Blame the faulty drivers of dangerous machinery. 4WDs most dangerouson road

EuanB wrote:

Enough visibility to see if there are any sidewalk pedallers,
pedestrians etc?

Certainly, I backed out onto that road every day for 30 years, never hit
anyone (or backed over any of my children).

Theo

4WDs are responsible for 50% of driveway killings of toddlers,
sedans, despite being much more common, only 20%.

that's an outright lie.

No, it's a fact. At least in Oz. Your convenient ignorance seems to be
overheating...




The Monash University study found 4WDs were far more likely than
conventional vehicles to kill or maim other road users.
that is total bull****.



Aah. the poetry. Again, based on nationwide stats ove rthe last
10+years


But elsewhere 4WDs should be "taxed off the road".
Typical bumhead biggot who thinks he knows better
and that everyone should fit the same mold because
he says so.

and we have to listen to this..

As opposed to you claiming to know better, and jamming us in your
obese-driven, fat-fingered little ignorant world. Buy a Plasma TV.
Never speak to your neighbours. Consume. Feck everybody. Dont speak to
your neighbours. Buy a type of car cos it'll make your penis 1mm
bigger. Be fearful of everything. Wow, it really is an appealing way of
life! You win!!


--
flyingdutch

Rainbow Warrior wrote:

"Tom N" wrote
I think the 5% duty on 4wds should be increased to 10% like other
cars and that 5% duty should apply to cars with 5 star ANCAP or
EuroNCAP crash rating that also have side, curtain and front airbags,
plus maybe some criteria based on pedestrian crash friendliness.

I'm yet to get this mythical tax break on any second hand 4wd I've
owned, stamp duty is same as cars up here.

It's import duty. It applies to the price of new cars, and the price of
second hand 4WDs will be reduced as they are in competition with new 4WDs.

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/r...-04/04rn17.htm

TimC wrote:
On 2005-10-25, Eunometic (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
Ofcourse the people who buy an SUV like my sister wanted the following:
1 Seating for 7: 5 adults and foldout seats for 2 teenagers or small
adults in the back.

Minivan.


They all handle like a milk van, are sluggish and stressfull on long
trips (drive up some hills in one). The best I've seen is the
Chrysler Voyager and its not being promoted in Australia.


2 10 airbags to protect the side of the head of everyone including the
2 children.
3 The abillity to fjord a flooded weir when the local road overflows
(yearly event)

I don't think I would add $10,000 onto the price of a vehicle for a
once yearly event.

Depends on your income. $10K is not a lot of money for some people if
its the difference between $45K and $55K.


4 The abillity to take the family skiing around the Mt Hotham area when
visiting her husbands family without mucking around with snow chains
(both dangerous, costly and damaging to roads)
5 The visibillity. Easy to be seen and easy for kids to get a good
view as well as see what the up ahead traffic is doing.

I love point 5. Lets becomes part of the arms race!

I notice you ignore point 4. Properly driven a 4wd will avoid being
caught behined traffic turning right and help the traffic behined as
well.

If you want to improve traffic flow train idiots that don't indicate
when turning right and train those idiots who get caught behined people
turning right because they don't pay attention.



Have you ever put thought into the scenario where everyone gets the
4WD for your reason given, and then you no longer have a good view of
the traffic?

It won't happen. I myself aren't interested in a 4WD though I am
interested in an AWD (eg Audi Quattro or Subaru Forester/Outback) for
its safety and snow.wet capabillity. It is an entirely appropriate
choice for my sister and although they are jokingly "Nth Shore Shopping
Trolleys" they provide recreation (towing, skining, space) to lots of
families and reverse the tables on dickheads in utes.



Pretty hard to beat an Mercedes Benz ML 270 CDI turbo diesel. It even
beats most 2L cars for fuel efficiency and goes like a rocket. It's
supurb for shopping and also takes much of the discomfort out of speed
humps.

Goes like a rocket in the shopping centre car park, I take it?

No. It's power is of great value on long trips when it is loaded up.
Ever heard of hills and overtaking? Ever taken a long Journey
interestate or country?


Speed bumps aren't meant to be uncomfortable. If they are, then you
are going too fast. If, however, you can't feel them, then they
aren't serving their purpose to slow you down.

Speed humps are BS. They create an enormous amount of noise for
residents as cars brake and then accelerate. They slow down emergency
services, torture elderly or ill ambulence patients, ear out and damage
car suspensions, gearboxes and brakes it's worse than nothing at all.
Properly desinged estates funnel the traffic appropriately and use cul
de sacs or us chicanes.

People on 4WD don't seem to take speed humps any faster than people in
ordinary cars; in fact they are suprisingly slow. It's the dickheads
in little fast fours and lowered Skyline GTRs, Imprezza WRX's and
Commedors that are the problem.

Nevertheless ground clearence is a big issue becuase of the speed hump
insanity pervading our neighbourhoods and 4wds have good clearence.



You aren't one of those 4WDers who think "ooh, that gutter looks to be
placed slightly inconvenient, I'll just drive over it"? "Oooh, my
parking skills aren't very good, and I can't complete this parallel
parking in 3 steps, so I'll just drive on and off the gutter a couple
of times until I get it right"?

Mostly nonsense and hype.

"Noddy" wrote in message
...

"Resound" wrote in message
...

Oh look, we've roused them

Yes, that story certainly did.

All it takes is for the press to mentiom "4wd" and the left wing loonies
come straight out of the woodwork

We're talking about toddler height objects. Try driving away from a white
post in your lard arse Landcruiser until you can see the whole reflector
at
the top. Then stop and see how far from it you are.Everything between it
and
the back of your vehicle is where you can't see a child.

I don't have a Landcruiser.

I have a Cherokee, and it's rearward visibility is better than any sedan
I've owned in the last 20 years. Some 4wd's are terrible in this regard,
as are some sedans (current model Commodore anyone?)

That said, it's all a bit moot when it's the *driver* who is 100%
responsible in these circumstances, and the vehicle type is completely
irrelevant.

And I think the word you're desperately groping for is "reactionary".

That'd be the one. Thanks muchly......

Why yes, I actually DO react to things. You know...by thinking about them
for example

Oh, really?

So a broad general bull**** comment like the 15 metre rear view
restriction in a "4wd" is an example of your thought process?

Jesus...

Who wants to take bets on an incoherent response or none at all?

Judging by your initial post, I'm not overly confident

--
Regards,
Noddy.



Well I didn't come up with the 15 metre figure, but basic geometry says that
the higher the whole driver/mirror/back window arrangement is, the wider the
area is in which you can't see anything. The bottom sills of the windows on
vehicles commonly referred to as "4WD" vehicles (and what IS your preferred
term then?) tend to be substantially higher than those on conventional cars.
Thinking about the general shape of the Cherokee, I can see that it would
have better visibility than most other 4WDs as it has a large and low glass
area. I'd still say try the white post trick and see how far you get,
especially in your normal backing out of the driveway mode, not hoiked up
out of your seat with your head against the roof lining. In any case,
"Landcruiser" was a generic term in this particular usage. I could have
referred to any other similar vehicle. While I can't recall the specific
numbers, the original article did cite some that demonstrated that this type
of vehicle is vastly over-represented in this sort of incident.

My personal take on off road vehicles is that is when they're used as such
on a regular basis, I don't actually have that much of a problem with them.
A couple of months ago I spotted a less than brand new (early 90s) TDi
Rangie with tyres that actually looked like they were chosen with function
rather than form in mind. No bullbar, but a fairly stonkin' PTO winch. The
whole thing reeked of utility and it did not for one second irritate me as
it was clearly used on a regular basis for the purpose for which it was
designed. It's when they're used entirely, or very nearly so in an urban
evironment that they really start to **** me off. The justification for
their usage seems to be more or less completely based on the notion that
they're safer. That safety isn't from better passive safety features such as
air bags or anti-intrusion measures and it's certainly not from better
handling or brakes, it's based on the idea that you can make the other
person suck up the bulk of the energy from the collision. Never mind that
that amount of energy would have been substantially less had they been
driving a lighter vehicle, especially given that they would have braked to a
significantly slower speed before the collision. That along with the stupid
amounts of fuel they use(which is becoming increasingly scarce and which in
turn produces the filth in the air that is the one real thing I dislike
about riding or walking in the city) and the fact that they screw visibility
on the road for everyone else all speaks of a "the hell with everyone else,
I'm fine" attitude.

Now I'll cheerfully admit that this is, in several points, a broad
generalisation. It's a broad generalisation with pretty wide applicability
though. Sure, there are plenty of people who buy this sort of vehicle, use
it appropriately and are well aware of the capabilities and limitations of
those vehicles and so drive them accordingly. They're in the minority
however. A lot of people who own one seem to think that they're driving an
unusually butch Hyundai Lantra. This is particularly in metro areas, so if
you're in a rural area, this probably doesn't apply where you are. As
someone who is a notably vunerable road user who negotiates traffic through
the metro areas for about 250-300km/week, I see a lot of different types of
drivers and vehicles and I pay close attention to them because, as one
member of this group (aus.bicycle) recently found out, they can do stupid
unpredictable things and it's not insurance details you worry about after
polishing the road with your face. The result of this close attention is
that you become aware of what sort of drivers and vehicles represent a high
level of likely threat and which do not. Now in general, most cars are fine.
You learn though to beware of Falcon and Commodores from the "performance"
end of the range, courier vans, gold coloured Mercedes (dunno why, but
they'll go where they please and screw everyone else and the rules of the
road) and shiny (the shiner, the more dangerous) 4WDs with either the tubby
bloke in the shirt and tie or crisply ironed polo shirt OR the prissily over
made-up, overdressed skinny woman in her late 40s or older who just might
outmass the tubby bloke by virtues of the "product" in her hair. Extra bonus
points for likely random idiocy if they have spawn smearing snot over the
inside of the back windows. You pick them a couple of hundred metres off and
watch them like a hawk.

Note that I'm among the first to admit that there are idiot cyclists on the
road. There are also an ever increasing number of cyclists who are
extremely inexperienced at riding on the road even if they've been driving
for years. That guy with his knees flapping in the breeze who wobbled
through a red light on the wrong side of the road at 8pm with no lights or
helmet? Yeah, I'm swearing at him just as much as you. He makes me look bad
and he's a menace to everyone around him. The courier doing 35kph on the
footpath through pedestrians? Yep, I'm swearing at him as well for the same
reason. The bulk of experienced cyclists obey the rules of the road and ride
in as predictable fashion as possible. We know that doing so, along with
being co-operative with motorists (whether they realise it or not) is what
keeps us safe. Sometimes that means that we do things that aren't
immediately obvious or intuitive. Read this: http://bicyclesafe.com/ to see
why we don't hide in the gutter etc.

Yeah, actually, I do think about these things, thanks very much.

Theo Bekkers wrote:
Eunometic wrote:

Pretty hard to beat an Mercedes Benz ML 270 CDI turbo diesel.

Easy to beat that. My son got his ML320 CDI last week. First one registered
in WA. Those parking sensors, front and rear, are really cool. He was able
to detect me standing behind him and back up to within a foot of me on his
first use of it.

Theo

My sis actually brought an low kilometer ML 270 CDI second hand for
about $50K. It's hard to believe that a 2.7L turbo could be both so
powerfull and economical. It's actually a shorter car than the ancient
13 year old ****box Magna she had before and uses less fuel (suprising
for a vehicle twice the weight. The parking sensors are absent on
this ML 270 but they would be very usefull. The shortness of the M
series combined with sensors would make it a usefull city car. I
suspect cars like this are going to end up with mandatory rearview
video. Displays and cameras are cheap these days and the display can
be used for other information once the car is in forward motion. It's
certainly an option every 'mom' will pay for.

In terms of crash protection for 4wd occupants, the safety ratings show
they are no better nor worse than other similarly sized cars.
http://www.mynrma.com.au/ancap_1.asp


It's not the safety of the occupants on the 4WD that's at issue, it's that
of the occupants of the vehicles they hit.

wrote in message
oups.com...

fasgnadh wrote:
Brash wrote:
"Brash" wrote in message
u...

The car accident that left the daughter of former Wallaby skipper Phil
Kearns with life-threatening injuries has reignited demands for
upgraded
safety on four-wheel drives.


How about upgraded situational awareness for ALL drivers?

How about tyargetting the biggest killers first.

fast food outlets? Smokers? Stop being a big-government tool, FagBags.

Oh, of course, as cyclists, we're the darlings of the media and pull in vast
amounts of government funding. We're just toeing the line of "the man".
Pfeh.

4WDs are responsible for 50% of driveway killings of toddlers,
sedans, despite being much more common, only 20%.

How many have bicyles killed?


Apparently, two people in the last 10 years (approx.) or to put it another
way, what cars manage in three days.

flyingdutch wrote:

Noddy Wrote:

So a broad general bull**** comment like the 15 metre rear view
restriction in a "4wd" is an example of your thought process?

No, very graphic demo in real cars done on National TV, Noddy.
Placed camera in car looking back over shoulder of seat. BTW your
cherokee measured 12m. The commodore was one of the worst which
surprised me but I have never been in one.
The equal worst was 'white delivery van' cant remember model, but
typical courier vehicle without the 'bubble window'. and the
Landcruiser.

The 4wd in the footballer case was a Volkswagen Touareg, which has 7.8m
rear visibility in the NRMA tests - better than a Volkswagen Golf 2004 and
later, and better than a Holden Commodore Sedan and Wagon (VX, VY and VZ
models, i.e. 2002 and later).

Dunno where you got the Cherokee figure from - no Jeeps or Chryslers were
tested in the NRMA reversing visibility tests, unless the TV people did
their own testing.

http://www.nrma.com.au/pub/nrma/moto...rch/reversing-
visibility/index.shtml

"Contrary to popular belief, NRMA Insurance research reveals that 4WD
vehicles are not the worst when it comes to reversing visibility. ... no
car type is inherently better..."
http://www.nrma.com.au/pub/nrma/abou...0050526a.shtml

I am no apologist for 4wds but getting the facts right helps.

The real problem with 4WDs is the aggressivity in accidents with other cars
(occupants of other car more likely to be killed) and the poor primary
safety of 4WDs (inability for road handling etc to keep the 4WD out of an
accident).

Plus they are so ****ing big that you can't see round them and they block
roads around schools and they are so high the clumsy drivers of them leave
dings in my car when they park them and open the doors. See, I'm not
biased.

Rainbow Warrior wrote:
"TimC" wrote in message
...
On 2005-10-25, Eunometic (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
Ofcourse the people who buy an SUV like my sister wanted the following:
1 Seating for 7: 5 adults and foldout seats for 2 teenagers or small
adults in the back.

Minivan.

A SUV if you use US definition and should be banned.



Funny I've lost count of the number of times I've noticed "safer" "high
performance" "superior handling" vehicles not staying in their own lane,
when your pushing hard through a windy mountain road crossing double yellow
lines on every corner and there's a slinky suspension 76 Range Rover on your
tail that is staying on the right side of the road, doesn't it highlight
something?
Many of them can't keep between 2 lines in a parking space, yet I manage to
fit my oversized Patrol in the same spots just fine.

This is just prejudice and nonsense. I've seen idiots in 'pocket
rocket' hatch backs (particularly chicks), utes, motorcyles, bicyles,
4WD and AWD, lowered jap fast cars, volvos etc behace anti-socially.
Everyone has a pet hate.

Your pet hate is 4WD and SUVs because you style yourself as morally
superior "green" by denigrating all people who choose such vehicles.
Greenies are tragically often simply shallow 'status seekers' as much
as anyone. The idea of being morally righteous and arrogant 'holier
than thou' is the real driver. I'll admit that there are a few
'arrogant pigs' who choose a 'truck' to bully people around but they
are quite rare.

As far as I can see the 4WD and AWD is here to stay. Infact it is very
likely that future electric and hybrid vehicles will be all wheel drive
types since this allows great increases in regenerative braking power.
So far the weakness of batteries in accepting regenerative braking has
limited this but the development of new batteries based on
nanoparticles (by toshiba), maxwell hypercapacitors is about to change
matters.

BMW has tested a 'electrically supercharged' AWD SUV that uses
hypercapacitors and an electric motors to achieve AWD, 15% better fuel
efficiency and an enormous increase in low speed acceleration.

Individual control of both the acceleration, braking and regeneration
of each wheel in concert with electronic stabillity programms is going
to be very helpfull as far as safety and handling is concerned.

If I thought there was no alternative to both greenhouse and traffic
I'd demand that we switch to electric gold buggy vehicles to get around
the suburbs and 40km/h.