Is a ramming vehicle better off with a shield or an A.I.D.?

Occasionally, I'll find an A.I.D. while roving the planet: it lets me ram people without taking any damage myself. (Normally, ramming does equal damage to both vehicles in the collision.) When that happens, I'll usually set up one of my vehicles as a rammer, and send them off to smash everything up-front-and-personal. And then I'm even happier to find a Chainsaw or Buzzsaw to increase my ramming damage.

My two-pronged question is this:

1. Do shields absorb ramming damage?
2. If so, am I better off using an A.I.D. or a shield for vehicles that will spend most of their time ramming things? (Shields will pop up again after being breached, but in the meantime, my rammer won't be much good for ramming.)