Street or dirt, competition or play, you need to be safe inside your truck. Much of that safety factor depends on the methods used to build seat mounts, rollcages, and driver-harness mounts. Harnesses themselves should be properly selected and properly worn. Greater safety is also achieved by mounting controls and switches where they're easy to reach and actuate.
To compile this list of products, tactics, and tricks, we paid visits to Camburg Engineering and Crow Enterprizes. We also took a look through our photo vaults and found a few helpful nuggets of safety wisdom.
Nobody wants the next off-road adventure to be the last one, so read on and stay safe inside your truck.
 |  1. Max head room isn't just...  1. Max head room isn't just some flash-in-the-pan character from the '80s. Max head room is what you want to build into your rollcage. This is accomplished in two basic ways. First, run your tubing as close to the roof as possible. Second, build your seat mounts low enough to keep your noggin out of the stratosphere. |  2. Speaking of seat mounts,...  2. Speaking of seat mounts, if you're using suspension seats, you'll want to have some open space underneath to allow the seat bottom to flex into that area during hard hits. This photo shows a hard-shell seat, but this type of seat mount would be correct for a suspension seat. |
 3. Camburg's new Kinetik Trophy...  3. Camburg's new Kinetik Trophy Truck (TT) has an on-board fire suppression system in addition to the fire extinguisher mounted to the back of the rollcage. The fire suppression system's bottle is hard-mounted, and the output is plumbed to its various destinations. The system is actuated via a pull knob that's mounted in easy reach of the driver. This system is installed on both sides of the truck for better protection of driver and co-driver. |  4. Here's the external fire...  4. Here's the external fire extinguisher on the Camburg Kinetik Trophy Truck. Everyone's rig needs to have one of these on board. Note that it's securely fastened, and it's within easy reach when needed. |  5. Remember the advice to...  5. Remember the advice to leave enough open space below a suspension seat? This is an example of how not to do it. Sufficient open space below the seat is less of an issue on vehicles that don't get pounded too hard in the dirt, but it's still important. This was an attempt on my part to adapt a Mastercraft Baja RS seat to my stock Toyota 4Runner seat sliders. There were two reasons this seat mount didn't work. We've already talked about the first problem. The next photo shows the second problem. |
 6. The second problem with...  6. The second problem with adapting to the stock seat sliders was the lack of head room. Fortunately, Mastercraft offers seat sliders for situations like this where custom-fabricated brackets are needed. |  7. Here's what worked: a custom...  7. Here's what worked: a custom bracket that bolted to the stock locations on the floor. The four tabs bolt to the Mastercraft seat sliders. Note the open area in the middle. Now we can take hard hits without worrying about bottoming out on a seat mount bar. |  8. Max head room is back!...  8. Max head room is back! This photo shows the mounts during the tack-welding phase. After we checked the fit, we went back in and made the final weld pass. The new seat mounting system created at least three inches of additional head room. Head room is less of an issue on fullsize vehicles, but it was in short supply in our '04 Toyota 4Runner. |
 9. If you roll, you don't...  9. If you roll, you don't want to burn (actually, you never want to burn). That means you want to quickly shut off the electrical system. Camburg mounted the master disconnect switch in the middle, within easy reach of both driver and co-driver. |  10. If you mount your battery...  10. If you mount your battery inside, make sure it's securely held down. This Camburg battery box is made to fit Optima batteries. There's also plenty of room between Scott's foot and the battery so he can go full-throttle without pedal interference. |  11. Door bars should be high...  11. Door bars should be high enough to protect you from side impacts, but the window opening needs to be big enough to climb through with reasonable ease. Also note the convex mirror. The radiator fills the back window of the Kinetik TT, so functional mirrors are critically important. |
 12. How much stuff do you...  12. How much stuff do you carry in the back of your truck? I tend to carry a lot of gear when I travel, but I make sure to clear things out after I get home. City driving requires being able to see who's behind you. |  13. These slick little corner...  13. These slick little corner mirrors are in the top of the rearmost pillars of my '04 Toyota 4Runner. They take a little getting used to, but help eliminate blind spots. If I ever put a rollcage in this 'Runner, I'll mount some convex mirrors in the same spots. They're very helpful. |  14. I don't know how many...  14. I don't know how many times I've seen GPS units mounted where they're hard to reach or at angles where they're impossible to see when you're bouncing around. The Lowrance unit in the Kinetik TT is within close reach of the co-driver and mounted where it's least affected by glaring sunlight. |