On Thu, 4 Jan 1996 08:51:24 -0600 Ervolina, Thomas R. (Tom) said:
>Click and Clack (the Car Talk guys) railed on a woman about the dangers
>of driving her '76 Westy (tippy, no side impact protection -- suggested
>she wear a footbal helmet).  Anyway, I've heard that the Vanagons are quite
>safe.  Does anyone have real stats on this?  Vehicle deaths per mile?
>Or Insurance company type of data?

my insurance company, USAA (which is supposedly quite a good company), rated
the Vanagon as B+ in side collisions, and D (i think) in frontal impacts.
(the best being A+, which is like a Mercedes-Benz, and the worst being F-,
which is a Yugo). their data showed that in frontal impacts (head-on), the
driver would sustain injuries from the steering wheel and most likely have
his feet broken. but in anything OTHER than head-on, the height of the bus
significantly reduced injuries ... the other car would hit the frame BELOW
the passengers or drivers.

and this is pretty much borne out by the wrecked vanagons (and buses!) in
the junkyards: not much damage to the seating area (in the ones i've seen),
but lots of damage to the side-body and the bumper-crush-whatever. and, if
you want to get a little gorey, i've yet to see a bus/vanagon with blood
stains in the driver area ... but i've seen lots of american cars and others
with terrible damage and blood all over the driver/passenger area.

for those of you who have never been to a junkyard, let me encourage you to
go ... epsecially to those yards that let you walk around. it's quite a
learning experience, to see which cars hold up and which ones don't. it's
interesting to see the Mercedes and Volvos all smashed up in front or back,
but with almost NO damage to the driver area.

joel