Since the early days of the automotive industry, motorsports have given the car manufacturers a number of ways to improve their vehicles – both in performance and in driver safety. The reason behind it is very simple – racing causes both drivers and their machines to push the envelope of performance. And new technology and features just didn’t involve speed, but also keeping the driver safe.

Developments to improve driver safety in racing have been the inspiration for car makers seeking to improve occupant safety in their road legal cars. There’s more to race car inspired safety features than just seatbelts and airbags!

If you were to look around inside your car, you’d find a lot of things that have been implemented in regular cars because they kept race car drivers safe. One of the biggest features would probably go unnoticed – the safety roll cage. The reason why you don’t notice the sturdy, energy-absorbing structure – the chassis – is because, unlike the naked interior of a racecar, the monocoque construction in a road car masks the structure. But, much of today’s effective structures came originally from racecars.

There are also sophisticated electronic systems that go into production cars as safety features, such as anti-lock braking systems (ABS), traction control systems, and even the car’s aerodynamic structure!

But the most important of these safety features are things that you wouldn’t think twice about. For instance, the head-rest on every seat is more than just a comfort feature – it reduces the risk of severe whiplash neck injuries by a huge margin. But the one seemingly insignificant safety feature, derived from race cars, that actually makes a huge difference to our driving safety, is the rear-view mirror. Competitive racers began using rear-view mirrors not just to know where the opponents were, but also to make sure they don’t swerve on to the path of an overtaking driver.

Next time you see a car race, you know who to thank for making your car safer!

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