Buggy Safety

[Buggy1]

I am deeply saddened by the passing of another Buggy Friend. While I never met Don, I feel any one who loves a Buggy is a friend of mine.

I have owned so many Buggies over the years I lost count at forty. My last one included a roll cage I designed and built by Hawkeye Buggies. First Neil built it the way I wanted and when the whole car was finished it complemented the F1 perfectly. More important I never felt in danger when driving it cause I knew it would do the job should I go over ( something I have done many times - fool that I am ). I sold the F1 to start another Buggy with my wife ( she wanted to get in on the fun! ), I felt very sure that my buggy would protect the new owner just as it has protected me for years to come.

I feel safety should really take a priority when it comes to our sport and I feel the more safety planning the better. So from a friend who doesn't get on here much..........please be safe out there, I need all of ya in my final years of fun.

Neal

[Aquabuggy]

Neal, Im glad you brought this subject up.
I cant count how many times Ive heard fellow buggiers say "oh well why worry about safety if your in a buggy accident your just SOL".

This is the wrong attitude we need to change the we think about our buggy's and safety.

Safety should be the first consideration when planning a build, if there are many more accidents like this the d@mn politicians will take all of our buggy's off the road.

Stepping down off the soap box now

[Buggy1]

Glad to see someone agrees. When doing a roll cage, please include front to rear over head bars, knew someone who didn't make it once cause the tree that stopped him ended up between the windshield and the roll bar. Don't keep so simple or "correct" that you end up dead.........remember fiberglass buggies were designed to run on the dunes and beaches where there are no trees, mountain slopes, or road hazzards. Just look at Bruces Newest creation, the Manxter uses THREE roll bars with over head bars all the way back, He aught to know..........He is the original Buggy Man and knows safetyand he knows people are going to use the Manxter everywhere!

Neal

[Mike & Mel]

For Don's crash, we drove out to the crash site to see if we could learn a little about what happened so we could pass that knowledge on to others in the hopes that it would improve the safety of our beloved little buggies. It's about 45 minutes out of Hemet on a sometimes twisty road up into the pine forest. It is a very beautiful drive. After rising to 5000', it drops down to about 4000' and out of the trees. In the town of Anza, there is an indian casino. Apparently as darkness fell, Don and his friend had just departed the casino and were heading home on Cary Rd. It looks as if they were trying to take a shortcut as the road they were on would have taken them over 6 or 7 miles of dirt trails back to Hemet. About 2 miles from the casino and still on the paved road, the road curves abruptly at the crest of a small hill on to Tripp Flats Rd. There is a 20 MPH curve sign about 300' before the curve. The sign was partially obscured by vegitation as you approached it, but was visible when you got closer. After the sign, the road joggs to the left slightly. As you reach the top of the hill, you get into the left hand curve. the curve starts out gentle enough, but as you reach the center of the curve, the road begins to drop back down, and the curve then gets very tight. The shoulder is all loose dirt and has numerous tracks from other vehicles that have failed to negotiate the turn. It seems as if the curve caught Don by surprise and he ended up getting pushed out into the loose shoulder by centrigugal force. The back end of the buggy started to come around at that point. When they came back onto the pavement, the buggy was somewhat sideways. His right rear tire sidewall folded over (possibly due to low tire pressure alowing the bead to brake) and the wheel rim caught the aspault. The car took a hop and when it came down it sheered the right rear wheel/brake drum off. The car overturned and slid into the brush on the other side of the street. As we did not see the buggy, I am told the single hoop roll bar folded over ABOVE the attachment points. It was still bolted into the floor, and at the sides where it was bolted through the fiberglass. There are houses nearby, so the area is not very remote, and traffic is light, but constant. There was a small memorial there, left by his family.