Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 09:10:23 CDT
Reply-To: Joel Walker <JWALKER@UA1VM.UA.EDU>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: Joel Walker <JWALKER@UA1VM.UA.EDU>
Subject: Re: CRASH WORTHY??
In-Reply-To: <3545537B.3099@mcn.net>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Mon, 27 Apr 1998 21:56:43 -0600 rob wilke said:
>A few weeks ago someone was bragging about his vangon taking out a
>Volvo. It made me wonder how safe are these boxes of delight?? Consumers
well, my insurance company, USAA, rated the Vanagon as "F" (failed" in a
frontal crash ... no big surprise there: no front end! :) but they give
me a "safe car discount" ... it seems they found out from their statistics
that the Vanagon is indeed a rather safe vehicle, as it has a VERY heavy
frame underneath and all the driver and passengers sit ABOVE the bumpers
of the car that hits you. and most wrecks are side-impact or angle-impact,
not frontal crashes.
my personal feeling is that if all these SUV's are soooo save (and soooo
dangerous to OTHER cars!!), then the Vanagon should be almost as safe,
cause we sit slightly HIGHER than most SUV's and have at least as big and
heavy a frame. now, we do NOT have a big engine sitting in front of us,
and we don't have airbags, but IF we are careful and USE the great visibility
we have, we hopefully will be able to avoid finding out how safe they are.
:)
>reports had rather nasty things to say about our beloved Vanagons. so I
i wouldn't trust Consumers Reports any farther than i can throw their
testing lab. yes, i'm sure they do lots of good things for folks who don't
want to have their own opinions, BUT Ralphie Nader and i fell out over the
Beetle and his book "Unsafe at any speed", where he completely lied about
some "tests" and fabricated other "data" to support his claims of the
Beetle's lack of safety. no, i'm not saying the beetle was the safest car
on the road, especially if you hit it with a Cadillac! but when you make
a statement like "The VW Microbus was the most unsafe van tested by the
North Carolina Highway Department ..." and then you find out that the
VW Bus was the ONLY van tested by NCHD, well, it kinda makes me wonder just
where this clown learned how to use statistics. cause the way *I* read it,
the VW Bus was the SAFEST van tested by NC. :) like Mark Twain said, figures
don't lie, but liars figure!!
anyway, sorry for that tangent, but the mere mention of Consumers Reports
does that to me! if you go back to their original test of the 1980 Vanagon,
they actually liked it ... even though they remarked that the "placement
of the steering column prevents the driver from using his left foot on
the brake." ???? excuse me?? when i was taught how to drive, it was stressed
that ONLY the RIGHT foot was to be used for braking ... so you had to take
your foot OFF the gas to put it ON the brake. anyway, i thought that was a
really stupid thing for them to write. they also showed pictures of some
idiot having difficulty gettin into the bus... cause he stepped up with his
LEFT foot first (into the driver's side) and wondered why his right leg
didn't fit! :) i never had a problem with that at all ... i put my RIGHT
foot up first, and it works fine.
anyway, i think they are idiots, at least as relates to the Vanagon (can
you tell??), and you are welcome to any differing opinions. :) but at least
they should make you THINK about something before you buy it. ;)
>sas wondering if the Projectzwo Bull bars would help in a major impact
>or would the unibody construction render the big ass bullbars useless???
i don't think it would be useless, but it would depend on the size and
strength of the bolts attaching the bull bars to the frame. big heavy
strong bolts and the bull bars would take some punishment. small bolts
and the bolts might shear off, making the bull bars just some additional
impact material. :(
i guess the whole point of this ranting really is that NO "old car" will
ever be as "safe" as the new ones coming out next year. if you young pups
could have seen what we used to ride around in back in the 40's and 50's,
even the high-priced $3000 Cadillacs!!, you'd be amazed at how ANYbody
survived those decades. DRUM brakes all around, NO seatbelts or airbags,
sharp pointed steering columns aimed right at your breastbone, bench seats
with slippery vinyl covers on the front seats, column-mounted 3-speed gear
shifting, windshield wipers that were controlled by the engine vacuum (so
the only time they worked fast enough to be able to see was when you were
speeding down the highway at 50 mph!!). and headlights?? ha!! if you could
see two car-lengths ahead in the dark, you were in a brand new car! :)
taillights?? oh, yeah ... that dimly glowing coal on the rear end of your
4000-lb rounabout. yup. only ONE was required.
and any time you put an Old car against a New car, or anything bigger than
itself, you'll lose. maybe not lose badly, but you'll lose. one of my
favorite stories was the VW dealer in New Jersey who got mad at Ralph Nader
and the folks who crashed Cadillacs into VW Beetles and talked about how
unsafe the Beetle was. well, the dealer was also a Mack Truck dealer ...
so he smashed a Mack Truck into a Cadillac ... guess what? :) the Cadillac
was completely smashed ... and the Mack Truck had a dented bumper. :)
the trick to driving ANY vehicle is PREVENTING an accident in the first
place. Drive INattention is the leading cause of accidents in ALL countries.
talking on the cell phone, drinking coffee (Mercedes and Porsche for years
refused to put cup holders in their cars ... because they thought the driver
had no business drinking anything while he was driving!), or reading a
newspaper or book (like i have seen on the interstates) ... all these things
are distractions and take away valuable seconds that might have been used
in slowing down or swerving to avoid a collision. and the better you can
see out of a car, the better off you are. except converibles. :)
now, what was the original question again?? :)
joel
(musta been something in that biscuit this morning!)
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