My point on cells was not so much about mounting as it was about how fast the fuel escapes a stock tank once it has been breached. It doesn't matter how strong it is, if there is a hole ALL the fuel comes out all at once. A fuel cell prevents a large fuel spill and provides time to get the driver to safety.
Or in the case of our white Honda, prevents a high volume spill where there are many unprotected crew members.
RWR
Now with the rule change you want, rather then have one guy, once in a blue moon, gettoing his tank in place (I think leason learned for all that u dont getto ur tank in place) and continuing to drive around with it dragging until it ruptured (which we will probably never see again in our lifetime), you are now going to have everyone, regardless of how mechanically inclined they are, now backyard mechanicing in a fuel cell. Seems illogical to me to exchange something that has been crash tested, engineered with a budget of millions, and placed in the vehicle and secured with an army of engineers thinking it out, and exchanging it for a cube some idiot can throw in the back of his car with some feelings on where it should go or how it should go in without any engineering or testing behind such a decision. That is what I would call an increase in risk rather then risk mitigation.
I know at face value it sounds like a good idea to require everyone to have a fuel cell in your head, but I dont think you have all the facts. Fuel cells do one thing better from a safety perspective, while at the same time do several other things far worse, like deteriorate over time, leave huge wild cards in how they were installed, and where they were installed, and if they are hooked up properly. Leaving opportunities for leaks, being damaged in hits, and coming lose, because the mechanical skill and knowledge of the guy putting it in is a huge wildcard. A stock fuel tank left alone should have none of those problems if not mucked with. Like I said, I've dissected the aftermath of thousands of accidents and not one fuel tank was hit to date, let alone ruptured. That is some pretty significant data to how safe a stock fuel tank is from rupturing in an accident.
I change my injectors, i got a fuel leak, because one of the new orings i put in was either defective, or an improper ring to be used with fuel mixed in with the correct ones. I muk wiht my stock tank, and it leaked when filling it. I fixed both issues easily, but i still had issues after mucking with both things. Now you think everyone is going to install a fuel cell as good as OEM on their first try? not going to happen.
You're not really making things safer with advocating for that. What you're doing is making things different safe, aka, safer in one respect, while causing more risk and therefore less safety in another respect. And we get to pay $1000ish for that reshuffling of 'safety'. No thanks.
parting piece is what nasa has to say on it, which I'm sure put a lot more effort into researching it then you or me:
We do not subscribe to the hypothesis that “any fuel cell is better than no fuel cell.” The stock tank has been crash tested in its location and at least that’s a known factor. When someone installs a fuel cell, it’s possible to create a more dangerous situation because of the location of mounting and the other things around it. Furthermore, bladders do deteriorate. On more than one occasion old bladders have sprung leaks resulting in fires. One car was a total loss. We do not believe that the stock tank deteriorates at anywhere near the rate that a bladder deteriorates. This is not to encourage people to use the stock tank, but rather to answer some questions that have recently come up.