My wife is a critical care paramedic who careens thru city streets, and
country roads - the kind with 6' deep drainage ditches just outboard of the
white shoulder lines when there are white lines. Unrestrained in the back
the bus, while pulling sharps caps off with her teeth, and getting IVs on
the first stick.
The drivers are usually firemen filled with youthful exuberance, and a
licenced urge to take turns on two wheels, while blazing thru crowded
intersections, and streak to and from scenes a couple miles per hour faster
than neurotransmitters can fire and respond.....All this in a design with a
Cg about level with the driver's ears.... Every once in a while, they crash;
usually minor, but sometimes with a real flair for the dramatic, turning the
inside of the box into a scene from Twister.... Somehow, in 15 years she has
never been injured, and the at-work invincibility gene has emerged
dominant....
I bought a Cobra kit from a frustrated builder. Came with a 3 point
rollbar, 12" wide tires, 13" brake discs, and Simpson 4" wide belts. First
time she saw it, she said it looked too low and awfully easy to flip over. I
said it had a skidpad rating nearing 1g, and explained that the center of
gravity was down close to the wheel centers, yadda yadda... that her
ambulance was a perfect example of a pending inversion due to soft springs,
high Cg, and active maniac at the wheel....
She says "If it has a roll bar, it must be because SOMEONE thinks it
might flip. And I don;t want to be in anything that requires seat belts that
they can't cut thru with a belt cutter......" end of rational discussion.
However, she will jump into the MGB and zoom off to work at 75 mph in bumper
to bumper traffic, feeling safe and secure, hop out and jump into the back of
an ambulance.... I was going to put an SCCA approved roll bar in her B, but
somehow she has me thinking that if, God forbid it should ever flip over, it
will be my fault for installing it and somehow making the car prone to
flip........ Mark
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