Date:         Thu, 11 Aug 1994 17:45:55 -0600
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         jgladu@bcm.tmc.edu (John Gladu)
Subject:      vehicle color and safety

>as i recall from several years ago, Volvo did a similar study and found that
>the absolutely most visible car they had was an orange car with yellow doors
>and a white top.

Oh BABY!  Where are my spray cans...

>that business about dark green being invisible at night is putting it mildly.
>anyone who has been in the army can tell you that you can literally walk
>bang into an army truck or tank if you are not wearing night-goggles. not
>only is the color invisible, but the dullness of the flat paint doesn't give
>any reflective clues at all.

That's what I painted Bozo's rear door and engine cover with...

>i'm thinking about doing something to my bus that i saw on tv: some of the
>buses and vanagons in the cnn news blips have reflective tape (red/white)
>on the rear of the bus (well, actually, a lot of cars had them, too). and
>some had a strip of blue or white reflective tape along the side, between
>the wheels. if i can find enough blue reflective tape, i'm gonna try it on
>the sides.

I used 3M curb-and-stripe paint on The Bozobus' bumpers.  This is very
white paint with a huge amount of glass beads in it.  It is VERY
reflective.

As far as visibility is concerned - having a dozen lights around the
roof-rack doesn't hurt either :-)

It occurs to me that I need to scan in some modern pictures of The Bozobus
and send them off to the Web site...

bcnu - Grungy  '61 dddPanel '68,'69 Bugs '90 Vanagon '67 Bus
.opinions are just that.obviously.