Bullbars, Is There A Smarter Alternative?
I love the outdoors
I love the outdoors. The more remote the better. I just love packing my jeep with all the gear (including my wife and child :)) and heading offroad to somewhere unreachable by road or foot.
Recently while driving my jeep through the outback of Australia, I hit a kangaroo. I was only meandering along at the time so I didn't damage the jeep, (and the kangaroo bounded away with little more than a fright) but it really got me thinking about bullbar protection. If I was going any faster, I could have seriously damaged my 4X4 to the extent that I was stuck, waiting for another offroad buff to get me out of trouble.
During this chat they brought up the topic of smartbars. Before the conversation, I didn't even know they existed. So I got onto Google to do some research on the products and found a lot of opinion (most of it based on aesthetics and perception rather than utility and fact) but pretty much no factual information. So me and my mates at All Vehicle Accessories dug a little deeper, and this is what we found.
There are 3 things a bullbar (or frontal protection device) is supposed to protect. These are the vehicle, the passengers in the vehicle, and the object being struck in a collision.
Its pretty funny when you look around for information on the relative safety performance of bullbars and smartbars. People who love bullbars keep pointing out that at 150kms/h a collision will be fatal. So to be clear, we are not looking at the 150kms/h collission. Rather we are comparing performance of these products at speeds up to and including fatal impact, but not exceeding it. That means at speeds which are less than and equal to the point where a collision becomes fatal to the vehicle, passengers or pedestrian.
The difference between the performance of bullbars and smartbars comes about because bullbars are rigid (Ie they have no give in them) while smartbars are not. (Ie. they are made from polyethylene with a hollow internal structure so they have some give) Despite all the opinion to the contrary, at speeds leading up to fatal impact, smartbars work better than bullbars in protecting you, the car and the person you hit. The manner in which they absorb impact minimises the force of the collision and thereby reduces injury and damage. The cushioning effect of this absorbtion actually acts to decelerate the colliding forces at the point of impact. This has been proven by independent child head-form impact tests. You just have to do a little research to find the studies.
To put this point in perspective though, into words you can feel, smartbars are made out of similar materials that they make those big wheelie bins from. Imagine you fell over in the street and smacked your head into a big iron postal box. It would hurt right? Now compare the same fall if your head hit the middle of one of those big wheelie bins. The bin would cushion the impact somewhat and the damage to your forehead would not nearly be so bad. (Or painful for that matter) Thats the way the smartbars work.
If you enjoy your vehicle, performance will always be a topic on your mind. The cost of fuel, tyre wear, suspension wear, handling in extreme weather. They are all issues for regular drivers. One thing that no-one questions, is that smartbars are significantly lighter than bullbars. Do you know what this means? Better fuel efficiency, longer tyre and suspension wear, easier and safer handling. Smartbars by their lighter composition allow your vehicle to perform better. Simple.
And I have one final point to make on the subject. I love taking the jeep out bush but I'm pretty lazy about it when I come home. I don't want to spend hours polishing, buffing or scrubbing my bullbar because its rusting a bit (especially after those ocean fishing trips) or has lost its shine. A quick wipedown with a soapy sponge is all the smartbar takes to clean. Which means I can spend my time planning the next trip.
These are the facts I found when researching frontal protection products for my Jeep. The protection of my family was my #1 consideration, so getting this right was important to me. If you are considering frontal protection products I encourage you to do your own research, try to seperate fact from the immense amount of image based opinion out there, and pick the product that best suits your purpose.
by: Damian Papworth
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