Halos and Heroes

Thank Great Zeus that the halo will not be used, at least not in 2017. The only two F1 drivers whose lives it might have saved are Alan Stacey and Tom Pryce. Always assuming that you could transport current technology back to 1960 and 1977 respectively.
Both were freak accidents and the problem with freak accidents is that you cannot legislate against them. That is why they are called 'freak'.
Take the case of Riccardo Paletti who drove for Osella in 1982. The team was poorly funded and Riccardo qualified for only two of the eight races he attempted. In Canada, Didier Pironi stalled his Ferrari as the race started and other drivers were involved in various levels of excitement as they avoided the stationary car. Paletti, starting from the back row was unsighted, and was accelerating as he hit the back of the stalled Ferrari at around 110 mph.
Repeat that with current cars and Riccardo might have been unscathed. It was a freak accident.
In 2009, Felipe Massa was injured when an errant suspension spring from another car hit his helmet. Perhaps a halo could have prevented that, or perhaps it could have deflected the spring so it hit Felipe in the chest and killed him. There is no way of knowing.
Perhaps a halo might have saved the lives of Henry Surtees and Justin Wilson, but neither were racing in Formula One, the only category for which it has been suggested.
Talk of the halo seemed to follow the death of Jules Bianchi, but nothing would have saved him. He suffered axonal diffuse injury because of massive deceleration. It is why babies who are severely shaken suffer brain injury or death.
The halo has been put on the back burner for further evaluation and possible introduction in 2018. In my view it is an idea which should be consigned to oblivion. Representatives of the drivers have welcomed the halo, but one wonders on what grounds.
It cannot be historical precedence because there is none, the case for the halo has been invented. Alexander Wurz, of the GPDA, is quoted as saying that it is a case of 'business first and safety second.'
Sebastian Vettel is reported to have said, 'We don't like the looks of it, but I don't think there's anything which justifies death.'
What deaths is he talking about? There aren't any. It is a made-up sentiment which makes a good sound bite. The case for the halo does not stand scrutiny.
Lewis Hamilton says that he was persuaded by a 'presentation', presumably on behalf of the halo. It would be interesting to know what was said.
As for business above safety, it is business (the trackside and television audience) which has made Vettel a multi-millionaire. Nobody actually forced him to race cars.
Other comments from Lewis Hamilton suggest that drivers expect a canopy in the future.
Grand Prix racing has always been open cockpit racing. You accept that or you don't do it. Every form of motor sport has an element of risk. If you are risk-averse, you can always take up knitting, or golf.
I am of an age to remember when fatal accidents in motor racing were regrettably common. Jim Clark died not because his car left the track, but because he hit a tree on the infield at Hockenheim, where trees had no business to be. Motor racing eliminated unnecessary dangers, but it cannot eliminate danger itself.
When Jackie Stewart began his campaign for safety he met resistance from some of his fellow drivers. They saw themselves as macho heroes and their bravado was essential to pulling babes.
We look back at the death toll in motor racing with horror, but at the time it was accepted. Drivers knew the risks and still went racing. Perhaps two world wars had inured people to the possibility of sudden death. Then there were all the illnesses one had to live through. In a span of four months my brother and I had whooping cough, measles with pneumonia and chicken pox. It could have been worse, it might have been polio, there had been an epidemic.
When I was a teenager a friend of mine drowned when he went swimming in a river known for its fierce tides. Our reaction was that he had been incredibly stupid. Today, there would have been tributes paid, and flowers and teddy bears on the river bank.
Attitude to risk has changed and in the main that is a good thing; there are now far fewer industrial accidents and far fewer casualties per vehicle-mile. We have seen massive advances in health care and medicine. All this is to the good, but there is still a place in the world for risk and sometimes that means sport.
As the world has become safer so we have seen the growth of extreme sports like base jumping, cage fighting and Mixed Martial Arts. Not only do rock climbers seek the most difficult climbs, but some have taken to going up the sides of skyscrapers with minimal equipment.
Red Bull has created a market for itself by sponsoring a range of audacious sports which emphasise risk and an adrenaline rush. There is an audience for risk because we spectators wish that we had the gonads to do it.
Recently a stuntman jumped from a plane at 25,000 feet without a parachute. Follow that.
Formula One's response has been to propose making already safe cars into machines that are even further removed from everyday experience. Saloon car racing is not safe simply because cars have a roof. For years now tin tops have been built around roll cages which are massively strong spaceframes around which body panels are assembled and which provide structural integrity which the base cars do not. There are still injuries and fatalities, often as a result of freak accidents.
A racing driver once seemed the natural successor to a fighter pilot, he was brave, skilled and dashing, an heroic figure. A current airline pilot may be seen as having an interesting job, but it is just that, a job. Only occasionally do they have to muster their training as when the crew of US Airways Flight 1549 put down their Airbus A320 in the Hudson River, following a massive bird strike, which itself was a freak occurrence.
Tens of thousands of flights had safely taken off from LaGuardia airport before that incident in 2009, and tens of thousands have done so since. The incidence was a freak.
Now that the halo has been mooted, it is in the air and if a driver is injured or killed in the future, the absence of the halo could lead to law suits even though there is no historical precedent to show they are needed.
Lawyers acting for the family of Jules Bianchi are suing everyone in sight except the owner of Suzuka (Honda) and the organisers of the 2014 Japanese GP. To do so they would have to make a case in Japan whereas it is easier to do so in London.
Everyone who can be blamed in an English court is being blamed though that does not include the circuit owner or the race organisers. The one person who is not being blamed is Jules Bianchi himself, who made a mistake by driving too fast for the conditions. Every other driver negotiated the same corner, in the same conditions, without leaving the road.
We live in an era of blame culture where people who make mistakes are victims. I think of my friend who drowned because he swam in a river which nobody else dreamed of swimming in. We did not think he was a victim, we thought he was plain wrong.

Let us consider the case of Jochen Rindt who was killed during practice for the 1970 Italian GP at Monza. As Jochen approached the Parabolica, the drive shaft to the right hand front brake on his Lotus 72 sheered. That was a fault with the car.
Jochen's Lotus hit the guard rail on the inside of the bend, but there was at least one bolt missing from the rail so it gave when it should have deflected Rindt back on the track. The nose of his Lotus went under the rail and Jochen suffered massive injuries to his legs, which may have proven fatal. There was blame to be laid at the organisers.
What actually killed Jochen was the fact that he attached only four of his five safety straps, he was more comfortable not attaching the crotch strap. On impact, he slid forward at speed and was strangled by the top part of his safety harness. That was a result of Rindt's conscious decision.
Did Jochen die because of a fault in his car, because the circuit owner had been negligent, or because he attached only four of the five straps on his safety harness, thus rendering it ineffective. There is a debate for every pub lawyer.
Now imagine the field day lawyers could have if a driver is injured in 2017 without a halo which, in my view, is an invented precaution.
Grand Prix racing has always been open cockpit, it is part of its appeal. Nobody forces drivers to race in F1 and become massively wealthy. They are not the child jockeys in Middle Eastern camel racing. If we have the halo and, possibly. the canopy, what is next, the ejector seat?
I despise the blame culture with its victims and tributes and flowers and teddy bears. I want heroes, not wimps.