Coming home from a hockey game in Spokane, Wa. Sunday at 5 AM, 2 elk come out of the left ditch about 50 feet in front of us. I am on cruise control at 100 km/h. Dry road, full moon. I put my foot on the brake through the floor, steer straight ahead without swerving, (glad my mental rehearsing is working). The first one gets by the front of the bus, the second one is running to keep up to his buddy, and I can see is going to hit us. Fairly big impact on the side just below me, ahead of the left front wheel. We were still going about 50 km/h. I'm thinking: good we're still on the road, nobody is hurt, (other than the elk), and oh sh**t, I am spending the next week and a half fixing the bus. Pull over to look: no damage...! Tough bus!
A lesser vehicle would have suffered a lot of damage.
It reminds you how long it takes to slow a 40 000 lbs bus from highway speed...
A lot of the kids junk (20 teenage boys in a bus for 48 hrs) that was laying in the isle on the floor slid forward to the front.
I am grateful there is no damage to fix.
A friend of mine drove by an hour later and told me he saw skid marks and a dead elk: I said it was mine.
JC
I've been lucky and haven't hit anything large with my bus yet, but I have taken down deer, I got a call on the cb from a trucker that was following me just outside of lexington kentucky one time asking me if that grilled venison was mine, he said all he saw was the brown ball rolling out from under my bus, no damage just wiped the blood and hair off the front of the bus.
Im going to google the mph and km/h conversion to see how fast you were going when you impacted. I almost hit a deer doing about 35mph once and lost things in the isle and my daughter lol. Ive toyed with the idea of putting a set of bars (are they called ram bars?) on the front of the bus for head on collisions. It concerns me because even though our buses are very strong, there is a LOT more metal on other things in front that get hit and crunched before coming into contact with the driver's area. On a bus we have little or no protection. Being a city and desert girl, Im not real familiar with elk.......... how big was the one you hit?
JC -
Good defensive driving!
I take it you were behind the wheel of the team bus and not your own?
GOOD mental training to NOT swerve - it would have been a whole lot worse if you had!
(Other readers - did you catch that? VERY IMPORTANT!!!)
Teresa -
What you're thinking about, they've already done - down in Australia! Nick-named "roo bars" - that's your key term for a Google search!
Oh, and to give you some reference perspective, an elk to a deer is like a cow to a newborn calf, roughly. Or as somebody once said, an elk is a horse with antlers! Yes, they're THAT big!
FWIW & HTH. . .
;)
I'm sure everyone has their deer stories, here's mine (nothing like hitting an elk with a bus).
At about 4:00 A.M. on a dark foggy morning, I hit a deer straight on with a Ford Winstar. I never saw a thing. Heard the crash and the deer took out both headlights and the hood popped open in front of me.
Can you imagine, driving to work at that time, probably still a little sleepy, and nothing but a noise and a bump, then everything turns pitch black?
Totaled the van, and I had strange dreams for days.
There are a lot of elk and deer in S.E. BC. Hunters come from all over to hunt big game here.
It was a cow elk, not as big as a bull elk(, but bigger than a deer). Deer (white tail and muleys) and elk winter in the lower valleys starting around September. They are a constant hazard at night on the highways.
Yes I was driving the hockey team's bus (102D3). 100km/hr = 62m/hr. I was going about half that when I hit it.
A lot of transport trucks around here have heavy tube bars in front for hitting deer and elk. They don't even slow down for them. I've never seen a bus with one. It would look pretty ugly, but the protection would be good. For trucks, they are hinged to flip them down for opening the hood.
JC
JC,
Thanks for the story. I am glad that your bus made it.
Teresa,
We were at a place that you could feed elk recently. The cow elk were so tall, that they could almost put their heads inside of our bus. Our windows are T sliders, and the bottom of the window is about seven feet off of the ground (maybe closer to seven and a half feet off the ground). Those dudes are tall.
God bless,
John
The elk in this area run around 400 to 900 pounds, some bull elks are larger but thats a good average, our moose run from about 600 to around 1500 pounds with some bull moose larger but again an average weight isn't hard to figure, our deer run from 100 to 240 pounds and are all whitetail deer, no mule deer in this area, bears run from 100 to over 700 for a large boar, now and then a larger bear is reported but not common, most trucks in this area have racks on them and really don't slow down for them ,we saw a dead moose a couple of weeks ago that had been hit, the DNR were waiting for a wrecker to come and pick it up, there were no skid marks on the road so whatever took it down kept going, that one was a young bull moose with not much of a rack yet and the officer estimated it at around 750 pounds. I carry comprehensive on my vehicle insurances, that covers animal hits without raising your rates or a deductable, a deer is far softer than a tree. I used to hit, on average, a deer each winter, my insurance man told me that at some point I should slide into one backwards so the back of my cars could look as good as the front does lol, we have a lot of critters in our area, everytime I pull into the yard at the skanee house I have deer in the yard.
Good advice here. Never steer to avoid an animal. Have drummed it into the family forever. Must have worked. I've hit five deer, wife three, each son two with nothing more than bent sheet metal. Did I mention they are thick around here. Even have the occasional elk and moose. (I am just South of Spokane.)
On the other hand have responded to quite a few accidents caused by people swerving to avoid an animal and causing very serious accidents. Can only guess how many of the single car single fatality responses were people trying to miss an animal. Son's coworker's daughter was killed trying to miss a moose on I90 just East of Spokane.
Well done JC!
JC, you should have stopped and thrown him in the back of the bus! Could have had a team bbq. :) When you crossed back into Canada you could have just told customs that it was the team mascot and he was asleep. ;D
Quote from: Ed Hackenbruch on October 26, 2010, 03:43:05 PM
JC, you should have stopped and thrown him in the back of the bus! Could have had a team bbq. :) When you crossed back into Canada you could have just told customs that it was the team mascot and he was asleep. ;D
Ed,
That was my second thought after "Glad everyone was OK"
Reminds me of one of my favorite bumper stickers " Vegetarian, Old Indian word for lousy hunter"
Cliff
JC,
Great driving and being mentally prepared for a situation.
Good lesson for everyone.
Cliff
I like that bumper sticker! ;D
Ed
I was also thinking that. Wait you didn't stop and get the fillets????????. I generally use a rifle myself , seems a bit of overkill using a bus. Man what I have learned on this board!!! LOL
Dave :D
Quote from: Dave5Cs on October 26, 2010, 04:32:42 PM
... seems a bit of overkill using a bus.
Helps tenderize 'em. I've killed more deer with a truck than most hunters ever do with a rifle. Some of the trucks haven't fared so well but I had one of those POS 6.2 chevvies that killed 3 deer during the time I owned it and the only damage to the truck out of all 3 killings was one plastic bar out of the grill on the last deer.
The only thing we've hit with the bus was a yearling bear late one night north of La Ronge on the trail to Southend. I didn't stop to assess the damage at the time because I was concerned that some of his buddies might be hanging around and there was no sign of a carcass when we left a couple of days later. We were only going about 30 MPH so I doubt we did any damage to the bear. All we did to the frenchy-bus was slightly deform the right side bumper bracket. A couple of whacks with a BFH put that back in order the next morning.
A couple of years ago we were crossing from Kaslo to New Denver in the interior of BC. The "road" is a pretty good adventure in daylight and we were doing it about 10 PM. A young bear came out of the bush on the right side of the road and ran along in front of me for about a mile. Every so often he'd look over his shoulder at me as much as if to say "You still there?" I blew the horn a few times and finally he loped off into the bush on the left side of the road.
Several have mentioned a front guard. The Mexican truckers use them a lot. They call them "tumbaburros", very literally, "donkeys tumbler". (See the picture.)
Several months back one of our busnut buddies lost both legs in a wreck in his bus. (Sorry: I cannot remember his name.) At the time I was wondering why more busnuts don't consider improving their safety by:
1. Putting on some kind of reinforced exterior front protection, such as a donkey tumbler.
2. Or doing a tubular protection (think: roll bars inside of race cars) built into the dash area of the bus, invisible from outside.
My two pesos' worth.
Quote from: Mex-Busnut on October 26, 2010, 08:17:54 PM
doing a tubular protection (think: roll bars inside of race cars) built into the dash area of the bus, invisible from outside.
funny you should mention that! Just last night I was researching on doing this very same thing with both my RTS bus and VW bus! Apparently people have done it and they use 1 1/2" or 2" round steel bars.
The drivers area of a bus has long been known as the 'kill zone' so I can see real merit in beefing up the area of the front, many of the trucks up here use the front racks and mow down deer and whatever else wanders out without damage, we should give it thought too. I believe it was daniel that lost his legs in that wreck.
Volvo advertises its new buses with driver protection now.
JC
Quote from: happycamperbrat on October 26, 2010, 09:53:11 PM
Quote from: Mex-Busnut on October 26, 2010, 08:17:54 PM
doing a tubular protection (think: roll bars inside of race cars) built into the dash area of the bus, invisible from outside.
funny you should mention that! Just last night I was researching on doing this very same thing with both my RTS bus and VW bus! Apparently people have done it and they use 1 1/2" or 2" round steel bars.
Do you have some website links for this? Thanks in advance!
Plenty of examples available of trucks with external roll cages around the cab, but I can't find any pictures of a bus with one. Whilst I absolutely understand the desire of making a bus more survivable, I suspect engineering a cage that actually worked, whether it be done internally or externally, onto a bus (either chassis'd or monocoque) would be tricky to say the least. Whilst it's not the same thing, there are many examples of 'fashion accessory' ironwork on the front of modern 4x4s which undoubably make the vehicle less safe by totally ruining the carefully-designed front crumple zone.
Here's an off-road camper with an external cage:
(https://busconversionmagazine.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fhooniverse.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F01%2Funicat-1-320x213.jpg&hash=2f83441d129c6d61fa14ba73a406882d9f5a10be)
As has been said, lots of Aussie buses have bull-bars - even Greyhound use them:
(https://busconversionmagazine.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fnational.atdw.com.au%2Fmultimedia%2FATDW%2Fgreyhoundaustralia_bus.jpg&hash=11d723b1babbfbeef165b342f45867fc8a7c9681)
Jeremy
Does the average coach even have anything stout enough to attach a front guard to? Semis and pickups have frame rails they attach them to. I've had more than enough close encounters with free range cattle to make it worthwhile to at least check into a front guard. The fiberglass front of my vehicle would just shatter if I hit a cow.
I will search for the description of what can be done with a vw bus, they build it out of tube steel of about 1 1/2" or 2" and extend it across the nose, down the side of the driver's and passenger door, and up above the windshield. On the RTS I have 2 long frame type rails that extend out to my front bumper, those would be mounting points. This is basically a roll cage like is used in racing cars only it is build inside the coach and concealed with insulation, wood, maybe a steel dash, etc. For the bars that go outside, those are called "roo bars"
One thing that you can do to decrease the odds of hitting an animal is to not drive at nite. :) Not foolproof by any means, we had a deer run across in front of us in Texas in broad daylight and to this day i still don't know how we did not hit him.
Here is the VW bus that was done http://www.akciddento.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=7 (http://www.akciddento.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=7) they have the same kind of problem we do (at least the pre 1973s) where the nose at impact level is just sheet metal :o
This is one area of thought I dealt with when I was looking for a bus back a few years ago, one strength factor I liked was that the iggle could be driven without siding, roof or even floor that the tubular framing had enough strenght to go down the road, with most other buses when you remove the side panels you'vbe taken away the strenght, I think iggles have a good starting point as far as that factor goes.
Cliff, I was talking to a girl a while back...she said she is a vegetarian...I asked her if she hated meat...she said no, that she hated vegetables! (Oh I am ssoo bad!)
Jack