In a message dated 10/7/03 4:02:26 PM, albell@UVIC.CA writes:

<< check out the tech paper on my website for a more thorough analysis of
this.

http://www.members.shaw.ca/albell/vantech.html
 >>

Listees,

The issue with one's personal experience or the Volvo crash site are all
interesting but have to be classified as anecdotal evidence because of the "one
of" nature of the evidence. The federal and insurance Institute crash tests are
marginally better in that many of the conditions are controlled and an effort
is made to report the results for comparison. But only marginally better and
often misleading. I assume you are aware that the US Big Three (at least) spend
lots of money and plenty of electrons doing finite element model analysis of
every aspect of the federal tests, optimizing the car for the best performance
in the test grades that can be achieved with the current design. If the
details of the test change, the over-optimized result will fare poorly.

Unfortunately, the kinematics of a crash (near supersonic deceleration or
acceleration of a very complex object) are very hard to quantify and compare. For
example, the deceleration loads vary rapidly as the both the vanagon and the
unwilling deforming obstacle dissipate the impact energy actually generating a
force spectrum that can hit several thousand G's (gravity units) for time
periods of milliseconds to seconds. A profile in time very similar to the launch
power spectrum on the shuttle in lift-off (of course this has a longer
duration).

If you really want to appreciate the engineering for safety that went into
your vanagon, read the article that Alistair cites. The figures and abstract are
in english, and a little work with babelfish and your browser will help you
get the gist of the german. You might then compare this with several papers
Ford and GM engineers have published over the years in SAE proceedings on their
design efforts. It will be shocking!

Now personally, I trained my son and daughter for their driving stits with
the vanagon using some excellent video street motorcyclists, then taught them to
ride my motorcycles, then reviewed the general testing results for IQ tests
for the driving age population in LA. Just remember, I believe I said, look at
all of them around you, the're all blithering idiots! Would you trust your car
(body, life, friend, etc) to their driving skills?

Later, SWMBO came in and asked about what I had done to the kids. The just
wanted to stay in their rooms. Oh well, another day, another conference.

frank Grunthaner