Safety of car recovery (and trucks on circuits)

[Shrieker]

I've updated the title to reflect the actual content of the thread.

Also as I recall, the last F1 driver fatality was in 1994. There have been two marshal fatalities since then - Canada 2012 & Melbourne 2001. Making trucks more crash proof and adding canopies won't help the reduce the fatalities of the most vulnerable people on track.

Also Italy 2000 or 2001 iirc coming up to della roggia where track marshal Paolo Gislimberti sadly passed away...

[tomas6791]

Just saw this link in the race thread, someone filmed the accident - very graphic, so be warned:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASnqrbMtnos

Basically he hit the wheel loader at an angle, which allowed his head to hit the bumper/counter weight with almost no deceleration. His helmut reaches the knick of the bumper, which with HANS and the cockpit design may have kept him from dying on impact. Uggh, I hope he makes it...

Video is removed:

Here is another source.

http://www.dpccars.com/gallery/index.ph ... uzuka-2014

[timbo]

OK, some stupid idea, just thinking out loud.
Maybe there is a way to employ some sort of emergency braking on F1 car? Can it be deployed automatically if car leaves track?
Some sort of skids/aero/whatever?

[i70q7m7ghw]

With a pit limiter he would not have gone off track. And if he did ignore it he would have caused possible brain damage to himself and be banned from the sport forever and have no place being in F1 in the first place.

How could you possibly know that? An F1 car aquaplaning towards the ballast end of a JCB even at pit limiter speed is always going to end in disaster.

Kimi Raikkonen explained after the race, aquaplaning can happen at any time in the wet and at any speed: "Behind the safety car we drive 100kph and you could aquaplane, so even if you slow down you might get into trouble. If there's too much water you can go off, simple."

Double waved yellows mean slow down and be prepared to stop. Do you think Bianchi was prepared to stop? Consider the speed of the impact.

[ScottB]

With a pit limiter he would not have gone off track. And if he did ignore it he would have caused possible brain damage to himself and be banned from the sport forever and have no place being in F1 in the first place.

How could you possibly know that? An F1 car aquaplaning towards the ballast end of a JCB even at pit limiter speed is always going to end in disaster.

Double waved yellows mean slow down and be prepared to stop. Do you think Bianchi was prepared to stop? Consider the speed of the impact.

True, but at this stage, for all we know when he tried to hit the brakes, the aquaplaning could have started, or his brakes could have locked etc.

How far before the corner did the double waved yellows begin?

[ScottB]

I do recall Champcar having 'full course yellows' for bad accidents, basically yellow flags everywhere, so everyone has to slow down, would this be an idea? Removes the temptation to limit slowing through the danger zone to maintain advantage over other cars I suppose?

[mrluke]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h6GHEEWR_U

Wheel fired at 225kmh results in no visible damage.

I am not saying it would be impervious to a collision but it certainly would have helped, even if it just rotated the car a bit, it would have saved the drivers head doing it.

It doesn't have to look bad either:





I dont think we can stop drivers crashing but I am aware this doesn't help the marshalls at all.

[SectorOne]

How could you possibly know that? An F1 car aquaplaning towards the ballast end of a JCB even at pit limiter speed is always going to end in disaster.

How do you expect a driver far away going at 60km/h to hit a truck when he has the ability to use his brakes?
Bianchi went off at 200 clicks, some guy estimated he hit the truck at 60mph or approximately 100km/h.

Do you think he will hit the truck at 100km/h with a pit limiter on 60km/h?

It seems you are completely forgetting the cars have brakes. All the driver has to do if he loses control for some reason is to decelerate from 60km/h.
It´s not gonna magically aquaplan all the way to ballast end of the truck. You have a brief moment of aquaplaning because there´s a puddle but after that you are on wet tarmac again.

Kimi Raikkonen explained after the race, aquaplaning can happen at any time in the wet and at any speed: "Behind the safety car we drive 100kph and you could aquaplane, so even if you slow down you might get into trouble. If there's too much water you can go off, simple."

Aquaplaning is fine at 60km/h. However at over 200km/h things will go bad, surely you must understand this?

Double waved yellows mean slow down and be prepared to stop. Do you think Bianchi was prepared to stop? Consider the speed of the impact.

Yea he probably had his foot on the brake ready to push it if things turned nasty.
But this is exactly the problem. When it did go nasty he was travelling at 200km/h.
Not puttering around at 60km/h. I don´t need to tell you how many orders of magnitude safer that is compared to 200 clicks.

[ScottB]

From seeing the video, the impact ripped off the entire top half of the car, I'm not convinced a screen would have made a lot of difference. Designing them to defend against flying debris is one thing, but crashing into a surface, at head height, at speed... I suppose it might have taken a bit of the energy at best, at worst the shattered remains of it could have prevented easy access or caused him further injury.

This specific sort of crash, basically hitting a solid object at head height, is quite easy to prevent; ensure any track vehicles don't have ground clearance as high as that and enforce a speed limit through any sections / the entire track if need be, when vehicles are removing crashed cars. Those measures would prevent another tragedy such as this.

[timbo]

Kimi Raikkonen explained after the race, aquaplaning can happen at any time in the wet and at any speed: "Behind the safety car we drive 100kph and you could aquaplane, so even if you slow down you might get into trouble. If there's too much water you can go off, simple."

Aquaplaning is fine at 60km/h. However at over 200km/h things will go bad, surely you must understand this?

Yep, even if the car floats at 60kph it leaves much more chances to regain control. And impact would not be as severe.

[Richard]

Not puttering around at 60km/h. I don´t need to tell you how many orders of magnitude safer that is compared to 200 clicks.

It look something like this :

[SectorOne]

I´m starting to wonder if some people here actually have a driver´s license.
Or if they did aquaplan tests prior to getting their license.

Have you had aquaplaning on the highway at 200km/h?
If yes, have you had one at 60km/h?
If yes, imagine there´s a solid object 400m further up the road.
Which one do you think will unquestionably kill you on the spot and which one you might actually manage to stop prior to it?

It´s not rocket science people. Downvote if you want, i maintain that my viewpoints are extremely rational and logical for this situation, make of that what you will.

And while we are at it, the notion of making the tow truck safer (which costs millions in R&D) has it never occurred to you that the big wheels and ground clearance is not there just for looks? But that it might actually serve a purpose?

Not puttering around at 60km/h. I don´t need to tell you how many orders of magnitude safer that is compared to 200 clicks.

It look something like this :

Possibly, i don´t know math to save my life.

All i know is a car travelling at 200km/h will have a MUCH longer braking distance then a car travelling at 60km/h. Regardless if it uses brakes or is gliding on ice. Because physics.

Edit2:

Quick calculation from this site,

0,7 coefficient of kinetic friction (just taken from Wiki)

60km/h vs 200km/h stopping distances.

60km/h = 52m
200km/h = 582m

http://www.csgnetwork.com/stopdistcalc.html

and a coefficient of kinetic friction of 0.7 are standard for the purpose of determining a bare baseline for accident reconstruction and judicial notice;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braking_distance

So can someone refresh me now again why it´s not obvious to everyone that we bring in a code 60 rule that penalizes nobody on track and keeps it extremely safe for the marshals so they can do their job?

[Belatti]

From seeing the video, the impact ripped off the entire top half of the car, I'm not convinced a screen would have made a lot of difference. Designing them to defend against flying debris is one thing, but crashing into a surface, at head height, at speed... I suppose it might have taken a bit of the energy at best, at worst the shattered remains of it could have prevented easy access or caused him further injury.

This specific sort of crash, basically hitting a solid object at head height, is quite easy to prevent; ensure any track vehicles don't have ground clearance as high as that and enforce a speed limit through any sections / the entire track if need be, when vehicles are removing crashed cars. Those measures would prevent another tragedy such as this.

Exactly that.

Roll cage is not designed to stand that kind of "shear". A screen would have done nothing. And putting fenders to the truck would have been sufficient to avoid the car getting under.

[WaikeCU]

A combination of SAFER barriers surrounding the truck that runs on continuous tracks would be an idea

[i70q7m7ghw]

Yep, even if the car floats at 60kph it leaves much more chances to regain control. And impact would not be as severe.

I still maintain, at any speed other than a snails pace, that type of impact would have been severe. Would you want to hit your head on something at 50 mph? 40? 30?