I did a little more searching and found a site with crash tests of
different flat front vans (Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Isuzu, and VW).  The
test was conducted by Germany's ADAC (the organization that invented the
offset frontal impact).  The conclusion was that all the other vans either
cause their drivers to be dead or heavily injured, only the driver of the
VW would have escaped with only very minor injuries.  I have to apologize
for the fact that the site is in German only, but I think that the pictures
say it all!

http://www.vw-bus-land.de/   go to   VW-Bus Berichte    and then to

Transporter im Crashtest Sondertruck aus ADAC Motorwelt hier als PDF-File (
1,6 MB )

Dietmar

>From:         Dietmar Schlei <dschlei@PRESSENTER.COM>
>Subject:      Re: positioning of headrests...
>To:           vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
>
>I did a little searching on the frontal impact safety of the Vanagon and
>came up with this web site
>
>http://www.251.org/volvocrash.html
>
>It seems that the Vanagon is safer than many think it is.  I am sure that
>it would look different if it would hit another van or SUV.
>
>Dietmar
>
>At 11:08 AM 4/7/2002, you wrote:
>>In a message dated 4/7/02 11:46:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time, JordanVw@AOL.COM
>>writes:
>>
>>
>> > i also ride around without my seatbelt on too.
>>
>>ok, i was trying to be funny - but that remark wasnt..   seatbelts do work..
>>they saved my life 3 years ago this month when i had a really bad accident..
>>thank god i wasnt in my vanagon, tho.. story might have had a different
>>ending.  some of you may remember the crash pics from 3 yrs ago..
>>
>>chris