Thread: Courier Mail article- ban bull bars

The article can be found here:

H ttp://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/time-to-reel-in-rods-and-bull-bars-on-four-wheel-drives/story-e6frerdf-1225993569100

Cheers
KarlB




Post edited to "break" the link.
If you want to see it, Cut and paste into a new browser bar if you want to go there. This will stop the courier mail wwebsite from nopting a lot of "clicks" from AULRO.

He's just upset no one has made a Bullbar to suit his Prius.

Perhaps he should preach safer driving habits in the hope of reducing those accidents as apposed to making them more pedestrian friendly.

Although I agree with the safety concerns of rod holders, it goes without saying that bullbars are a safety requirement in many parts of Australia


Ben

BOB, no offence mate but be stuffed "too long to put", everyones looking there anyway and this goose is getting his stats up as I'm sure thats what he would be watching...

So OK, the article...(in red as he is waving a flag for attention!!==so don't bother giving him more webhits!!)

AUSTRALIA Day looms and, in the absence of further meteorological catastrophes, masses of Queenslanders will head for the beach in a bid to forget for a moment the trauma of the past weeks.
Others will celebrate our national day by eating large quantities of charred meat and drinking too much pausing, perhaps while contemplating a carcinogenic rissole, to wonder just what it is they are celebrating.
Conduct a poll among your confederates on Wednesday and you will find that most will reply when asked this question that it's "something to do with Captain Cook".
If you were wondering, it commemorates the landing of the First Fleet at Port Jackson in 1788. Some suggest that on landing, the First Fleeters promptly fired up the barbie, and that Australia Day celebrates the burning of the first sausage, but there is no historical basis for this claim.
Some will indulge in the great Australian pastime of fishing, heading for the coast in their four-wheel-drives, which will in all likelihood be fitted with bull bars and rod holders. Given most of these 4WDs are driven primarily in the city, should they ever encounter a herd of bulls while driving down Ann St these fittings will come in handy.
What is more likely to occur, however, is that they will encounter a pedestrian who will come into contact with the bull bar and suffer grievous injuries. If the victim is less fortunate, they will come into contact with the fishing rod holders and suffer even more shocking injuries.
Car makers go to extreme lengths to design vehicles that will inflict as little damage as possible on people they hit, yet we allow people to mount massive bull bars fitted with rod holders on the front of the vehicle that all but guarantee serious injury to pedestrians.
The Queensland Government's Department of Transport has regulations in place regarding the fitment of rod holders. These state that they must allow the driver a view of the road and of traffic to the front and sides of the vehicle; they must only be attached to the left side of the vehicle; they must be designed to carry no more than four fishing rods; rods, hooks and sinkers must be properly secured; vehicle lighting must not be obstructed by rods or holders and rod holders must be either removed when they are not in use or retracted behind the profile of the bull bar.
If you are anywhere near a beach on Wednesday, or in traffic on the highway, take the trouble to look at the number of vehicles sporting rod holders.
You will find many of them are mounted in the centre or right across the front of the vehicle. You will also notice there is often as many as eight rather than the regulation four, and when not being used, they remain mounted on the vehicle, being neither removed nor retracted.
The agility of the State Government in leaping upon the nearest soapbox and proclaiming its heartfelt care and concern for road safety is well documented. It has used road safety as a catch-cry to justify the increase in the number of hidden speed cameras and rubbed its hands in anticipation of the revenue that will flow as it rolls them out into quiet suburban streets - the better to catch those motorists rocketing along at 52km/h in a 50km/h zone.
This is the same State Government that does nothing to enforce the regulations regarding rod holders.
A youth riding without a helmet recently had his tyres deflated by police and was left to walk kilometres to home. However, when it comes to making any move to prevent this same child from getting hit by a 4WD fitted with a bull bar and rod holders, the unofficial policy is to look the other way.
The RACQ says that research suggests bull bars increase pedestrian injuries and can affect how airbags are deployed and, as a result, affect the vehicle's crash-worthiness. In other words, they can increase the risk of death or serious injury to people not only outside the vehicle but inside it, yet they are allowed to be fitted. It also says bull bars can substantially increase crash repair costs, severely damage the car's body and chassis when operating on poor roads and increase front tyre wear.
Along with rod holders, however, they continue to be fitted with the Department of Transport's blessing. There is, obviously, absolutely no justification for driving a vehicle fitted with a bull bar in a built-up area. It is incredible the authorities can talk about reducing the inner city speed limit to 30km/h and camouflage speed cameras in second-hand utes, while allowing heavy 4WDs to trundle through suburban streets with lumps of metal designed to handle an impact with a 2000kg bull welded and bolted to their fronts.
The fact is that the only purpose served by most of these bars is to act as an ego extension of the driver. Obviously, anyone with a big bull bar is an urban-dwelling Mick Dundee, able to wrestle a crocodile while filleting a barramundi.
In reality, he is more likely to sport a beer gut and venture no further than the carpark at Broadbeach.
The State Government should ban the bull bar and its attendant rod holders or stand accused of road safety hypocrisy.

What a pompous sod! I see someone says he owns a prius? They should be banned (see article)
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/06/stanford-studen/


A reply on the article....Mike - You obviously have not driven far from the city, Where I live if I drive I will have encounters with animals. All of which would inflict costly damage to my vehicle. Keeping up with windscreen replacements is expensive enough without panels too . What you are proposing is that because I work out of the city I should be disadvantaged even more than putting up with goat tracks that are called roads more laughable Highways. If my vehicle is damaged the nearest tow truck may be an hour or more away. Also that I would have to own another vehicle to drive in town! Your comments are typical of that of a city dweller that thinks that they have the right to impose their views on every one else,and without consideration that there are people that also use these vehicles to help provide the food that just appears in the supermarket! Please think of the implications of those in the bush before getting on your soap box. Ban rod holders but not bull bars as the pedestrians I deal with can be far larger and sometimes less traffic aware.

The text following this is made by me trolling the web quickly and adding these comments together...


So? - do they expect us to carry a spare bumper bar in our vehicle and swap over when entering built-up areas?? Very impractical.
These are very one sided in that they generally fail to show the effects of the same crash test dummy being struck by a vehicle WITHOUT a bar. I've seen the results of pedestrians who have been hit by vehicles without bull bars and the results are not pretty.

The bottom line is that bull bars do save lives & property - Bar or no bar, pedestrians and cars don't mix - end of story.
A few years ago an Advertiser newspaper report on this topic advised “The centre for Automotive Safety Research study showed steel bull bars had five times the level of severity of impact on pedestrian safety than standard vehicles, or polymer bull bars. This was a world first study by researchers.”

How did they derive at this conclusion?
They propelled watermelons onto steel and polymer bull bars!!
(Certainly a scientific analysis or mention of the study parameters seems were omitted from the report.)
Of course no study was then made on how effective “polymer bull bars” were in protecting the occupants of a vehicle from an impact with a bull, or roo, etc.

The Advertiser newspaper report went on to say, “steel bull bars could be outlawed in urban areas if the Federal Government legislated changes to Australian Design Rules”.

(If my “Roo Bar” is Alloy may I be excluded? )

All this because up to 12 pedestrians were killed by bull bars in Australia every year, although this is tragic I wonder how many are killed by impact with ANY vehicle every year, bull bar or not.

A final point in the article, and this was posted as serious, not tongue in cheek.
A road safety spokesman said, "the manufacture of bull bars which could be removed for city driving could be a future option".

Now there's a thought for a new business opportunity....Rent-a-Bull-Bar......for those travellers who forgot to reinstall their frontal protection before venturing into non-urban areas. Complete with plug-in radio aerial, twin Lightforce spotties. Winch is optional of course. And there will be exchange stations on the outskirts of all "urban areas" throughout Australia, so the mongrel 4WD owner can "deposit" his or her Bull Bar before entering the urban sanctuary.

Still, it appears that a bar would need to be put in a situation with another party where the potential for damage exists. In other words, it takes a driver to get a bar on a vehicle moving, and it takes an error of judgement to produce a negative outcome.

Perhaps we should redefine the bar not as a roo or bull bar, but as a metal or synthetic frontal/rear device. Although I have hit cattle with a bar I have never hit a bull, so perhaps I don't have a requirement for a bull bar. What I am attempting to say politely is that bars alone are not the issue. I never heard of a bar in the ARB showroom injuring someone, did you?

Let's also think for a moment about the practical nature of a ban of vehicle bars.
Defence Corps - get rid of bars on their vehicles.
Trucks & semis - get rid of bars on their vehicles.
Tradies vans - get rid of bars on them.
Vehicles with support systems that have an integral part attached to the very front or rear - e.g. a rack to house ceiling panels on a trade vehicle - get rid of that, too.
rear of Telstra vans with big step bars - get rid of them.
My 4wd- get rid of its bar. I'd much rather injure someone with an error of judgment without a bar, now I come to think of it. Sorry, no call for sarcasm.

A few other scenarios:
Live in the city? - you can't have a bar, even if you drive that vehicle 95 % in rural regions..
Live in the rural regions? - drive to the edge of a metro region & leave that vehicle to enter the suburbs with a non bar vehicle. But what defines the edge?

Live in the city and have heavy duty tyres on? Get them off because they are not made for that environment.

Isn't this starting to sound ridiculous and impractical?

For example, I read recently that the Asthma Foundation in Queensland claimed that more people died (3,000+) in Queensland from smoking related disease and this was higher than the total number of people killed in the 9/11 disaster).

Equally more people die from alcohol related illness.

So when the media is talking about such small numbers of pedestrians killed in car accidents one really needs to remember that:
- the number is small (though still tragic);
- quite probably the persons would still have died whether there was a front protection bar or not; and
- what options are there to reduce pedestrian behaviour that causes/contributes to such deaths?

However as 4wd drivers we should still remember that kids under 15 years feature in pedestrian/car accidents and we always need to be on the lookout for them (as should other drivers).

What i want to know is are these people whinging about bars able to tell the difference between getting hit with, and without, a bull bar at 60km/h, or for that matter, any speed?
Can they feel the difference in the molecular structure between steel, alloy ar polymer??
Is getting hit by a 4WD going to be more "pleasurable" when it has no bull bar?
(alas poor Mr X, he was a good looking corpse, simply because the owner of the 4WD in which he stepped in front of didnt have a bull bar!)

The reality is, you will still get messed up, with or without a bull bar.
Why don't we secure an old mattress to the front of our cars, then it would be nice and soft for the 'city slickers' we all “try to run over with our 4WD's with bull bars. I think that is what the 'experts' think we do.”
And if we aren't allowed to have frontal protection in the city, who draws the line where the city ends and the country starts?
Instead of banning roo/bull bars maybe they could do a feasibility study on installing hand rails on footpaths and auto unlocking gates at pedestrian crossings (perhaps tied in with the red signal for the traffic lights??).

What constitutes a city ? 5000, 10000, 100000 ?
''All this because up to 12 pedestrians were killed by bull bars in Australia every year''

Unfortunately there are a lot more motorcyclist killed and injured every year by the humble motor car. Maybe there is talk now about banning the sale of motor cars because of the very real risk to motorcyclists.

I just thought of something= these anti bullbar people will still be complaining when the sharp spike in insurance claims on country and city 4x4s hits home to the consumer, because the premiums will rise. Almost certain.

I, as many of you, also fail to see the impact (hee hee) of such a requirement to remove bull bars. Lets face it to achieve acceptable approach angles on a four wheel drive requires a short overhang at the front and due to a fourbies height the nose of a four wheel drive 99 times out of a 100 ends up being a flat squarish surface and as a result does not lend itself to good survival characteristics for duckhead pedestrians. Also with the design the point of impact on most people would be right on the hip area, so instead of falling into the "relative safety" of the car bonnet they either get thrown ahead, broke in half or get thrown underneath and get properly minced.

Even the latest crop of fourbys are no exception (ala Disco, Jeep etc) with the all time great one being the GQ Patrol. Then if the "victim" survives the intial impact there’s nice soft things such as radiators, engine blocks to look forward to. About the only difference a bull bar makes is far less worry about broken headlights and crumpled bumpers.
How often can they roll out the same crap, next thing they'll be running a story about making a car out of nerf balls. Only draw back is it be a bit sluggish in the wet

this is goin to be really good for those of us that own an import. seeing as an arb bull bar is cheaper than a new bumper for my particular model. Or at least it was when i bought the car. if they do ban bull bars are they going to replace the front bumper of every car in the country that has a bar. what do you reckon 1 000 000 barred cars at an average cost of $500 for a new bumper not to mention the rebate for the $1000 we have already spent on a bar. You beauty just add another 1.5 billion to the deficit.

I have no problem with removing my bullbar when in the city at all. Providing the government pays for the removal and replacement costs each time I go from the country to the city and back again and compensates me for lost time each time I have to do it. I live in the country and drive past roos almost daily with them looking at me contemplating weather to jump in front of the car or not. I dont have the bullbar for the intention of intimidating anyone just to try and protect my family and my property. I drive on the roads not on the footpath so there is no reason that I should hit a pedestrian other than they are ****ed (intoxicated) and are walking in the middle of the road.


Just a sidebar= how would this guy have been saved if he was trying to cling to a smooth bonnet? Maybe bullbars should be made mandatory for all cars in case of flood?

Man clings to bull bar in floodwaters
• From: AAP
• January 07, 2011 11:20AM
A MAN, clinging to the bull-bar of his car, has been rescued from floodwaters over the Bruce Highway in Central Queensland.
Queensland Fire and Rescue Service swift water workers were called to rescue the man south of Rockhampton shortly before 10pm (AEST) yesterday, the department of community safety said.
Crews arrived to find him out of the vehicle clinging to the bull-bar.
He was uninjured and pulled to safety 20 minutes later.

If the Pedestrian Council of Australia gets their way all new cars will be designed with something like this

Something like this.....
Google Image Result for http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3533/3789644245_6ab4afec83.jpg
_________________
PS:-
I think you would save WAY more pedestrians by banning alcohol.

Cheers Digger

Thank you for that great reply, I wish I had said that, very impressive, Bob.

Posted this infop on anotehr forum too mate, thanks. Spread the word.

Digger


Also, when the ban crowd say "up to 12 pedestrians are killed by bullbars each year", I was wondering if that is directly attributed to a b/bar or is it up to 12 pedestrians are killed each year by vehicles with b/bars. The two are very different. I would submit that in many instances the pedestrian would have been killed regardless of the the vehicle that hit them (how many were hit by trucks. B/bars fitted or no, they're dead). The velocity of impact would make the most ped. friendly car on the planet fatal if fast enough.

I wouldn't take anything this O'Connor bloke says too seriously. He is a professional sh*t stirrer - he's paid to write this rubbish. He writes the same articles about a number of topics every so often and gets a huge reaction going on various forums.

He's the tool who writes about 4 editorials a year bashing cyclists and basically suggests that people with 4WDs should be allowed to run them down. He doesn't care about the issue. He's just looking for a reaction.

if you look at the statistics it should be the other way around - if only 12 people per year are killed with a vehicle that has a bull bar and a hell of a lot more are killed by vehicles without one then it would stand to reason that cars without bull bars are far more dangerous. therefore any vehicle without a bull bar must be banned immediately to lower the terrible fatality levels on Australian roads