I listened to a fascinating podcast over the weekend from "99% Invisible," a nerdy and interesting design-podcast. This particular episode is called "The Nut Behind the Wheel" https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/nut-behind-wheel/ and discusses the history of safety and design in the automotive industry. It's hard to believe today, but it wasn't really until the 1960's that anyone in the car industry even considered that a car could or should be designed with safety in mind. For people obsessed with vehicle-based travel, it's a good listen. One caveat up-front: while 99PI isn't an overtly political podcast, it is definitely leftward-leaning and they draw some comparisons between the relative regulation of automotive and firearm safety. That's not the primary focus of the episode (rather, its the history of automotive safety) but they conclude the episode with that argument, so I wanted to mention it up-front because I know ExPo's rules prohibit political posts. My posting the link here isn't an endorsement of the opinion, it's just that the history portion of the episode is worth the listen so take the rest as you will.
Specific Overlanding Take-Away: the episode highlights how auto-accident statistics ultimately were used to inform design. For instance, people kept being killed/impaled by hard angular dashboards and/or large knobs and levers in the cab during accidents, so those items were removed from the design and replaced with padded dash-boards, etc. This got me thinking about all the electronics (navs, comms, etc.) that we like to install into overland rigs and it never previously occurred to me how those mods might effect safety. So here's a question: in an accident, could a poorly placed RAM-mount, or equivalent, kill you? I don't mean to pick on RAM here because I'm really talking about any in-cab modification, but RAM's brand is nearly synonymous with its product category (like Ziplock), so it serves a good example.
I regularly hear a lot of good safety advice in the overland community: don't put heavy loads on the roof, get an air-bag-compliant bumper, secure all your gear in case of a roll-over, etc. but I can't say I hear much about in-cab modifications and their potential safety impact. Do I have my head in the sand?
Specific Overlanding Take-Away: the episode highlights how auto-accident statistics ultimately were used to inform design. For instance, people kept being killed/impaled by hard angular dashboards and/or large knobs and levers in the cab during accidents, so those items were removed from the design and replaced with padded dash-boards, etc. This got me thinking about all the electronics (navs, comms, etc.) that we like to install into overland rigs and it never previously occurred to me how those mods might effect safety. So here's a question: in an accident, could a poorly placed RAM-mount, or equivalent, kill you? I don't mean to pick on RAM here because I'm really talking about any in-cab modification, but RAM's brand is nearly synonymous with its product category (like Ziplock), so it serves a good example.
I regularly hear a lot of good safety advice in the overland community: don't put heavy loads on the roof, get an air-bag-compliant bumper, secure all your gear in case of a roll-over, etc. but I can't say I hear much about in-cab modifications and their potential safety impact. Do I have my head in the sand?
Last edited: