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DJD said: What is 'all' this other safety equipment, other then a helmet? If you hit a wall straight on your body will not be held rigid by a 4 or 6 point harness. The harness will stretch, as does a road harness, to disipate the impact force. Unless the collision is major and probably beyond the survivability limit, it is unlikely that your helmet will contact the steering wheel. Air bags have been mandated because Americans, in general of course, are relectant to wear seat belts, so it is the only method that gives you any hope. Doesn't it stand to reason that if the FIA believed that air bags were such a big safety 'gain' that they would begin to mandate them for competition cars? My point was that A; Racing safety, in its entirety, beats street safety and B; where is the choice? If I don't want an air bag I should be able to opt out. But this is basically no longer possible.

Let start with this: http://www.advancedfire.com/hansdeivce.jpg The number one cause of fatalities on American race track is head and neck injuries. The HANS safety device is used by most professional drivers now. A popular stock card driver hit the wall in 2001 at a NASCAR event. It did not look like a severe accident, but his neck snapped from an unrestraint helmet and head. If he had a head restraint, he would have walked away with no injuries. In the US, all the German imports have standard side airbags including head/curtain bags. This was not mandated by the government. On other makes they are usually non-exsistent, optional, or standard on the high end models. We do have an organization that is funded by the insurance companies that stages crashes that are more similar to real world events. Their results are then broadcasted on American TV. And their conclusion: In almost all cases, cars without side/head airbags causes death or severe injury to the driver and/or passenger when hit by the most popular car in America, the SUV/truck. And guess what, side airbags are getting to be very popular now because of market forces. Now since we are talking about street driving, the only way a race car would equal a car with six airbags is if you are wearing the helmet and a head and neck restraint system. And by the way, we Americans do have a high compliance rate with wearing seatbelts. Not wearing seatbelts will get you an ejection from the car with or without airbags.