safety in the rally

[Les]

This years WRC has really shown how poor they are at safety.

We have had public cars on the track, people on the track or standing on the dangerous parts of courses and then this weekend we had a moose (ok not a lot can be done about that) and a stranded car in the middle of the track. The following car of ?Rovanperer? then smashes into it. We then see the marshalls and press on the track when the next car goes through.

No flag marshalls and no way to contact the team (except for text messaging one of the teams).

All I can see is a very dangerous accident waiting to happen.


but what can be done to help

[bramble]

I dont like it when I see spectators on the exits of particularly dangerous corners. They dont seem to realise the could be killed if a car went off there, and people have been in the past. Last year a stage was cancelled when a rally car crashed into a spectator car, and the year before Carlos Sainz injured a dozen people when he went off. The only solution really is to educate the spectators on the best places to stand, to fine anyone found parking a vehicle on a stage, and to limit the number of spectators, but that goes against the spirit of the sport.

[V6.]

The cars seem to be monumentally safe though them seem to be able to roll the cars into trees (not a good combination) and walk away uninjured. People will always be stupid and sit in dangerous places, marchels should move people but at the end of the day its there own responsibility to sit somewhere safe.

Also i remember a few years ago on one rally McRae had to swerve to avoid a thick cow. The next person along was Mackenen and he hit it and ended up rolling of a small mountain.

[John]

I know its not the same scale but I went to the Keilder rally last year and there were no problems, they highlighted places to stand on each stage and when you got there there were clear spectator areas and the marshalls made sure those people who still thought it was a good idea to stand on the outside of a corner were moved on well before the cars came. Admittedly there will be far more people on a WR event than the BR but I would have thought there would be more officials and marshals to reflect this.

On a side note the funniest part about where I was is that you has to walk a few hundred yards along the road that the cars used to get to the spectator area and people who arrived late, or wanted to move to the other area, and therefore had to walk along the road would either pretend to be really cool and walk casually along it or they'd make a run for it - but in both cases when the marshal blew the whistle they moved faster than they would have done in a while!! (Or jumped into a ditch!) :p

[Reynard]

Percentage wise, rallying probably has a better safety record than circuit racing in terms of the competitors taking part. The cars are built to a high level of structural integrity due to the tough nature of the terrain that they have to cover and as a result, serious injuries and fatalities are less common than in circuit racing. Even the most severe impacts often result in the driver and navigator walking away from the incident. I believe the last fatality in World-level rallying competition was Henri Toivonen and that was back in 1986. But whether racing or rallying, the drivers (and co-drivers) know the risk that they are taking.

Fans however, tend to be a different kettle of fish altogetherÖ

Race fans have to stay behind barriers or up-and-over fencing (like at Rockingham) and are kept well away from dangerous areas. Although that reduces the risks by a large percentage, it certainly doesnÃ*t eliminate it entirely as some incidents have proved. Personal experience has proved as muchÖ

I was at the 2000 night races at Snetterton, spectating at the outside of Russell, when in the Lotus Elise race, Matt Turner lost control of his car and hit the tyre wall just in front of me. The force of the impact was so big that the metal straps holding the tyres together broke, and a few tyres bounced up and flew into the crowd gathered on the spectator banking, Since I was sitting at the bottom of the bank right by the Armco, I managed to avoid the carnage, but the people sitting behind me were struck by one of the tyres. Fortunately none of the injuries were serious, but it demonstrates the point. (Snetterton later removed the tyre wall entirely from the outside of Russell and moved the banking back about 10 meters)

On the other hand, rally fans are allowed onto a stage where there seem to be no such restrictions for the general public, and then they proceed to stand exactly at the most dangerous points on the test. If a competitor then loses control of his car, then the consequences can be disastrous and as a result, I canÃ*t disagree with the principle behind cancelling several stages on recent WRC events because of the crowds being too large. Some rallies are worse than others in this respect but youÃ*d think theyÃ*d have a way of preventing this kind of thing by now.

Just a small byword: as a photographer, I have access to restricted areas close to the track but I have to sign a disclaimer that absolves the circuit of any responsibility should things go wrong. If I am in the wrong place at the wrong time, then it is my own fault and I have to live with the consequences despite having a legitimate reason to being in that location in the first place. However, one learns to move on instinct ñ I remember getting away pretty sharpish from being at the potential contact point of Simon PullanÃ*s TVR when the front suspension failed at Russell during the 2002 BGT raceÖ I donÃ*t think IÃ*ve ever moved so quickly, but somehow I also had the presence of mind to grab a couple of frames as I retreated! J

All tickets and passes to motor sport events bear the legend ìMOTOR RACING CAN BE DANGEROUSî. When you buy a ticket to an event, be it a rally or a circuit meeting, you are there at your own risk ñ so it all boils down to a case of ìyou pays your money and you takes your chanceÖî

[Ed- the MG fan]

Also i remember a few years ago on one rally McRae had to swerve to avoid a thick cow. The next person along was Mackenen and he hit it and ended up rolling of a small mountain.


I thought taht was quite funny. But running into that cow caused loads of damage to Maks car.


May be the FIA could aked Mitisbushis to enter a Lancer WRC before 2004. I remember Freddy Loix saying that in San Merino 2001 that spectors would run away when they saw the Lancer WRC coming due to its rubbish handaling

[Reynard]

I suppose that Tommi Makinnen hitting that cow was amusing - up to a certain extent because it was a bit out of the ordinary.

Usually rally drivers will collide with trees, walls, lion feeding troughs (Tony Pond, 1980 RAC Rally) and such like. However, if Tommi or Risto Manisenmakki had been hurt, them perhaps it wouldn't have been quite so funny...

Given that your average bovine weighs in at the best part of half a ton and if it is standing in the middle of the road, it has a similar effect on a rally car as driving into a wall has as it is essentially a sollid and relatively immovable object. In other words, it is not a trivial thing to hit.

[John]

Originally posted by Ed- the MG fan
I thought taht was quite funny. But running into that cow caused loads of damage to Maks car.

Not as much as the damage caused to the cow I would think!! ;)

[Ed- the MG fan]

Something like that will never happen again!

[V6.]

Famous last words

[Les]

I have to say I am rather glad they are not racing in Kenya now - I would be really upset if they hit an elephant for example.

[V6.]

Dont they weigh about 5 tons though, how would you explain that to the insurance company.

[touring fan]

"honest, it just ran right out in front of me............" :D

Safety on rallies as far as spectators are concerned must be a very difficult thing to control, there just aren't going to be enough marshalls to "police" entire stages and to a certain extent you have to rely on the common sense of the spectators.

[ceejay]

I think that part of the problem on WRC events is that they are victims of their own success. The more publicity, the more spectators, which is great.
However , due to other pressures from TV etc, the events are becoming more concentrated into a smaller area, and a shorter elapsed time, with consequently less stages for the public to visit, therefore more and more to each stage.

When the rallies lasted 4 or five days, and not based in one town/city returning to there each night, then more people from a wider area were able to visit.

[John]

Thats a good point. I recently got hold of a 1993 RAC rally video and the event basically toured the whole country, there were stages in Wales, Kielder, Yorkshire etc. Whereas as you say it is now concerntrated in such a small area and re-uses the same stages (even within the same day).

Unfortunately I think the only way to control the numbers is to increase the cost of attending (therefore less people will attend and those that do attend can be policed better as there would be more money available for this). However this is not a very healthy way in terms of extending the fan base - the cost is already too high in my opinion.

I went to the BRC at Kielder last year which was £5 per car (ie £1 per person based on 5 in a car) whereas the WRC UK round was something like £30-40 per person.

[AussieV8]

So really what we need to do is keep the cows away and let the people out as the people will cause less damage than the cow.:D :p

[Emma]

One of the problems on the European rounds is that it is seen as cool to touch the cars as they go by!?!

:confused: :confused: :confused:

[John]

Maybe there should be more access to the cars when they are parked up or on the first day. I know the BRC gives the chance to get close to the cars on the Friday (so I assume the WRC is similar) but if there was wider access like that then it may dissuade that kind of behaviour on the timed stages?

[AussieV8]

Emma
I like to see drunken Aussie bums try that as the cars go flat across the top of Mt Panorama.:D

[Emma]

Apparently, they quite often find bits of finger stuck in the airintakes etc.. . at the end of a stage - NICE!

[AussieV8]

Yellow pages could use that.
" Let your fingers do the walking:
:D

[Reynard]

Sometimes I think that European rally fans see it as a mechanised version of the Pamplona Bull run - both are just as crazy and just as dangerous.

Trying to touch a rally car at full chat on a stage?

It doesn't take much of a brain to do that, but it shows that the "coolness" gained in achieving that far outweighs any reasonable fan's concern for their own personal safety. It is about time that people watching rallies on the stages showed a bit of sense.

[Sim_Da_BTCC_Man]

The WRC round in australia may be cancelled because the FIA are not happy with saftey. Atleast this shows that they are doing something about it. I'm going to post the full story on another thread for those who want to see it.