Hot Rods Seat belts in hot rods, do you have em?

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/hot-rod-crash-in-san-diego.985962/
You had to have seat belts to run at Paradise Mesa. If you had belts, you were a racer in the eyes of some. Put belts in my first car in 1956 and every car since then.

 

I've lost three friends in separate accidents in the last ten years. They all had seat belts in their cars, they just elected to not wear them. They are proven to work. This shouldn't even be a matter of discussion. I've heard of stories where insurance companies will hold you partially responsible for damage to your body and hold back 50% of the claim if you weren't wearing a seat belt. My avatar car has belts and shoulder straps which I wear religiously. You will get the occasional guy with the story of how he would have been killed if he had his belt on, but it is the exception to the rule and statistics bear it out. C'mon guys, wear your seat belts so we don't have these threads about people being killed in their hot rods that had no belts. Danny, glad to hear you're on the mend.

 

LOL I have been belting in for so long that even when I am on my bike I am looking for a seat belt.

 

I hear ya on the one But I do wear a quality full face helmet and leather...
I don't have a HAMB vehicle just right now but my 68 Chevy PU truck has seat belts and I don't always wear them....
I always wonder about seat belts in a 30's car/truck. They fold up like tin cans in a wreck and the steering column will Shiskabob the driver in a frontal crash..Will help you keep inside in a rollover...And open wheel cars are more likely to roll over ...

 

LOL I wait all year to take my leather off. The wife really wants me to wear it all the time but she has been around a time or two when I was the road rash king.

I am not so keen on collapsible columns, I know that they are probably a good idea but in my mind they are over kill. Eventually I'll get my brain wrapped around it I am sure. I am an advocate of added stricture to the inside of your old heap. Probably not a full on NASCAR cage but something a little more substantial then the wood frame under the old tin. A 4 point minimum and a 6 point would be better. Something it help it keep its shape if you wade it up. it can be built close to the sheet metal and maybe even integrated into the sheet metal if you are handy. It doesn't have to be obtrusive if you catch my drift.

 

Some sorts a cage is a good idea.. As much as everyone hates new cars and their plastic part that fly off, in many serious wrecks the passenger area is not deformed like the old cars. So at least in theory you have a chance to survive.
We all remember the serious wrecks back when and the occupants walked away, no seat belts and the vehicle was just flattened. What we don't remember is 100 times that many were killed or maimed ...

 

Well I have walked away from a bad one or two, cars and bikes. My odds have got to be dwindling by now. I have buried too many of the people that I cared about too, cars and bikes. Sometimes I know that they would have lived if things had been different. Maybe it was ignorance on our part or maybe we just didn't care, sometimes living is harder and maybe we should have cared a little more then we did.

end of the day I am not so extreme as others on the board, and I never leave the house thinking that I am going to get center punched today, but we still need to at least try to stack the odds in our favor as much as possible without loosing the fun of what we do.

 

I am reminded of the old Biker credo...Live hard ,die fast,leave a good looking corpse.
and lived to play another day
Many of us have walked away,or being carried away from some serious life threatening accidents and lived to play another day.

Life is a gamble,some times you win and other times you lose. HRP

 

We used to say that life is a crap shoot, you win a few you loose a lot.

I think a lot of us didn't ever expect to get this old. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try and hang a few more on what we got though does it. I hate to admit this as there was a time that I didn't figure on seeing any grand children but now I want to see and hold a great grand child or two. Life is change I guess.

 

Beeno,this is one of your most profound and thought provoking post ever,it shows that over the years you have lived a life full of ups and downs and have a sense of what is important in your life now! HRP

 

To quote Social Distortion's 'Reach For the Sky'
'When I was young I was invincible,
I find myself now thinking twice,
I never thought about no future,
its just the roll of the dice.

But the day may come when you've got something to lose,
and just when you think you're done paying dues
And you say to yourself, dear God what Have I done?
And hope its not too late 'cause tomorrow may never come.'

I don't know about a lot of you guys, but this describes my life to a tee.

Oh yeah, I wear seat belts too....

 

Hey all you pro seat belt guys make sure you wear sunscreen, get regular physicals, exercise, eat healthy and don't smoke or drink. A hot rod or any car by it's nature is dangerous, moving around other cars at speed and let's not forget the stationary stuff. Yes, belts, they will help the vast majority of times, but they are not your personel angel or the magic item to make you feel all warm and fuzzy. I think our eyes and brain are FAR more important, use them to their fullest, results may vary from person to person but they are still the best items to keep yourself alive and safe to liver a longer life doing whatever it is you you enjoy.

 

Part of that is tattooed on my chest.

 

Well I started riding about 50 years ago give or take and *never rode a dirt bike until I was an adult. I have my head on a swivel all this time (although it doesn't turn as far or as easily as it once did). I still wear a roller derby helmet most of the time when I am in a helmet law state.

That doesn't change the fact that while I say to each his own I wear a seat belt in a car, it is not an angel and if I had to depend on angels like from gawd angels I would be SOL. No one said that I recall to throw on a belt and forget about your surroundings, just give yourself every edge that you can and still enjoy what you are doing. If a belt keeps you from enjoying what you are doing then by all means leave it off, I just want to keep enough of these yahoos alive so that I don't have to turn out the lights.

*one of my dad's brothers thought it was a good idea to throw me on his old hill climb bike and send me over the devil's backbone when I was 12 so I did get on a dirt bike once before I grew up.

 

A hot rod crashed along State Route 67 Sunday, driving off the shoulder onto a frontage road and killing the driver.

California Highway Patrol officers responded to the southbound on-ramp at Woodside Avenue just before 9 p.m.

Officials say for an unknown reason the 1932 Ford Roaster drove off the highway, down an embankment and through a chain-linked fence and struck a wooden post. The hot rod landed on North Woodside Avenue.

The driver, who officials described as a 48-year-old El Cajon man, was ejected from the vehicle when it rolled. CHP officers say the vehicle was not equipped with seat belts.



Source:http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/loc...rash-in-Lakeside-320477492.html#ixzz3hsWOw8u0

Seat belts could have saved his life!!

 

Actually if it was a roadster and it flipped they might have saved his life. or maybe he died long before he left the road. its been known to happen.

Sad none the less. Always sad when someone leaves suddenly.

 

. . . I have modern high tech 3 point saefty belts in my 1940 ford truck and new lap belts in my 1934 ford highboy roadster. Even at a emergency braking situation they are very helpful, specialy for the passenger, who doesn´t fly into the dashbord ´´´´´´´

 

I installed a set of really nice leather seats in my Model "A" Sedan from a convertible Chrysler Sebring. Being a convertible, the seat belts, including a nice shoulder strap were engineered into the seats themselves. I really liked them and they fit like a glove.

 

Just installed 5-point racing harnesses in my coupe. I can already tell they are gonna be a pain in the ass. With them buckled I can't reach my headlights knob or my radio. They would be great for the occasional Test n Tune at the strip that I plan to do, but they will be a real pain on a road trip. Plus, they are really in the way when climbing into the already-tight cockpit. I'm going to re-group and look at the single retractable 3-point from LMC trucks.

 

Yep, got them in my 34 Chevy. I'm really impressed with all the car owners on here that have belts in their rides.

 

Most of us greybeards grew up riding in cars that had no seat belts and when the laws changed and seat belts were mandatory we started buckling up.

It is a fact that more often than not in a major accident a seat belt contributes to the occupants safe outcome.

Speaking from experience my daughter was one of the lucky ones not wearing a seat belt when a stolen 4 wheel drive truck being driven by someone on drugs crossed the center line & crashed into her head on.

Although she had a sever brain injury she is still alive,the emergency team on sight told me had she been buckled up she would have been instantly killed because the wench on the front of the truck was embedded in the drivers seat.

I know this is a one in a million but I am thankfully she wasn't wearing one that day,it also made it easier to extract her and the grandbaby out of a burning car. HRP

 

Dealers choice.

 

As a passenger found myself under the dash of a Buick after a crash 40 years ago. Got belts in hotrods and wear them all the time. If you think you can't fit out the windshield of your old car the body gets pretty flexible when a car is doing cartwheels.

 

There's a great video on YouTube of a guy drag racing a 55 Chevy. He goes out the front windshield as the car rolls and flips, but managed to drag himself back into the car as it is flipping. Search YouTube for Arab Drifting and you will see some terrible, convincing ejection accidents. Really upsetting videos. I'm a standing mile racer in my other car. I'm a believer in safety gear. In fact, I feel a little uncomfortable just being perched on top of the ladder frame of this coupe. I'm thinking about a door bar for the driver side in addition to my roll bar. I guess I'd just slide across after entering thru the passenger side. Pleas post any pics you have of 3-point retractable seat belts.

 

My friend Ken & his wife survived this accident,both were wearing seat belts. HRP

 

Been using belts since before they were required.That was the first modification I did to my 53 Stude when I got it.Good `ol Sears automotive center.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

Shortly after I had installed seatbelts in my '63 Skylark, an idiot crossed into my lane on a two lane highway. I would not have survived that head-on collision if not belted in. I had always used belts in all my cars, but that incident confirmed their value.

 

I've had them in all of my rods.
1930 Model A Coupe

1934 Ford Highboy

1941 Ford Shortdoor Coupe

 

Mandatory requirement down here for us, It's a no brainer IMHO.

 

Just installed seat belts in my 63 Impala. Got them from Seatbelt Planet. Good price and super fast shipping.

Gary