All this talk of crashing brings up something I have been pondering.  
If these things are dangerous in front end collisions why not do 
something about it?  How about some kind of crash bar for the front 
like I see on those big 4x4's?  If you could stick it out far enough 
you could get some braces from the top to the mount.  Something like

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This first line would be the front of the crash protection thing, the 
diagonal would be it's support and the second vertical line is the 
front of the bus.  Scale, etc leaves a lot to be desired.  I would 
think something like this could be mounted to the existing front 
bumper mounts up underneath the bus.  You could even mount some nice 
lights on the thing and have room behind it for the spare.  I don't 
know thing one about the feasibility of something like this.  It just 
seems to me like we all have spent some amount of time re-engineering 
our buses and this is an area that seems to need some attention as 
well.  Of course, I am after something purely functional here.  The 
looks of it don't matter to me.  In my wildest dreams I imagine this 
this sitting about 18" in front of the front bumper, this would leave 
enough room for a nice sized metal box that would hold my tool boxes 
and spare parts.  A nicely designed box could be made more secure than
the interior of the bus, for storing such items.  Of course, there are
all the weight considerations.  Anybody know a good welder?
-- 
James A. Brill Jr.         \\  //
jbrill@unlinfo.unl.edu   \\ \\// //      If you're not outraged
University of Nebraska    \\//\\//     you're not paying attention.
free-lance homo sapien     \/  \/