>I have always wondered how safe my Vanagon would be in a head-on collision
>with a deer or something else, bigger and gasoline powered. Anyone have
>any REAL LIFE stories about head ons in their Vanagon and how you and it
>fared??

I would think a good solid forward-control van like ours (or a Japanese
van) would be safer in a deer attack than in a lower car. The van's front
would smack the animal away, rather than scooping it off its legs and
guiding it along the hood into the windshield as in a normal car or
front-engined van.

I missed a moose once in Newfoundland when driving one of those V8 Bronco
things (you know, no connection between the steering wheel and the front
wheels). Here in New Zealand we have to watch for loose sheep and cows.
I've hit several sheep (no damage to the vehicles so far), one of which
went under the Hiace van clonk clonk from front to back, to the horror of
the visiting Chinese paleontologists I was ferrying around; and one
sheepdog (fortunately the bullbar hit the dog's head, or it would have been
injured)...

Andrew Grebneff
<andrew.grebneff@stonebow.otago.ac.nz>
Phone: 64 (3) 473-8863
Fax: 64 (3) 479-7527
165 Evans St, Dunedin, New Zealand
Fossil preparator, shell collector, Macintosh and VW & Toyota van nut
1984 Volkswagen Type 25 Caravelle GL (to be fitted with Subaru EG33 engine etc)
1986 CE80 Toyota Corolla DX diesel 1.8 sedan
1989 CE96 Toyota Corolla DX diesel 1.8 van
1989 CT170 Toyota Corona Select 2.0 diesel sedan
1992 CXR10G Toyota Estima Lucida 2.2 turbodiesel (=narrow-bodied Previa)