Date:         Sat, 7 Jun 2003 11:54:25 -0700
Reply-To:     "Loren A. Busch" <lbusch@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         "Loren A. Busch" <lbusch@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject:      Re: seatbelts and vanagons/westies (formerly about alcohol and
              vanagons)
In-Reply-To:  <200306071044.19oHJV5Zz3NZFlq0@merlin>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Read and you be the judge:  In November of 2001 I got to close to a soft
shoulder on a Forest Service road.  This was on a deep fill over a large
culvert about 40 feet down about a 30 degree slope.  The right rear of
my '85 Westy went off and even though only traveling about 20 mph or
less we rolled over onto the right side, then up onto the top, then onto
the left side, stopped because we came up against a tree.  I was
unharmed except for a scratch on the top of my head where a 'flying
object' hit me.  My passenger ended up with two cracked vertebrae, is
all right now, spent four months in a back brace.  The Westy was
totaled.  Most of the body damage was caused pulling it out.
We were both wearing the issue seat belts.  This was not a very violent
crash, but a nice slow rollover.  But keep in mind, going down the bank,
the first part of the full rotation was about 120 degrees because of the
angle of the bank.  We hit pretty hard on that first landing.
Without seat belts on we would have both been thrown all over the inside
and I'm sure the injuries would have been much more severe.
BTW, I had a lot of gear loose in the back of the Westy (we had been out
to watch the Leonids Meteor Shower with a bunch of other people).  Since
we had very little forward motion at the time of the rollover, nothing
big ended up on top of us or hitting us, but I guarantee that anything
I'm not willing to get hit in the head with is now enclosed or tied down
(cargo net, bungee cords, and eyebolts) when traveling.  Lesson learned
the hard way.