In reply to Zeitgeist :
Pretty much. Unless it becomes a trend (dozens a year) it's just some guy who built a crazy deathtrap that bit him.
The Texas buggy situation was a bit different and exo cars are already illegal there under the same statute. If you want the rules changed, or to prevent this type of rulemaking, get organized.
My guess is this guy registered a stock Civic, then got out the sawzall. Pretty easy to do in most places without inspection.
Some Northern states have yearly inspections to make sure the car isn't too rusted, has working blinkers, brakes, and lights, etc, etc. I'm sorry for that young man's family, but we all take responsibility for our actions, weather simply turning a key, changing a tire, or whipping out the blow torch.
It's disheartening to me to see how many people see one guy screw up and immediately call for "there should be a law..."
This kid took some risks, built something he HIMSELF called a "death kart" and died driving it. I'm sure we've all driven some sketchy cars and it has made us appreciate putting in some quality and safe workmanship into the cars we have now.
Driving, modifying cars, and especially racing, are risky behaviors. I don't want to see laws come out of this. Hopefully people learn a lesson from it, and the lesson isn't "I need more laws to protect me."
https://www.instagram.com/2lo_2go/
Yeesh, look at that cage. Thoughts are with his family.
Man, that cage......
I’ve spent a lot of time looking at FIA, SCCA, NASA, and NHRA cage rules and guidelines. The info is out there and it’s easy to get. But I don’t see this particular vehicle being compliant with even the loosest standards.
Those welds are a crime.
Kreb said:I've put in thousands of miles of enthusiastic + track time in a couple of Lotus 7 replicas with no added side impact protection. You would be hard pressed to find a more dangerous vehicle to go really fast in, so no,
IDK, my triumph GT6 always felt highly dangerous over moderate highway speeds. No side impact protection, bumpers were cosmetic, and in any front-end collision the engine would be in your lap. I didn't like driving it much in this land of big SUVs, which is why I sold it and got a Porsche 924, which at least feels like a properly-built car, whereas the triump always felt like some drunk Brits designed and assembled it in their home garage....
In reply to Kreb :
the Australian approach will lead to the german approach, and that is not a world id like to live in. (NOTE: its one i currently live in) it's like you said, this thread is FULL of old ladies! anyone who drives anything pre-90's is at a significantly higher risk of injury and death. the older you go the worse it is as well, especially once you go into the 'classics.' if youre currently driving an 80's car or elder you are still driving a death trap.
-pulled from a quick google
Also, something else i noticed, looks like the frame along the bottom of the car was ripped in two from the youtube/news video on it. guy was probably dead anyways from that crash
y'all are reminding me of the grandstanding soccer moms, which is fine if thats your thing. its not mine. Give me liberty, or give me death.
Deaths per million people is not a great stat for vehicle safety because it depends a LOT on how much people drive. Look at the dip in the early 40s -- that's due to reduced driving due to wartime gas allocation, not any change in safety. The little uptick in 2014/2015 in the chart above is due to that factor too (more driving, in that case).
Red line on the chart below shows that the changes between 1980s and current cars are actually a lot less significant than those between the 1930s and 1980s.
i agree on your how people drive statement 100% but my base point still stands, those old hondas are essentially a tin can much like my 70's and 80's cars. eyeballing the chart it looks like the 80's sits around the 4-5k mark while currently its at about a tick over the 2k mark (used that as a reference since its closer than the left hand side y axis, no clue which line belongs to what y axis).
there are still plenty of videos out there that show old cars getting into crashes where the seats come undone and the driver passenger are slammed into the steering wheel/windows.
I'd hate to be a car enthusiast anywhere akin to Germany, autobahn and ring be damned.
NOTE: I live in Germany, take the unrestricted 62 to and from home everyday and have been on the ring several times.
Sooooo, is the car for sale cheap?
I spent most of my teenage years with my dad using his sandrail as a daily anytime there wasn't snow on the ground and there were alot of scary moments. People straight ignoring it or acting like it didn't belong on the road. I couldn't imagine riding around in something with welds like that.
In reply to TurboFocus :
Yeah pretty certain my two '90s Nissans would introduce me to my maker in short order and I'm always aware of it. The '84 S-10 most likely also. But I love driving them. 
On one hand im of the opinion that as a free American i should be allowed to do whatever dumb s%@# i want to, but when these people get in an old crapwagon with barely any brakes, one tail light etc or a "hot rodded" something that is all power and zero traction or skill that puts me and mine at risk. If a motorcycle hits your car, its LESS likely to hurt you, but a 2000 lb homemade car thing.......
This may not be a popular idea but we all remember our teen years, i think we should have graduated liscenses. 18 to drive, nothing over 150 hp per ton until youre 21, etc so a parent doesnt buy their 17 yr old child a GT350. It would have saved my parents a lot of money, my driving, criminal and credit records would be a lot better too
Not to change the topic, but besides the poor welding and hacking away all the unibody strength, any considerations on why he may have been thrown from the car? We say Vette Karts are best left for the track, but even then, you risk hitting an inanimate object all the same. This thing is realistically as unsafe as an Elan or Europa.
As a guy who's building a Europa, and keen on living, I'm looking at how to make a little safer (understood, it'll never be as safe as something modern...)
-Cheap seats and the seat belt selection. Real harness bar and fixed back seat.
-Cage design
I was raised that Darwin was full of crap but I've grown to embrace Darwinism
In reply to Justjim75 :
way too technocratic. I'm surrounded by Piouses and other modern very large appliances. It shocks the ever living E36 M3 out of me a dozen times a day how willing they are to hit my $700 car just to merge without even the courtesy of a reach around I mean the courtesy of a turn signal. 
I don't understand the urge to save people from themselves.
Yeah, this is sad all over. I’ve seen the blue car in person, and, well, I’ll keep my thoughts to myself. It’s a shame this happened, but I don’t know a great way, besides education, to fix it. We think about things like this frequently at GRM, and if you notice we never publish things in the magazine or online that you’d see on some of those popular internet TV shows. We firmly believe it’s our duty to educate people, and that mission is the same whether we’re talking about roll cage design or suspension tuning.
Personally? I took statistics, which is why I really try to err on the side of caution with my street cars and with anything that goes on track. Day to day, I’m driving a Nissan LEAF, bought in part because it’s one of the newest, safest vehicles I could afford. I rocked a diesel S-class before that, again because it offered a lot of safety for a little money. Fun cars, like the Trooper, Spitfire and MR2, sit in the garage more often than not. There’s not much else I can do to make them safer, except to limit my exposure to them.
On Track? We always try to have the very best in safety equipment. Again, it’s just a game of chance, and I try as much as possible to tip the odds in our favor.
This situation is sad all over, but I will take a moment to plug Tire Rack Street Survival, an amazing program that I truly believe saves lives. I’ve put 3 of my closest friends through it, and you should, too.
I put my wife through Street Survival. I get a call about once every 6 months or so from her, thanking me because something she learned in the course just saved her from accident, injury, or worse.
The Blue car is the KROWRX demo car isn't it? Super Street had a feature on it a few months back. The owner of KROWRX was claiming it was as robust as the unibody it replaced. I'm with haase, not being a huge fan of the cage design. It looks like they tried to follow the body lines of the Civic without regard for how the structure actually works on a unibody.
The orange car seems to be a knock off of it rather than an actual KROWRX car which explains the welds and a few other things, not that I thought the demo car looked that good compared to something like an Exocet.
I'm not a fan of over regulation, but I'm all for annual safety inspections for body integrity, tires, brakes, lights, glass, ball joints etc. Some of the scary crap that hasn't been modified in any way except by time and neglect is terrifying. People are free to remove themselves from the gene pool through poor vehicle maintenance if they want, but I'm more concerned about what those bald tires with cords showing, no existent brakes, about to snap ball joints etc could do to me and my loved ones when that vehicle fails to stop, pulls so hard it swaps lanes when they hit the brakes or plows straight on when a ball joint snaps taking a corner etc.
Also, I don't think this one incident will spark a lot of new laws or restrictions, but if there are three or four fatalities involving exo cars, death karts, Se7en's etc. within a few months you can bet people will start taking notice and proposing laws even if every one of those accidents was caused by a semi running them over and nothing to do with poor Engineering, construction or hooligan driving.
One final thing. I've heard about sand rails, Atoms etc. being taken off the road in Texas, but I don't know what law or why, can someone shed some light please?
loosecannon said:I was raised that Darwin was full of crap but I've grown to embrace Darwinism
I'm a fan of Darwin's theory of evolution but no fan of social Darwinism (the two have almost nothing to do with each other).
Although I think people should be free to consciously take risks on their own once they aren't putting others at significant risk, which is what this guy did by chopping up and poorly welding together a Civic ghettocet and then driving it.
When Matt Farah drove the KROWRX one he felt it was sketchy and I believe it is probably better quality than this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWIM8I_J4Cc&list=PL0NpLqqFBFSJmX9clrkdyQwmPl_9tPrPY&index=67&t=240s
The0retical said:The Blue car is the KROWRX demo car isn't it? Super Street had a feature on it a few months back. The owner of KROWRX was claiming it was as robust as the unibody it replaced. I'm with haase, not being a huge fan of the cage design. It looks like they tried to follow the body lines of the Civic without regard for how the structure actually works on a unibody.
The orange car seems to be a knock off of it rather than an actual KROWRX car which explains the welds and a few other things, not that I thought the demo car looked that good compared to something like an Exocet.
The Matt Farrah review of the KROWRX car really turned me off of it. Seemed rather dangerous even at the track when he didnt feel safe past 80 in it.
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