Wow, let's be careful driving our rods!!!!

[donsrods]

I just read this on another forum and thought it would be worthwhile to post here. Here is the newspaper writeup:


LA JOLLA: One man died and another suffered critical injuries yesterday s8 when the “T-bucket” hot rod they were riding in fishtailed into a bus stop on North Torrey Pines Road.

he vehicle spun out of control when the driver applied the brakes; it then jumped a curb and hit a bus bench, police said. The impact caused both occupants to be ejected. Neither was wearing a seat belt. The passenger died at the scene, and the driver was taken to a hospital. Their names were not released.


It is the black T bucket type car in the picture below. Another member posted a second T bucket that was wrecked when some girl ran into some parked cars with it.

We don't have a lot of protection around us in these kinds of cars, and any little fenderbender would be much worse than in our daily drivers with seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones, etc. Please think of these pictures when you are out in your hot rods............I know I will.


Don

 

[donsrods]

Whoops, the black car picture was BEFORE THE WRECK, here it is AFTER the wreck.

Sorry, for some reason this stupid computer won't let me put it in any larger than this.

Don

 

[donsrods]

and if you think tube axles are strong, look what happened in the wreck of the second car !!!!!!


Don

 

[FlatBroke]

Slow down guys.

 

[Tripper]

Seatbelts r GOOD!!!

Hey... even the Daytripper has seatbelts & I use them *every* time I get it!!!

BoB

 

[donsrods]

My Son and I had this discussion just the other night. He wants to put seatbelts in his T, and I have a brand new set I bought for mine 18 years ago, but never took out of the box. My theory was if the car flipped I didn't want to be trapped in it, but seeing these pictures makes me wonder about the wisdom of that thinking.


Don

 

[joehalford01]

you could always add a roll bar, don't know how great it would look though.

 

[satanherself]

The main thing is really the driver..Those things are not designed to handle.sadly most that are on the road now are piloted by younger drivers with lil driving experince ,,or drunks showing off

 

[BruceR&C]

Those are great examples of why we must not only build our cars safely but to drive them safely, too...

 

[Gastrick]

Those are great examples of why we must not only build our cars safely but to drive them safely, too...

I agree with that one Bruce. It's great to have some fun now and again but just don't be stupid. There are instances where the accident is another drivers fault or where mechanical failure could be to blame, but there's no need to put yourself in a position to become a bad statistic.

 

[liv'n'67]

i always try to make my stuff safe. and sometimes it make the ride look all that much more sweet. after i had my scare with my v8 vega i thought alot about what i was building

 

[gassersgarage]

A couple of years ago, a bunch of us were cruising in our rods. At a crossroads, everyone had stopped to turn left. Made a left turn and there was a t-bucket that had flipped. It was an old rod, been on the road for years. As the driver made the left turn and accelerated, the front axle snapped off. The frame rails dug into the pavement and flipped the bucket. Fortunately, the driver had seatbelts and wasn't ejected. He walked away from it.

A friend of mine has a 32' full fendered roadster he has had for decades. When he got home from the cruise, he decided to inspect his roadster. He found that the frame was cracking at the firewall on the driver's side. (original frame) Needless to say, the roadster was off the road until it was fixed.

 

[liv'n'67]

see its stuff like that, my old vega was all about going fast so the less i had into it the less weight i had. well needless to say the thing was really lose at high speeds. i ended up spinning out at well over 130mph

 

[oldskoolmini]

Yeah that sucks. I am glad to say that I wear seat belts at age 17 because a seatbelt saved my dad's life.