racing harnesses

[240DRFT]

i was looking at harnesses and saw how like sparco harnesses arent DOT approved but other ones like Schroth are. So can you get a ticket or anything for certain harnesses. And so are sparco ones not street legal, and are some meant for off-road use only?

[skylndrftr]

as far as i know (based on what the trooper told me when this happened to me) there is no such thing as a legal set of aftermarket seat belts because there is no certification process for the installations he didn't seem to car abotu the SCCA and NASA stickers on the cage and the tech stickers....what a tool...seems pretty ridiculous to say that a lap belt is technically legal but 5 points aren't,welcome to beuaracracy

[nismofly]

i was thinking about this, car doesnt have air bags, so i try to make it safer and its illegal...why? if its safe enough when race cars roll over i would think it would be okay for the street. the only thing i could see being a problem is a full competition spec roll cage, because you cant get out fast enough in an emergency and unlike at the track rescue crews arent available immediatly. but anything that adds to the saftey of the car without compromising streetability like that, i just dont know why...

[240DRFT]

i was looking at schroth harnesses and it said that they were street-legal

[BadMojo]

One more thing to consider. Many people don't know how to use a harness properly. Most people know how to use seatbelts, even if they're too stupid to use them.

[nismofly]

define what you mean when you say use a harness properly...

[madbouncy]

I've never heard about a full roll cage being illegal because it's harder to get out. I always thought it had to do with the way the car would crush during a crash. It's set up in a specific way so that it absorbs a lot of the impact and keeps as much stuff away from you as possible, instead of saving your engine bay at the cost of your having your legs crushed.

Far as the harness goes, I thought aslong as it met the DOT certification that it was legal. Then again, it's not like cops haven't given tickets for stuff that's legal before. I had a cop confiscate my pistol because he thought it was a magnum, even though black powder pistols are legal even if you don't have a gun license, not that they immediatly returned it, ****ing bastards. They were just like, oh sorry, we thought it was something else. I even told him it wasn't a magnum but he heard me say it was a .44 cal so he immediatly considered it a magnum. Good thing they were too stupid to ask if I had any other guns, otherwise i really would've been ****ed.

[Clatch]

Dammit I'm sick of these people wanting to put race harnesses in their streetcars! Do you even know how a 5-point race harness works?! The DOT knows their **** and there is a reason why race harnesses aren’t street legal. They are designed to hold you so tight that they are practically cutting off your circulation, in fact if you can withstand even more pain the tighter the better. If you improperly wear a race harness in any way, especially too loose, catastrophic injuries are sure to follow in an accident. Race harness hold you so you can't move around, race drivers aren’t concerned with reaching over to change the radio station or making a left hand turn across three lanes. You can't move your head the way you would normally move it in street driving. In fact the only movement in a race harness you should have is to slightly swivel your head from side to side and reach the steering wheel and dash mounted controls. Therefore it is impossible to drive on the street with a full race harness, you can’t look over to check blind spots and everything else. There’s a reason why even Ferrari’s, Lamborghini’s, and Porsche’s do not have race harness in their streetcar counterparts.

[SeVa-S13]

But they look cool!

I think a properly fastened stock seatbelt should be fine for street driving. Save the harness for track day and use it correctly, i.e.-extremely tight.

[Axel Grungy]

clatch said it right there, thats the reason none are street legal. you simply cant move around like you need to for daily driving (IE blind spots). also if your car rolls over and you have a 5 pt harness, your head gets crushed cuz your body cant lean. this is why you need a roll cage for harnesses technically.

[skydragoness]

define what you mean when you say use a harness properly...

Besides having it properly tightened for racing like everyone else mentioned, the harness has to be installed by a professional, i.e. mounted properly. I've seen retarded people with harnesses in their street-cars with the shoulder part of the belts running down behind the seat and bolted to the floor--(instead of at a 45 degree angle going in between the rear passenger seats and bolted to the frame). Since they mounted it at a much lower angle they will suffer severe spinal injuries in a collision.

So the prerequisite for having harnesses is having a roll-cage.

[nismofly]

haha when i said that i was joking, i guess using a harness really isnt much common knowledge. i know you have to tighten it and you cant mount it to the floor, i guess not everyone did. you learn the hard way that you have to tighten it in the air force. the first thing theyll tell you as a pilot or even before is if you dont have your harness tight enough, god help you when you have to punch out. i just thought with no air bags since im a sort of safety first person i would try to figure something else out, got any ideas?

also when i said roll cages make it hard to get out, i was talking about ones that have door braces where you either have to climb over a cross brace or climb out the window to get out. in an emergency if your cars on fire when youre racing you have a suit on so you have those extra few seconds, but on the street it would actually be more dangerous.

[chmercer]

I daily drive with my 6point and rollbar? it is far from impossible. the shoulder belts are looped on the rollbar, left lap belt is bolted to the stock mount, right is bolted to the transmission tunnel. sub belts bolted into the floorpan. I have an aftermarket wheel, so no airbag. Bucket seat. Been driving like that for 6-8 months probably, havent hit anyone in my blindspot or anything. Its not that hard to check it. And I would MUCH rather have this setup than stock in the event of a crash, thats for sure.

[nismofly]

do you sinch it down like youre supposed to though? reaching for stuff isnt a problem for me, its what he mentioned about vision and stuff. and also i was planning on putting a cage in, so i would at least hope the roof wouldnt collapse...but ya i had two cousins killed a few years ago in a crash in a car with no airbags. they were wearing seatbelts of course, but doctors said airbags probably would have doubled the chance of survival. since my car doesnt have them im trying to make it safer because this really hit home ya know. if my mom knew my car doesnt have airbags, i could probably say goodbye 240, but with harnesses or something similar i would feel a lot better.

[chmercer]

if you are going to run a full cage on the street i would say you should probably wear a helmet since the bars will be so close to your head. I tighten it properly most of the time, somtimes i dont do the sub belts but they arent really necessary with my seat angle anyway. As i said, I havent changed lanes into anybody and ive been doing this for a while. Its really not that hard to check your mirrors / turn your neck.