George,
I believe Kirk is referring to the shakedown nature of the arrangement. This is common with publications who hint that they are considering including your product in an article, then in the next breath ask what your ad budget is. We bought an ad in last year's SportsCar safety issue and were included in the article. We are not buying an ad this year. Let's see what happens.
In the case of SFI, the organization serves as a CYA function for sanctioning bodies, and as a stamp of approval for manufacturers. It's an appealing arrangement. As long as everyone meets the standard it's no one's fault when something goes wrong. After all, we all agreed it was the way to go. Not bad; in most cases I would agree that a standard is better than no standard.
But, there are two problems with this thinking:
1) Products that exceed the standard are, against all logic, outlawed. The Isaac system on the 100G sled is one example. Another is the fact that high performance harness systems utilized in aviation and NASA application don't meet SFI belt specs because they are too good.
We also see this in the medical businesses. There was a time when it was illegal to provide to a surgeon an artificial joint prosthesis (hip for example) if it was custom made to the patient's bone geometry, even though it was clearly better for the patient than an off-the-shelf design. Why? Because FDA approval required a statistical sample, but if it was custom made, there was only one. It took, literally, an act of Congress before these products were legal.
This mindset of meeting the standard continues today with all medical product development. The joke in the industry is that FDA approval is a stamp of obsolescence.
2) There is little if any motivation to optimize the standard, regardless of how silly it becomes. It doesn't matter if it makes sense, just as long as it is there. It's like the single release rule in SCCA. I have spoken to SCCA officials who will pound the table defending a 40-yeal old rule they acknowledge is behind the times, claiming it is necessary for rapid egress, while admiting that getting out of the seat means nothing if you can't get out of the car. They don't care if Jeff Altenberg's HANS device got snagged in the window net of his burning car, and he couldn't get out until the net melted--AT AN SCCA EVENT! I kid you not.
Some people's love for rules/standards is so great that if the standard called for driving around the track with a dead chicken glued to our helmet, we'd all be driving around the track with a dead chicken glued to our helmet.
Standards are convenient, no one has to think. The problem with this one is that someone is going to get hurt--and then the lawyers will show up.
Gregg Baker, P.E.
Isaac, LLC
http://www.isaacdirect.com
[This message has been edited by gsbaker (edited January 06, 2005).]
