Will a bullbar protect me in a crash?
QUESTION
Hi John,
I found myself on the Snowy Highway dodging kangaroos recently with my girly plastic stock Toyota bumper.
I’m at the stage where I am thinking I should get a bullbar, but I want to avoid messing with the suspension geometry and the fuel wastage issues by fitting a big heavy steel bullbar.
I’m thinking the best compromise is one of those “Smart bars” they are made out of plastic and apparently deform and are half the weight of a steel bar etc.
Bullbars remain the great unknown in vehicle safety - there’s plenty of anecdotes, but little hard evidence.
I would be very interested in your opinion. I have trawled through your channel and not seen much directly addressing this issue apart from the sage advice to avoid 4WD porn, ARB and thinking carefully before modifying with things like GVM upgrades and fitting snorkels.
But I am getting risk averse now in my 61st year, so please, if you have a chance to address this, I would be most grateful.
I respect your generous humorous articulate scientific advice that comes from a great place.
Bon Courage Bro’
François
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ANSWER
Hey Franccois,
Thank you very much for the kind words mate.
I understand where you’re coming from. The bullbar dilemma is, generally, that a heavy bullbar will do a good job protecting the car from an impact with a kangaroo, or similar. Unfortunately, in a serious, life-threatening crash, it might disrupt the timing of the airbag (and related system) deployment(s).
Therefore, if you protect the car, there’s a strong chance you might place yourself (and others within) at greater risk.
If the bar is lighter (smart bar style of thing) then the protection for the vehicle is lessened, while at the same the potential disruption is also less. (If you take the bar away entirely, you get minimum protection for the vehicle and maximum protection for the occupants.)
So it depends on priorities and exposure to the animal strike risk generally, but these are the basic ideas to weigh up.
Some bullbar manufacturers make a big deal out of airbag compatibility, but I think this is mostly spin - to my knowledge they’ve never proved this in a real crash test. SmartBar Australia (owned by ARB) doesn’t exactly do repeated, hard testing with an accredited crashlab in this video with Jamie Durie.
I’d suggest you upgrade your driving software first before buying a bullbar - check out SteerSafely.com.au because Stewart Nicholls knows his stuff and will teach you driving skills you didn’t know were possible.
Hope this helps,
JC
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