after you got T-boned by an Expedition that ran a red light because texting.

Sky_Render wrote: Does anyone have a link to some of these DOT-legal harnesses? Do they come with the locking retractors like a factory 3-point?

Schroth

http://www.schrothracing.com/tuning/rallye/rallye-4

I suspect most harnesses are not DOT-legal because they don't retract.

http://www.schrothracing.com/tuning/rallye/rallye-4

I have had the opportunity for roadside chats with the local constabulary. I was wearing bright red harnesses and had a roll bar in the car. Neither one came up in conversation.

About making a cage street-friendly - it's all going to depend on how far you can get those bars from your noggin. Much easier in an E30 than a Miata, for example.

I'm asking because my next car is probably going to be an E7 generation Corolla and I'm not comfortable with 1979 levels of intrusion protection on the street, much less the track events and (hopefully) Targa-type events I want to run. Horrible, terrifying drivers everywhere in Korea, basically.

I was thinking something like that E30 where I can unbolt the halos and a-pillar stuff for street driving.

E7 Corolla, btw.

They're about the size of an AE86, maybe a little smaller.

In reply to Curmudgeon:

That's very interesting...

Easier (er, "easier" may not be the best word) in a modern car with pillars borrowed from the Parthenon...

I like that this is a car forum where you can reference the Parthenon and nobody bats an eye.

If you're worried primarily about street safety then it seems like you'd be looking at a roll bar with some door bars. Unless you need the halo, I wouldn't put it in as it's the most dangerous part of the cage from a non helmet standpoint. From there, just make sure the main uprights are back far enough and run stock-ish belts assuming that the car has 3 point belts. I've seen more than a few examples of cages like this on street driven drag cars. In their case the function of the door bars was to tie the front of the car to the back so the beasts wouldn't twist themselves apart, but they would also work well to prevent intrusion to some extent. Certainly better than stock.