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[QUOTE=davyboy;2566975]John makes a number of good points here, the main one being that most safety improvements will significantly increase the cost of the car and running it and would likely result in the demise of the formula. It may sound crass and insensitive, but there's a great deal of truth in it.
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Certainly don't wish to appear either insensitive (or crass) - recent tragedies (and near ones) naturally raise safety awareness, but can produce knee-jerk reactions rather than genuine safety improvements. Clearly the issue of wheel tethers needs to be looked at - and I should have raised that. Despite tethers there are still too many incidents where wheels become detached.
On the point of kart-like side pods, I have very mixed feelings for the reasons that you raise. Passive safety on karts is very poor compared with that on cars, and I understand the intense desire to prevent wheel to wheel contact there. On FF where passive safety is much better the balance of argument changes and I'm not convinced that such pods would yield a net improvement.
I regret to say that karting is where contact driving is learnt and (regretably) not stamped out, and sidepods and nosecones have been significant factor in that development.
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