20 replies to this topic

[Tsarwash]

I was just wondering, as a few people have mentioned incidents of a few karting deaths, but I couldn't find any sort of figures about it at all. I know there's different categories with different power karts, but I was just wondering how common deaths and serious injuries were in that sport. 

[Tapz63]

http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC2847818/

This is a good paper here. It says that there are 600 emergency visits a year in the Netherlands with a mean stay of 32.5 days.

http://www.ncbi.nlm....port=objectonly

[Peat]

It depends on who is driving the other karts. 

[rhukkas]

Peat that's a nonsense answer

 

The reality is it's very hard to measure because no one actually seems to have the data. In terms of deaths, they are quite rare considering the amount of karting that happens around the world. Generally the main cause of death is dangerous tracks. i.e the driver hitting something that shouldn't be there. For example a parked trailer, or tree or whatever. Worldwide I know about about maybe 10 in the last 10 years.

 

Injuries are reasonably common, but nothing to serious.

 

I am talking about owner driver karting here, not the corporate bollocks you do with your mates on a stag do.

Edited by rhukkas, 06 August 2015 - 09:14.

[TheRacingElf]

http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC2847818/

This is a good paper here. It says that there are 600 emergency visits a year in the Netherlands with a mean stay of 32.5 days.

http://www.ncbi.nlm....port=objectonly

I think those numbers include indoor karting, in the Netherlands we nearly have just 600 people who do karting as a sport so I find it very unlikely all of them getting seriously hurt every year

 

Karting as sport is relatively safe in my opinion, I have been karting for over 15 years now and have luckily "only" witnessed 1 death. Which was down to the track just being too dangerous and in hindsight everybody had seen that one coming to be honest.

 

In all those years I bruised my ribs about 6 times(Happens I think almost everybody who does karting) and have broken my wrist once, I think somebody who has been playing football for over 15 years has had many more injuries than I have.

 

If the track doesn't have tire barriers or fences close to the track Karting is pretty safe, if you wear the right safety equipment that is!

[ardbeg]

It depends on who is driving the other karts. 

You mean it's basically like gun fights?

[F1matt]

Whenever I go Karting I end up driving like a maniac when I drive home in my road car, not sure why this is but there have been a few occasions when I have looked at the speedo and thought what am I doing!

 

 I have read a few stories where racing drivers have been involved in fatal accidents driving home from a track and I can see why.

[Imperial]

Proper figures probably aren't available as, well...who really cares enough to do so? And that isn't me being callous, it is genuine.

They'd be massaged anyway no doubt, in the same way Maria de Villota seemingly wasn't an F1 death, despite only being dead because of an accident in an F1 car. But that's a debate done to death elsewhere...

[rhukkas]

Who cares enough to do so? Maybe the governing bodies who make safety decisions that effect some of the younger end of the market of 8-12 year olds? You not think safety data might be important?

 

Sometimes I wonder on this forum

Edited by rhukkas, 06 August 2015 - 11:38.

[ardbeg]

 Maybe the governing bodies who make safety decisions that effect some of the younger end of the market of 8-12 year olds?

and the parents who needs to respond to the wishes of the children

[chunder27]

Any kind of motorsport involving children is fraught with issues and dangers, especially that young.

 

Two things I find upsetting in karting are the expense that parents and teams ask of them, and the shouty Dads.

 

You get the latter in most sports, football, tennis, motocross. Anyone seen doing this AT ANY LEVEL should be asked to leave in my opinion. There are times when a good shout is necessary but I have witnessed examples that were plain abuse, nothing more and you see club officials just watching, they should be ashamed and are afraid to get invovled because the adult is monied orimportant locally or perhaps a club member. Sorry, no excuse.

But the former, in a sport where children are involved and which should be totally and utterly about equality is a blight and one of the saddest things about entry level motorsport I know.

 

There should be far more categories that are literally arrive and drive, no transport or at least no pro teams.

 

The standards are fine really, contact is frequent I would say, but the tracks are fairly safe and the karts weigh so little and have so much grip they usually spin out.

 

There are always going to be incidents, but that is true of any motorsport.

[Wally123]

The entry into Karting will always be expensive, it comes with the territory. If a parent can't afford it there a cheaper sports out there for their child to participate in. As for being dangerous, any form of sport which takes place at such speeds is dangerous by nature.

Edited by Wally123, 06 August 2015 - 13:02.

[goldenboy]

I've never been lucky enough to do any karting except the rental thing. But it seems the biggest danger is being run over after being ejected from your seat, right? And I am basing this on a safe, modern, standard outdoors track. (And no, I don't consider this much of a possibility with rental karts!)

[Imperial]

Who cares enough to do so? Maybe the governing bodies who make safety decisions that effect some of the younger end of the market of 8-12 year olds? You not think safety data might be important?

Sometimes I wonder on this forum

I did say it isn't being callous.

Pull up and quote the stats for us please, if they're collated they're surely published.

I've edited this to say I'm actually baffled by your reply to be honest, as your first reply to the OP you also express the opinion that nobody seems to have any stats on this. That is the point I'm making, if anyone cared enough there WOULD be someone keeping stats.

All those people you mention are all free to record this data and analyse it. But nobody is doing so, thus I rest my case.

Edited by Imperial, 06 August 2015 - 15:46.

[lukekarts]

I've never been lucky enough to do any karting except the rental thing. But it seems the biggest danger is being run over after being ejected from your seat, right? And I am basing this on a safe, modern, standard outdoors track. (And no, I don't consider this much of a possibility with rental karts!)

 

That's not something I've ever seen, actually.

 

Normally if you get flung from the kart you end up way off the track.

 

In ~10 years of racing karts in the UK, I've never seen anything life threatening. The worst I saw was on a test day at PFI, it must have been around 12-13 years ago, and a little cadet driver had his head down going along the start finish straight, so didn't see the person pulling off in front of him. It was a severe leg break, where the air ambulance was called. 

 

I also recall someone dying from a heart attack whilst driving, though the details I can recall are sketchy.

 

For me personally, I never had an accident where I was flung from a kart nor did I break anything except the kart itself. I recall a few people getting hurt every now and then but I think as far as motorsports goes, it has been relatively safe, at least here in the UK.

[Nemo1965]

A couple of years ago, I was a little bit known as a 'talking head' in my country about sports injuries. (Go for the chase to *, end of my post). Why? Because I'd had the opportunity to study data from Dutch hospitals regarding sports injuries. What I did was calculate the risk of injuries per hour per performance. An 'normal injury' in my research was an injury that necessitated a visit to the emergency ward. A 'heavy injury' meant either staying overnight in the hospital or one that prevented the patient from either working or going to school.

 

The most dangerous sport per hour per performance was (drum roll)... Indoor Soccer. Basically (at least in the Netherlands) on average after 45 minutes of playing a player gets a 'normal injury'. After 90 minutes a participant on average gets a 'heavy injury'. Of the 60.000 or so players that yearly play Indoor Soccer in my country, about 50 percent get a 'heavy injury' several times per year... So 30.000 Indoor Soccer players EVERY year gets treated at a hospital.

 

The most dangerous sport in all, was horse-riding. Only slightly less 'normal' injuries than Indoor Soccer. I can't recall the numbers regarding 'heavy injuries' precisely, only that 1500 people per year end up staying in the hospital with 'bone-trauma' because of a horse-riding related incident. That is staggering, considering the fact that so few people actually ride horses. Per performed hour, horse riding is VERY dangerous.

 

* Karting did not show up in my top-20. Which was the point of my story.

Edited by Nemo1965, 06 August 2015 - 15:31.

[anneomoly]

A couple of years ago, I was a little bit known as a 'talking head' in my country about sports injuries. (Go for the chase to *, end of my post). Why? Because I'd had the opportunity to study data from Dutch hospitals regarding sports injuries. What I did was calculate the risk of injuries per hour per performance. An 'normal injury' in my research was an injury that necessitated a visit to the emergency ward. A 'heavy injury' meant either staying overnight in the hospital or one that prevented the patient from either working or going to school.

 

The most dangerous sport per hour per performance was (drum roll)... Indoor Soccer. Basically (at least in the Netherlands) on average after 45 minutes of playing a player gets a 'normal injury'. After 90 minutes a participant on average gets a 'heavy injury'. Of the 60.000 or so players that yearly play Indoor Soccer in my country, about 50 percent get a 'heavy injury' several times per year... So 30.000 Indoor Soccer players EVERY year gets treated at a hospital.

 

The most dangerous sport in all, was horse-riding. Only slightly less 'normal' injuries than Indoor Soccer. I can't recall the numbers regarding 'heavy injuries' precisely, only that 1500 people per year end up staying in the hospital with 'bone-trauma' because of a horse-riding related incident. That is staggering, considering the fact that so few people actually ride horses. Per performed hour, horse riding is VERY dangerous.

 

* Karting did not show up in my top-20. Which was the point of my story.

 

Well, considering a horse weighs about as much as an F1 car, has a mind of its own and is occasionally asked to do things that involve the risk of it flipping upside down while someone's on its back, not that surprising? 50% of injuries happen when you're not on the horse, as well.. karts don't generally launch hooves into your head and kill you because you turned a razor on in its vicinity. Professional jockeys and equestrians are pretty hardcore. Though, as a strictly amateur, if after 60 minutes of horse riding I ended up in hospital I'd query whether it was for me, so maybe not as much as indoor soccer...

 

What I'd wonder, and if you've got the data feel free to enlighten me, is if you narrowed it down to serious injuries if karting climbed the ranks a bit - the impression I get from motorsport generally is that safety has improved so much that there's potentially not much leeway between everything working fine and walking away and something failing leading to catastrophe. (and also I'd suspect the indoor soccer players would drop significantly, not that I'm calling them whiny for taking their minor ouches to hospital...)

[Nemo1965]

Well, considering a horse weighs about as much as an F1 car, has a mind of its own and is occasionally asked to do things that involve the risk of it flipping upside down while someone's on its back, not that surprising? 50% of injuries happen when you're not on the horse, as well.. karts don't generally launch hooves into your head and kill you because you turned a razor on in its vicinity. Professional jockeys and equestrians are pretty hardcore. Though, as a strictly amateur, if after 60 minutes of horse riding I ended up in hospital I'd query whether it was for me, so maybe not as much as indoor soccer...

 

What I'd wonder, and if you've got the data feel free to enlighten me, is if you narrowed it down to serious injuries if karting climbed the ranks a bit - the impression I get from motorsport generally is that safety has improved so much that there's potentially not much leeway between everything working fine and walking away and something failing leading to catastrophe. (and also I'd suspect the indoor soccer players would drop significantly, not that I'm calling them whiny for taking their minor ouches to hospital...)

 

Good points all, and right about horses kicking your head or biting you... I would have included that in my post but it was already long. Horses are a. just not as sweet as all the girlie-magazines and posters and little pony make believe, b. horses often hurt you even if they are not being mean. They fall over, just happen to put their foot down energetically when you are cleaning their hoofs...

 

I don't have the data about karting, but in my - not too extensive research - I really tried to filter out 'och that hurt injuries' by looking at specific injury descriptions. 'Spraining of ligaments' is 'ouch, I stay home'... Ruptured tendons, tore-off cartilages, broken femurs and fibula are not a matter of choosing to go to hospital, you would be really hard-core if you hobbled home... I also had a simple filter: after consultation, the doctor either sent the patient home or sent him through to the x-ray department. If the report of the x-ray was included (just the diagnoses) I knew something serious was afoot. When it was absent, one knows the initial anamnese of the doc was spot on...

[chunder27]

I think the guy who had the research summed it up perfectly earlier in the thread.

Karting is certainly not very dangerous in comparison with certain other, far more popular sports.

End of thread really!!

[Tsarwash]

Thanks for the replies everybody. This is a good place to learn such things. 

http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC2847818/

This is a good paper here. It says that there are 600 emergency visits a year in the Netherlands with a mean stay of 32.5 days.

http://www.ncbi.nlm....port=objectonly

I think that quote of 32.5 days has been distorted in that article. Considering the typical injuries, that seems unrealistic;

 

 

We observed in a 16 months period 5 serious accidents with go karts. The injuries included bruise of lower leg, a contusion of the stomach with a pancreatic lesion, an instable fracture of the spinal column, a difficult fracture of the knee and upper tibia and a large sized burnwound. The mean hospitalization time was 32,5 days (17-54 days) and the average age of the patients 27,7 years (9-45 years).

I think they are talking about the five serious injuries having the 32.5 days, not the six hundred total injuries. 

Edited by Tsarwash, 06 August 2015 - 18:11.

[loki]

Peat that's a nonsense answer

 

The reality is it's very hard to measure because no one actually seems to have the data. In terms of deaths, they are quite rare considering the amount of karting that happens around the world. Generally the main cause of death is dangerous tracks. i.e the driver hitting something that shouldn't be there. For example a parked trailer, or tree or whatever. Worldwide I know about about maybe 10 in the last 10 years.

 

Injuries are reasonably common, but nothing to serious.

 

I am talking about owner driver karting here, not the corporate bollocks you do with your mates on a stag do.

 

There have been at least six deaths in competitive high performance karting in the US in the last 15 years.  Most were adults racing karts on road race circuits.  I was racing at two of the events, they were about two years apart.  One died on the track.   The other a few months later from complications of the resulting surgery.  There was another young adult killed at Road America not long after those and a few others I can remember.  There was at least one young kid that had his chest crushed which lead to mandatory chest protection for younger racers.  

 

There was another I knew but it wasn't racing related.  The class champ and racer for several years suffered a heart attack and died one night after a race.  Apparently he didn't feel well at the end of the event which turned out to be a less severe heart attack that he didn't realize he was having at the time.  Later that evening he had massive coronary failure.  In fact in the US according to data from the Charlotte Observer most deaths at amateur tracks are heart attacks that happen when the driver is not in the car or on track.