How Has the HANS Device Improved Car Racing?

The HANS device supports a driver's head and neck in the event of a race car crash, saving lives. Learn its history in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren Vogelbaum here. In the early days of car racing,
even a minor accident could be fatal. For example, Patrick
jack Mart was killed at mid Ohio in one after
a head on collision with a dirt bank. His car
was left relatively unscathed, but Jack Bart ended up with

(00:23):
a skull fracture that caused severe brain damage. A lucky
for other racers, two of jack Bart's friends stepped in
and created a safety device that has changed the sport
of car racing forever. Those friends were Jim Downing and
jack Mart's brother in law, Dr Bob Hubbard. The two
decided to combine Downing's knowledge of racing and Hubbard's expertise
in engineering and skull anatomy to develop new safety gear

(00:45):
to try to prevent deaths like jack Mart's from happening again.
The simple and effective invention they created became known as
the hands Device short forehead and neck support. The hands
device isn't like a car airbag, which inflates a cushion
to stop the driver in case of a collision. Instead,
the hands device proactively uses a raised collar and two

(01:07):
tethers to secure the driver's head. In other words, it's
a shoulder collar that attaches to both the car seats
safety harness and the driver's helmet. In the event of
a crash, it keeps the racer's head and neck properly
aligned with the torso, preventing the type of excess force
that would otherwise result in serious or fatal neck and
head injuries. But it took years for the hands device

(01:28):
to become a financial success, and unfortunately, it took the
death of a high profile racer for NASCAR to take notice.
When Dale Earnhardt, Sr. Was killed in two thousand one
in a crash similar to Jack Marts at the Daytona
International Speedway, the racing community, including NASCAR, finally took the
hands device seriously. Now, most racing organizations require the use

(01:50):
of a hands device for all drivers. The hands device
is specifically designed to prevent vassal or skull fractures. Those
injuries are caused when a car suddenly dec cceleerates. In
Earnhardt's fatal crash at Daytona, for instance, NASCAR determined that
he hit the wall going a hundred and sixty miles
per hour. That's two hundred and fifty seven kilometers per
hour and slowed by somewhere between forty two to forty

(02:13):
four miles per hour about sixty seven to seventy kilos
per hour in just eighty milliseconds. This sudden deceleration is
known as the delta V, literally the change in velocity.
While it's difficult to provide exact statistics on how many
lives have been saved by the hands device, we do
know this NASCAR, where certified hands are mandatory, did not

(02:36):
have one single driver fatality in the decade after Earnhardt's death,
whereas there were a hundred and twenty six deaths from
crashes on drag strips and short tracks where hands devices
are not required, and Hands estimates that of those hundred
and six deaths as many, it's that's thirty four driver
deaths could have been prevented by using the device, and

(02:58):
no driver in an Indie car or an any of
NASCAR's major series has been killed by a bachelor's skull
fracture since it required the use of the device. Today's
episode was written by Trees three Witt and produced by
Tyler Clang for iHeartMedia and How Stuff Works from around
this and lots of other topics, visit our home planet,

(03:19):
how stuff Works dot com.