4x4 Vehicles - Should they be banned from Town/City Centres

intel

Oh yeah I forgot unless mentioned otherwise but to add a note to redux :beer:

Bull Bars are as said only to protect a vehicle from getting stranded
in the middle of knowhere as if the radiator gets punctured youve had it.

david29dpo

i live in the country and drive a old mini and have never had any problems with snow etc. i have no problem with 4x4 except in small narrow lanes when a very wide 4x4 ( or a very wide car ) comes the other way. they take most of the road while i take less than half. yesterday one came at me and expected me to reverse a mile to let him passed. why? i sat there and waited, he went mad! i was not going to move as i was on my half of the road, if he wants to drive a wide car that fine but dont expect me to have to suffer.

110frankie

The callous ones here are the ones who, rather than teach their children not to walk into the road, want to ban just one of the things that could damage said child in an accident.
The arguments are spurious amd are based on bias ("I don't like the look of them") and reverse snobbery (child described as Tarquin").
I have managed to reach very nearly 60 years of age without being struck by any motor vehicle - and have walked most of my life on roads without pavements. Oddly enough I have managed to drive for over 30 years without hitting a pedestrian either.
That goes for the vast majority (around 99 point something per cent) of pedestrians and drivers in this country.
So you don't want 4x4s banned for any real or practical reason. Just your own selfish prejudices.
Those of us with common sense on this subject will never agree with those of you who do not.
However, as I said earlier, you're on a loser so you can keep on with the bile.
I'll just move on and not read any more of your drivel. Easy, job done
:-)

redux

110frankie wrote:

The callous ones here are the ones who, rather than teach their children not to walk into the road, want to ban just one of the things that could damage said child in an accident.
The arguments are spurious amd are based on bias

I'm sorry but this is ludicrous distortion.

We can see that your anti-social attitude extends even to suggesting that any child deserves to be killed for getting in the way of these things.

The arguments are not based on bias - it is recorded fact that bull bars substantially increase the risk of an accident being fatal.

Look up bull bars fatal in Google - there are results from Australia, Paul Flynn a Welsh MP, Hansard, and many other places, all of which suggest that the risk of an accident being fatal is multiplied - in Australia between 12 and 20% of fatal accidents involve the things.

I'm not objecting to the vehicles themselves, but there is a strong case for totally banning killing grills, as the Americans call them, and a reasonable one for discussing overlarge vehicles having some time-of-day town centre bans just as lorries and vans do.

Ten years ago, Mr Flynn spoke of his correspondence with insurance companies who were starting to restrict coverage of bull bar equipped vehicles - perhaps owners should think carefully about whether they have informed their insurers about the fitting of these killer devices, and whether their insurer has consented to carry the risk of increased third party payouts that ensue. If not they are liable themselves directly.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199596/cmhansrd/vo960329/debtext/60329-09.htm

waster_2

intel wrote:

Obviosly you really didnt read my posts hard enough. :beer:

I did say they are ugly, aint that enough.

And also their is an incread rate of death with theses things.

http://www.fiafoundation.com/policy/road_safety/policy_monitor/pm_22032005.html

Need any more proof feel free to ask away :beer:

P.S love the cat smiley :cool:

But these figures are for 2003. The 2004 figures, as can be seen on the RoSPA site show that both deaths and serious injuries for road accidents fell by 8% in 2004 and road casualties generally by 3%. The only bad news was deaths amongst pedal cyclists rose by 18% although total casualties were down by 2%.

So assuming that the number of 4x4 vehicles rose (I think the stats prove that?) then the correlation between increased deaths etc is not borne out by the latest figures, although a I said before stats can prover anything if you manipulate them carefully enough. So on that basis and the stats of the last year's (2004) figures available, I would suggest that we need to increase the number of 4x4 vehicles even more and reduce the number of cyclists. That way we will see an even more imprioved reduction in deaths and injuries on the roads.

Now that is probably against evrything that the greens and a lot on this forum want. But hey, the stats support what I suggest don't they? But then, with fear of repeating myself, there lies, damn lies and statistics.

All I can say is there is a lot of hysteria over what is really a non issue. There are a lot more important things to concern us all, rather than the type of vehicle(s) some people chose to drive.

waster_2

redux wrote:

I'm sorry but this is ludicrous distortion.

We can see that your anti-social attitude extends even to suggesting that any child deserves to be killed for getting in the way of these things.


http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199596/cmhansrd/vo960329/debtext/60329-09.htm

I think the piont that was trying to be reinforced was that unless the 4x4, or any other vehicle for that matter, is actually driving on the footpath then the incidence of children being knocked down should not occur.

Nobody deserves to be killed. But people, including children and their parents, must take responsibility for their own safety. If children were taught better road safety and awarness then the risk that they would be struck by any vehicle would be dramatically reduced. The hazard is not the 4x4 but any vehicle on the road. Surely the issue is that generally (not always I would agree) that pedestrians are hit when they are in the road? Not when on the footpath. If more care was taken before entering the road the accident would not/should not occur. A little more care when crossing the road would negate most of the arguments about deaths and injuries to children and others. And the issue about Bull Bars (which I think should be banned BTW) would not arise, becuase if you aint in the road you dont get hit to start with.

As I stated in an earlier post, if as much time, money and effort was put in to educating the pedestrian and in particular the child pedestrian, as is put in to trying to educate and persecute the motorist in general and some motorist factions (inc 4x4 owners) in particular, then many of the isuues and concerns being voiced herein would disappear.

intel

I think the statistics fully prove 4x4s cause more injury than an ordinary car
at the same speeds.. and may I remind folk of post 106

I know 4x4 owners will defend their vehicles to the bitter end...

As I would defend my Rover216

waster_2

intel wrote:

I think the statistics fully prove 4x4s cause more injury than an ordinary car
at the same speeds.. and may I remind folk of post 106

I know 4x4 owners will defend their vehicles to the bitter end...

As I would defend my Rover216

But the point is do they? The stats you refer to are for 2003. The RoSPA stats that I used were for 2004, a year later.

Your stats says:

In 2003 a total of 1,769 drivers and passengers were killed in Britain, the highest number for 7 years. The research is thought to provide the first evidence that, in Britain, the popularity of big vehicles is a contributing factor to the rise in road deaths.

But the 2004 figures (the following year) showed a reduction!!! So as I alluded to before, stats are completely worthless and can prove nothing or everything!

And if you read carefully what is said, it says that the people in the smaller car came off worse. So if 2 small cars collide do we get twice as many injured and/or killed as they all come off worse rahther than just 50%? The bottom line is that most small cars are poorly built and offer inadequate protection to their occupants regardless of what collides with it. Often they are also old and poorly maintained because they are owned and run by people on low incomes who cannot afforded anything better. Whereas 4x4 are relatively modern cars with all the benefits of the more modern standards of protection and safety built in.

It's not a case of defending or not, most of the time I drive a Ford Fiesta. It's just a case of being sensible and not accepting all the cr*p that is often put out by organisations (often those that are suppose to be independent) to support what politicians and/or other biased interests want to prove.

Poppycat

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4900000.stm

"Danger signs should be placed on 4x4 vehicles to prevent parents from using them on the school run, teachers say."

"History teacher Phil Whalley said 4x4s and sports utility vehicles were more likely than conventional cars to kill children and the danger was increased when bull bars were attached."

Murphy_The_Cat

Poppycat wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4900000.stm

"Danger signs should be placed on 4x4 vehicles to prevent parents from using them on the school run, teachers say."

"History teacher Phil Whalley said 4x4s and sports utility vehicles were more likely than conventional cars to kill children and the danger was increased when bull bars were attached."

Hi poppycat

I'm not going to knock this history teacher on his research or his good intentions.

But after reading your link.
I thought that the #1 job of teachers was to educate the children of the country to a decent standard, not to turn out kids who are as thick as a workhouse butty. Perhaps his collegues at the NUT might consider what they are paid to do, and leave the car nannying to the nanny state.

MTC