I don't wheel off road alone so have help and likely access to a spare if needed. Also, I have motor club coverage for on road issues. I drove a tow truck for 6yrs and hated changing tires on the side of the road(extremelydangerous). I wouldn't ask anyone to do that much less for me.. Safer and easier to tow somewhere...
This Jeeper, and many others that have these roll bars/cages, are driving them on the road (streets, highways), with their unsuspecting kids/wives/relatives on the passenger seats.
I’m sure bouncing your head off the hard plastic covered metal sport bar is within acceptable safe tolerances though? Assuming your wife and kids are wearing seatbelts and not of above average height, odds are they won’t hit their head on the cage even in an accident. Side impacts at speed are especially dangerous in any vehicle without side curtain air bags. I drive with the seat far enough back in my vehicles that I’m likely to bank my head off the b-Pilar. Most people will put their head through the side glass, only slightly more forgiving than the metal. Life is a risk, crazy things happen. Slip on the sidewalk and break your skull on the concrete. You could wear full safety gear everywhere, and you could still die at any moment. Obviously if you’re racing, running trails with high roll over risk, etc put on the helmet. Nobody is wearing helmets to drop the kids off at school wether their Jeep has a cage or not.
The difference being that a vehicles structure is designed to collapse and absorb some of those nasty G's in such a way as to redirect the forces away from the occupants. A roll cage is designed to remain rigid in the even of a rollover.
I'd agree were it not for his rant about risks "on or off road". The crumple zone design is much less prevalent in a body on frame vehicle, which is one of the reasons many unibody vehicles fair better than trucks in crash tests. The odds of a serious rollover obviously go up as the trail difficulty does, but looking at the video of that trail, I wouldn't be wearing a helmet either.
I'd also not be wearing a helmet. I think that would make basically everyone in the car miserable.
Those bars are round for one, two, theyre a foot above your head. Fucking OSHA inspectors up in here.I'm not sure how anyone can think it is a good idea to drive around with their wives/kids heads fractions of an inch from these sharp red metal bars/edges.
I even said if they aren't above average height and wearing a seat belt. I'm trying to figure out if he thinks you're safer without a cage or that once you put a cage in your vehicle all passengers will need and/or be willing to wear helmets at all times?
