Bumper Cars

My main source of TV watching comes from YouTube. I enjoy putting it on in the background while I play a game and absorbing some of the info. What I watch on there changes all the time. I enjoy science channels such as SciShow or pilot ones like Mentour Now or law channels such as LegalEagle. Mix in a random assortment of movie/cartoon clips and whatever random things pop up and it ends up being a very wide array of viewing.

Lately, it was a little known motor sport called...let me check my notes....Formula One. Plus Nascar inevitably creeps in there as well. I've always been impressed with Formula One drivers. And I don't mean the peak physical shape each needs to be in. Each of them must have such a lack of regard for their own safety. Formula One cars just drive differently than normal cars. I've never raced before and if you were to put me in the seat of an F1 car I'd be scared to even touch the pedal. I wouldn't want to go faster than about five kph. Unless it was in a wide open and flat lot, I know I'd crash it. You can't slow down too much at corners or else you won't have grip. Where the last possible chance to hit the brakes is for any other car, they are still pedal to the metal.

Of course, the sport comes from a long line of danger. MANY people have been lost in Formula One. I believe I saw that in the last 20 years only one person has died but there have been years way back when that multiple people died. I think one team had all basically all their drivers die in the span of a few weeks. Many had cars ripped in half so you could see their legs hanging out the front. Just absolutely brutal stuff.

The 1970's seemed to be the trigger for the change (according to the one video I watched). At that point they were getting fast enough that it was basically a guarantee that if you hit the wall you were going to have your life changed, if you managed to survive. People started dying left and right and safety began to improve. Some things you wouldn't think of but others, such as NOT making your vehicle that is likely to burst into flames out of magnesium (Yes, THAT magnesium) started to be implemented.

These days it's very difficult to die in an race. With the implementation of the Halo, the drivers are essentially surrounded by a roll cage on all sides to protect them. The Halo is just that, a ring that is above the head of the driver to protect his head if there is a rollover. It used to be just open for crushing. The real question is, why wasn't this implemented sooner?

They actually have to limit the speeds of Formula One cars as they used to be way too fast. The FIA, corrupt as it may be, puts certain design limits on the cars so that it's not just guys crashing in the walls trying to take a turn at 1000mph. So, with cars being able to get more powerful, it isn't impossible to just add more and more safety features and add more power to make up for the speed the new weight takes away.

Now, this makes stopping harder but I think the engineers at each team could figure it out. And at the end of the day everyone would still be going super fast and enjoying the race, that is much safer. I think that was a bit of what happened with the Halo, lets just implement it no matter how annoying it is because it will save lives.

I'm also not knowledgeable with Formula One design. I watch some videos once every couple of years but, as with all things in life, I think safety needs to come first. Sometimes to do things there just is a danger no matter what. Football will always have concussions of some sort. That's just part of it. But, most sports can be made safer than they already are. We just need to care.