Lancia Motor Club

Just picked this up from lancisti.net
http://vimeo.com/20247765

Don't let anyone tell you it's better to be thrown out than be strapped in, I don't think many here would agree with you, even if some did walk, creep or hobble away.

Brian
8227 8)

Yeah, I used to drive my old Frogeye (there's one in the background of one of the clips!) without belts until I saw a documentary about the motor industry's conspiracy not to fit belts. It showed a US Navy pilot crash a Vought Corsair onto  a carrier deck hitting a big crane which smashed the plane to bits. The pilot then popped his multi-point harness and hopped out. Without the harness he would have been in bits. As the Frogeye had no anchor points I bought a set of eye bolts and fitted harnesses the following week. The motor industry didn't want people to think their products were dangerous enough to have to be strapped into until the late sixties!

When I found my 2c 1997, all it had were Ervin Lap belts, just great, kept your body in the seat but let your face smash into the steering wheel :o

Brian
8227 8)

I bought a Mini in 1963, it had mounting points for lap straps & diagonals but no belts fitted.  The first thing I did was fit the appropriate belts & have never driven without belts since.

Peter

Put off fitting seat belts in the Dilambda for a long time. However, Margaret was never able to relax in the passenger seat for fear of hitting the dash. So, I bought a pair of the original aircraft style Britax and had them refurbished with dark brown webbing. They have hook and eye floor fixings and bolt to the door pillar at the top so can easily be removed when I arrive at an event if I wish to.

Result! Margaret is happy and I'm not constantly concerned for her well-being.

In the early 1960s I was an ambulance driver and it was patently obvious that those wearing seat belts suffered far less serious injuries. Makes me smile when people tell me that the last thing they want is to be belted up in a car which bursts into flames. The chances of a car igniting in an accident is miniscule, you're far more likely to go through the windscreen. The other old chestnut is that you'll be OK because you're holding the steering wheel. I can still, after all this time, see the E type driver with the wheel bent beyond recognition and a chunk of the splintered wood rim embedded in his face.

Oh, and safer to be thrown out if an open top car rolls? But, thrown where? Most likely to be into the path of the rolling car. And the Dilambda weighs 2 tons! The vast majority of accidents don't result in vehicles rolling.

I've fitted belts to dozens of cars over the years without too much difficulty and on the basis of experience and the compelling evidence will continue to do so.

Robin.

In the video clip there are at least half a dozen drivers getting thrown out of the cars , whirling away with no control whatsoever, there's even one where the drivers obviously gets run over by his own car if the clip had lasted a few seconds more.
Robin says about no belts and bending the wheel, you were also likely to be speared on the rigid steering column, an even worse fate was on prewar cars that had laminated windscreens, in those days that consisted of 2 pieces of glass with a piece of plastic? in between the 2 sheets sheets of glass.
 In my youth I remember seeing one accident where the driver had gone through the laminated windscreen, on his way out the screen the hole in the glass opened out into sharp pointed pieces, that when he came back the other way penetrated his neck and almost took his head off.
I'll take seatbelts any day, even for the shortest of trips.

Brian
8227 8)