TheSamba.com :: View topic - Bay window safety/crash test/ info/ links to threads

Thu Apr 03, 2008 6:16 am

Here are few of the threads out there... PM me with others and I will add them if you know of any other good ones that have different information in them. Most aspects have been discussed in these threads though.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=103567

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=213187

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54606

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=213187[/b]

Fri Aug 01, 2008 12:25 pm

last Nov. 7 ,07 Dude ran the stop sign ,I was in my 76 Westley, spun him 360 hit at @ 45mph he was totaled I drove home .Body man said man are these buses built !!!!!! :P :P :P :P

Sat Sep 13, 2008 5:24 am

I spun a few 360s going 60mph in freezing rain in a Bus. Ended up in a ditch. Tow truck winched me out, I proceeded to drive 15,000 miles across the country no problem.

Thu Feb 19, 2009 6:32 pm

ccpalmer wrote: I spun a few 360s going 60mph in freezing rain in a Bus. Ended up in a ditch. Tow truck winched me out, I proceeded to drive 15,000 miles across the country no problem.
That's a mighty big country. :shock:

Thu Feb 19, 2009 10:21 pm

OK; we did dip down into the Baja half way... but other than that, yep. We took all the back roads and scenic detours.

Mon May 04, 2009 12:02 pm

This is a pic of a 76 bus that is in the neighborhood of my work. The owner said that her Oldsmobile (older boat style) got loose and rolled into the bus while Olds had it's transmission out for service. I just think that it's interesting that where the Olds hit the bus was OVER the bumper. The bus was lowered.

Mon May 04, 2009 12:52 pm

The (woman) owner of an Olds also has a lowered bus? Sounds odd, is she 90?

That is why you don't lower a bus, totally screws the bumper height (among other things) just to look cool.

Sun May 24, 2009 9:25 pm

bay vs catapillar..... bad dont fight one!

Wed Jun 24, 2009 8:46 pm

BellePlaine, the headlights make your Bus looks sad! hahaha :(

I'd say that the orange one getting owned by the bulldozer is a little bit sadder though...that is a terrible image! I feel like crying now.

Fri Jun 26, 2009 12:51 pm

thegoodfight7211 wrote: BellePlaine, the headlights make your Bus looks sad! hahaha :(

I'd say that the orange one getting owned by the bulldozer is a little bit sadder though...that is a terrible image! I feel like crying now.

No no; not MY bus, it's just one that is down the road from where I work. You're right though, they do make the bus look sad. I've always meant to post a picture of the Olds that hit this thing. It's painted in rainbows and definitely not a old lady's Olds.

Thu Jul 09, 2009 7:16 pm

Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:17 pm

These posts are seriously scary. I watched the one on bus fires. I never carried an extinguisher all the years I drove a bus. It never crossed my mind. Now reading all those threads on front end collisions scares me. I was in a sandstorm once driving through the Navajo reservation. The sound of the sand hitting the front of the bus made a tinkling sound that reminded me just how little was between me and anything I hit. Just a thin layer of sheet metal.

I'm going to talk with my buddy down the street. He builds roll cages for amateur racing. I'm gonna see what it would cost to get something basic made and how to attach it. Here's the site for the place he works:

http://www.rollcageguy.com/

I'll update as soon as I hear something.

Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:49 pm

A potter in town with an old rusty van has a good observation about driving rusty vans around... when people see them they stay back, keep their distance, and keep an eye on that rusty van cause they figure at anytime it's gonna break down or loose control.

I think there's a lot of logic to that. My first three Buses were rust buckets (good ol' midwest) and now that I have a nice one I sometimes wonder if I was safer in a rusty one...

Oh well! :D 8)

Sun Sep 13, 2009 6:04 am

ccpalmer wrote: My first three Buses were rust buckets (good ol' midwest) and now that I have a nice one I sometimes wonder if I was safer in a rusty one...
Oh well! :D 8)

When I get a better connection speed, I will post pictures of why you want rust-free metal helping to slow the intrusion of the other car.
Colin

Sun Sep 13, 2009 6:41 am

Amskeptic wrote: ccpalmer wrote: My first three Buses were rust buckets (good ol' midwest) and now that I have a nice one I sometimes wonder if I was safer in a rusty one...
Oh well! :D 8)

When I get a better connection speed, I will post pictures of why you want rust-free metal helping to slow the intrusion of the other car.
Colin
Yea, after seeing pics of Colin's bay after it's frontal crash I have more respect for my '73 and it's rust free front end. :wink:

Sun Sep 13, 2009 6:56 am

You guys didn't get the point - maybe that accident wouldn't have happened if the other car had been looking out for you... Just maybe of course. Plus, I doubt that the body shell metal did much to slow that accident - I think the frame rails did that for you.

I made for the lack of rust on my Bus with my almost school-bus yellow paint job (Ceylon Beige) which gives me plenty of visibility. I really think that does help my safety factor. By now human eyes are trained to be very aware of yellow vehicles.

Sun Sep 13, 2009 1:13 pm

Gotha now, the old "I'm poor" look.

Colin's bus was hit by a kid passing a car coming over a blind hill.

Sat Sep 19, 2009 6:42 pm

ccpalmer wrote: You guys didn't get the point - maybe that accident wouldn't have happened if the other car had been looking out for you... Just maybe of course. Plus, I doubt that the body shell metal did much to slow that accident - I think the frame rails did that for you.

I made for the lack of rust on my Bus with my almost school-bus yellow paint job (Ceylon Beige) which gives me plenty of visibility. I really think that does help my safety factor. By now human eyes are trained to be very aware of yellow vehicles.

Tell you what. Maybe my "accident" would not have happened if she had not been born. There was absolutely not a chance for that numbskull to "look out for me" seeing as she passed on the crest of a hill and had one miserable second to figure out what to do, she decided to feignt to her left then changed her mind. I could have been a flourescent day-glo purple Barney Dinosaurmobile, no difference.

Everybody has their hopeful rationalizations that they won't be squashed flat as a pancake. I used to have mine. I thought I could be the hyper-alert driver who would make tbe instaneously perfect decision after well over a million miles of driving, guess what? there is a thick dumb WTF instant of disbelief.

The '73 and later buses have a critical upgrade in the collision box that ties all the frame rails together. Critical for buying the few inches that allowed me to keep walking and talking. The surprising thing was looking at how the passenger door was pulled forward by the frame rails pivotting around. I am definitely on the side of good metal. And yes, I was *all over the brakes* which would have dropped the frame rails and collision box under any SUV and killed me, but I was lucky, the frozen deer girl drove a Mitsubishi Eclipse.
(*I used to think I would be sure to get off the brakes to make sure the front end would not dip below the point of impact. Ha. Oh well. I can talk as idiotically as the next person from the easy comfort of a keyboard, but when you see a car hurtling at you with a combined closing speed of 110 mph, you just are not as quick or smart as you wish you were*)
YMMV,
Colin

Sun Sep 20, 2009 6:42 am

Obviously the color of your Bus made no difference in that occasion Colin - I certainly didn't mean to imply that. I was just trying to point out some other factors in vehicle safety, visibility being one of them.

I remember driving a white Bus through a snowstorm in Wyoming at night. At a rest stop a truck driver said "You're crazy to be driving a white vehicle through this shit". Made a lot of sense to me at the time.

Tue Sep 22, 2009 8:08 am

ccpalmer wrote: Obviously the color of your Bus made no difference in that occasion Colin - I certainly didn't mean to imply that. I was just trying to point out some other factors in vehicle safety, visibility being one of them.

I remember driving a white Bus through a snowstorm in Wyoming at night. At a rest stop a truck driver said "You're crazy to be driving a white vehicle through this shit". Made a lot of sense to me at the time.

This is true. A gunmetal grey Buick in a misty early morning fog without any parking lamps or headlamps is a candidate for not being seen.

Meanwhile, I just read of a woman killed when she pulled out from a side road and got creamed by a semi. Please. How do you not see a semi? I honestly think that distraction is taking us out. TVs vomit blather and short-take video, iPod wearing headphone junkies, gas stations that pump out lousy advertising jangles, and trash trucks and public buses and construction vehicles have those reversing beepers that we are all becoming deaf and senseless to, and we are desensitizing to our environment. I know very few people who exercise their self-preservation animal instincts, particularly while driving.
Colin