Car crashes are one of the leading causes of death worldwide, so it's important that we do everything we can to improve safety on our roads. One area that is often overlooked is the protection of passengers in the event of a crash. Currently, most cars are designed to protect occupants by distributing the force of a collision evenly throughout the vehicle. However, this approach does not take into account the fact that passengers come in all shapes and sizes. As a result, some people are more vulnerable to injury than others.

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Yes, airbags are decent catch-alls for various sizes of people. But in the event of a violent rollover where the roof is crushed, even a curtain airbag isn't going to cut it when the ground is coming at you from all directions.

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One potential solution is to look at the way Formula One drivers are protected in their cars. In recent years, F1 has introduced the "halo" as a way to protect drivers' heads from being hit by debris in a crash. This same concept could be applied to passenger safety, with each seat being surrounded by a protective halo. This would allow for customized protection for each individual, rather than the one-size-fits-all approach that is currently used. With car crashes remaining a major global problem, it's time to start thinking outside the box when it comes to passenger safety. The halo could be the answer we've been looking for.

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The halo is a titanium bar that goes around the driver's head and is attached to the car. It is there to protect the driver's head from being hit by debris, and it has been used in Formula One since 2016. The halo wouldn't require a completely different type of interior packaging design, because the halo could wrap up from the dashboard and meet a central spar between the two front seats.

However, this design would need to be modified for passenger cars with windscreens and comfort considerations, as the halo would wrap up from the dashboard and meet in the middle of the car between the two front seats. This would block the driver's view out the front and sides of the car. In order to comply with visibility standards, a spar would need to be placed in the middle of the car, running from the halo to the windshield. This spar would need to be made of a transparent material, such as carbon fiber, in order to not obstruct the driver's view. This design would be a change from current visibility standards, but it would not require a completely different type of interior packaging design.

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Excusing my poor artistic skills, one version is to simply have a halo for each passenger with the spar out in front of them. The two front spars would attach to the floor through the dashboard, with the back flowing directly down to the floor. The rear seat spars would attach directly to the floor at the front, and again behind the passengers head behind the seats.

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Given that the F1 titanium version is able to hold up the weight of a London double-decker bus, I'm sure it could handle being rolled into a ditch inside of a minivan. And yes, before you harp on me, these are essentially personal roll cages within a car for each passenger.

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Picture this: You're driving down the highway at 70 miles per hour when all of a sudden, another car veers into your lane, sending you careening off the road. Your car rolls several times before coming to a stop, and as you sit there in stunned silence, you realize that you could have been killed. If only your car had been equipped with a personal titanium roll cage for each passenger seat. This safety feature would have protected you from being thrown around inside the car during the accident, and it would have prevented the roof from caving in on you. In short, it would have saved your life.

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At the very least, a roll cage would offer extra protection in a rollover accident; but in a head-on collision, it could mean the difference between life and death too. Titanium could deflect the firewall and engine components to either side when hit head, instead of crushing your chest. Much like a properly fastened roller coaster bar, combined with a seatbelt you're looking at two highly solid devices that are keep you in a narrow sphere of movement within the car. Body panels may crumble, but the titanium bar could deflect them to either side.

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Of course, there would be some negatives to consider, such as the extra weight and cost of installing titanium cages; but when weighed against the potentially life-saving benefits, these seem like minor drawbacks in the long-run. Especially if advances and increasing mass market adoption are bringing down carbon fiber costs from fanciful witchcraft material to something you now see in a nice Golf.

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And talk about a good case for seatbelts, which is another drawback. Plowing into a Y-shaped titanium pole at speed in a collision is a fantastic way to slice yourself in half, or at least make it so you can't have children any more. But hey, we've known that steering wheels will impale us and airbags will cut off our legs if we have our feet up on the dash in an accident. And plenty of people don't wear their seatbelts despite this.

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So let's start a conversation about making our cars safer for everyone involved by installing personal titanium roll cages in every passenger seat. Yes, I'm sure that people in the comments can poke holes in the physics behind this design. But if it's good enough for Lewis Hamilton, eventually it will be good enough for us mere mortals.

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That's one piece of F1 tech the whole world would benefit from, not just the handful of people who can afford an AMG One.

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