Thread: 4WD myths, facts and stats

Originally Posted by mcrover

JohnE, if you slowdown and try to annoy the trucky by flipping the bird you deserve what ever you get from them as there is no place for people like you on the road as you are not driving to the conditions, you are trying to dictate your own conditions to all other road users.

Im sure your not a complete misguided soul but your veiws on this subject are warped and in some ways your actions could be extremely dangerous, maybe not for you but for the trucky and anyone following him and you may well not even be aware of the accident you cause from trying to be king of the road.

it was not my intention to p***s you off, if you feel that , I apologise for it, but I was just giving my opinion.

To conclude my views and I know you won't read them but , if I am travelling at 100kmph on an open road and that is the legal limit and a truck bears down on me and sits a metre off my bumper bar on a level road, do i speed up , of course to get away from the idiot, then I can;t go any faster(bloody pajero) but if they continue to do the same ,and on this particular incident this bloke did, my fingers did the dialling, on the phone, i don't flipp them out the window, the cops when I got onto them, couldn;t find the bloke , i slowed down and moved to the side, then the truck took off, my estimate of his speed, in excess of 120kmph, no excuses for that.
So if i end up on the highway during truckie time which i hate, I go slower deliberately, that is my opinion, not enshrined in legislation. ( slow vehicles keep left, on laned roads) i know the road rules hell I enforced them for 26 years.
I won't go on, i have my views on the subject and I will not be change them.

john

Originally Posted by p38arover

It's about time you levelled it!



Then sent the council a bill.

Ron

It is controlled by NPWS - and they have told me they will they will prosecute me if I touch it! My legal access is 20km of road that was State Forest and is now a "community conservation area" controlled by NPWS. Much of this was burnt out in January, and the heavy firefighting traffic plus runoff from the burnt area in the few rain events since then has caused severe damage to the roads. Little work has been done to repair this because in National Parks you need to do an environmental impact statement before you can lay a shovel on the ground. Present information is that it may be late this year before anything is done to this crossing, and meanwhile every fall of rain worsens the situation. Heaven help us if the drought ends.

John

Originally Posted by mcrover

Whats your veiw on your average Falcon/Commodore towing 28' to 30' over loaded caravans or tripple horse floats, they are well under weight to be towing these things and can be very difficult to control and are usually under braked for the weight but not many people complain about them.

The reason I originally bought a 4WD was that I often towed a loaded car trailer. Under the law at the time, the EA Falcon I had could not legally tow the weight I had behind - even though it was undoubtedly safer than my first 4WD - a Toymota FJ55.

Ron

Originally Posted by JDNSW

It is controlled by NPWS - and they have told me they will they will prosecute me if I touch it!

<snip>

Little work has been done to repair this because in National Parks you need to do an environmental impact statement before you can lay a shovel on the ground.

Hell's Bells!

Ron

Originally Posted by p38arover

Hell's Bells!

Ron

Yes!
I am just about to put a stamp on ANOTHER letter to my local member - not helped by the fact that the redistribution has changed my local member to someone I don't know at all. At least they are the same party and the old one has agreed to send my new one the file!

John

Originally Posted by mcrover

Whats your veiw on your average Falcon/Commodore towing 28' to 30' over loaded caravans or tripple horse floats, they are well under weight to be towing these things and can be very difficult to control and are usually under braked for the weight but not many people complain about them.

Mate I don't know anyone who DOESN'T get the sh!ts with caravans

Originally Posted by p38arover

The reason I originally bought a 4WD was that I often towed a loaded car trailer. Under the law at the time, the EA Falcon I had could not legally tow the weight I had behind - even though it was undoubtedly safer than my first 4WD - a Toymota FJ55.

Ron

Then you actually USE your 4wd, which is what I was talking about, (never heard me complain about Tradies using them in the city did ya?).



This is a hard thing to get a point across without sounding like I am against the fourbys all together.
I own use & love fourbys, been in them all my life growing up in the country.
Could never understand when people in the city would buy one & use it exclusively as a passenger vehicle.

Because of the chassis size & design of these wonderful toys they do way more damage then the "Taragos" & things of that nature, I think that is the point people are missing. Not so much for pedestrians but when the fourby uses the other vehicle as a crumple zone.

I agree with the fact we do live in a country where we have the right to drive anything WE choose & I would stand beside you & fight for your right to own what you want but still don't think they belong in cities as a "passenger car only"

Hope this time my point is a tad clearer

Twitchy, I see your point and I also see JohnE's point as well.

Twitchy, you cant tell some people that they would be better off with something other than their Lexus/100 series cruiser for carting their only child to MLC for school each day as they just dont care.

As far as crumple zones go, 4wd's have them too and yes they may do a bit more damage when they take out an Excel/Carolla but who cares, it is an excel/carolla, they are disposable anyway.

Car manufacturers have coluded with safety organisations for too long in my opinion in making cars lighter and to go faster there for when something does go wrong there is more damage.

I dont think that 4wd's are a major problem in any city as there is more and more other traffic and the doof doof brigade in their Evo Lancers and WRX's that are doing 160kmh in a 50 zone that is in my opinion more of a worry.

Granted I think it's a waste putting road tyres on a 4b and never taking it off road but if thats what they want to do we will never stop them.

As for JohnE, you are saying you do exactly what I said you should be doing so Im sorry for getting the wrong Idea but what are you doing driving a Pajero?

From my experiaence, if enough people complain about a member of society, most of the time the cops do their thing and go and have a chat.

There are good and bad among us and it's the same with truck drivers as well as car drivers it's just you seem to notice the trucks more often.

By the way, there was a derailment in Mildura yesterday that has closed the line for at least 3 days which means all the cargo of grapes and wine will either be spoiled or sent to Adelaide when it was destined for Melbourne.

It has also happened at a level crossing so the roads closed as well as far as the paper said.

Trucks are a lot more dependable and flexible than rail, and because of this they are trucking everything they can save off the train.

Manufacturers build and sell vehicles that their customers want and why customers want certain vehicles varies from customer to customer, some for the image, some for the purpose, some for the options.

Point is customers are paying for their choices on the cost of purchase, government charges, registration costs, fuel costs, maintenance.

Argument about man damaging environment forgets that man has since dawn of time when he walked, hunted and killed and lit fires have been changing the environment we live in.

So not having a big car and walking to the shops boils down to your choice.

Even in communist countries envrionmental damage is appalling and not everyone has cars or consumer goods like West to explain the damage. look at environmental damage in India or Africa where cars not prevalent but human activity is damage is as bad if not worse.

Arguments against 4wd in cities been on the go since my first 4wd in 1984 a Nissan 3.3 td swb and the dangers of bullbars and problems in city traffic for vision of smaller cars.

Its just like why do we need a 30 square MacMansion house to live in when in the 1940's 10 square house was adequate for family of 5.

We can because we choose to, we can afford to and we dont give a thought as to the environmental effect of the decision.

So until someone costs the environmental impact and says you have to pay for it we arent goign to be changing our ways are we.