Thread: Bull bars – passenger vs pedestrian safety

Bull bars are a tricky topic. They exist to cause bodily harm to the creature that your vehicle collides with, and in doing so protect you from some set of problems which range from inconvenience through financial cost all the way to actual risk of death being stranded in the outback with a disabled vehicle.

They are clearly a good idea on Australia’s country roads, some would say as necessary as a spare tyre. They are also clearly inappropriate for high density suburbs, shopping centres and school zones.

I’m 100% sure that the new vehicle will have decent-to-good pedestrian safety in standard trim. I will be very pleased if LR has designed this Defender to take a “proper” bar for outback scenarios without looking as stupid as the D5 does – and I hope that works out well for many of you on this forum.

I actually think that banning bull bars from highly populated areas is a reasonable proposition. But that’s a topic for a different thread – the point being here that LR has had some tricky design constraints to work with and the old solution simply isn’t an option in today’s context.

So what about my current vehicle - does both Country and City driving? Has a bull bar fitted to protect it from the wildlife in the country - and has seen action. Am I supposed to take it off when I'm in the City? . You can't make one rule for one place and not another. It's either ban them or not - last time a reform was tried the pollies backed off pretty quick from the uproar - doubt anyone will be stupid enough to try that again any time soon.

Originally Posted by Homestar

So what about my current vehicle - does both Country and City driving? Has a bull bar fitted to protect it from the wildlife in the country - and has seen action. Am I supposed to take it off when I'm in the City? . You can't make one rule for one place and not another. It's either ban them or not - last time a reform was tried the pollies backed off pretty quick from the uproar - doubt anyone will be stupid enough to try that again any time soon.

You do see the conflict though, don't you?
It's totally reasonable for outback drivers to want protection from animal strikes.
It's totally reasonable for city pedestrians to want less-lethal vehicles hurtling around their suburbs.

Like I said, fodder for another thread. I'm just trying to highlight that LR has their functional and technical design choices constrained by laws that benefit the vast majority of people in modern societies – those who live in cities. And you see the effect of those constraints in the discontinuation of the traditional Defender and in the shape of this new vehicle.

Modern bull bars have to take collisions with people into account to be compliant - in fact on some slightly older vehicles a modern aussie bullbar actually makes the vehicle safer for pedestrians than the same vehicle without a bull bar.

Originally Posted by 101RRS

Modern bull bars have to take collisions with people into account to be compliant - in fact on some slightly older vehicles a modern aussie bullbar actually makes the vehicle safer for pedestrians than the same vehicle without a bull bar.

I believe in the UK bull bars are illegal so, maybe there will be different bull bars available for different areas from the factory

Originally Posted by TB

You do see the conflict though, don't you?
It's totally reasonable for outback drivers to want protection from animal strikes.
It's totally reasonable for city pedestrians to want less-lethal vehicles hurtling around their suburbs.

Like I said, fodder for another thread. I'm just trying to highlight that LR has their functional and technical design choices constrained by laws that benefit the vast majority of people in modern societies – those who live in cities. And you see the effect of those constraints in the discontinuation of the traditional Defender and in the shape of this new vehicle.

Sorry but I see no conflict at all - I really don’t. If a pedestrian walks out in front me, they will suffer the consequences if I cannot stop in time - bull bar or not. I don’t speed nor break the road rules, so tarring all bull bar drivers as hurtling around is also completely unreasonable - I’ve almost hit 3 pedestrians in my time, ALL of which were their fault, 2 darting out between cars not looking at what was coming and one on their phone looking the wrong way up the street and walked out in front of me. Have avoided all of them. Not my problem, I have no issues walking around the streets with vehicles on them with Bullbars - I watch where I’m going. Yet another rule people want to change to protect the stupid. Let Darwinism lead where it may IMO...

Originally Posted by Homestar

Sorry but I see no conflict at all - I really don’t. If a pedestrian walks out in front me, they will suffer the consequences if I cannot stop in time - bull bar or not. I don’t speed nor break the road rules, so tarring all bull bar drivers as hurtling around is also completely unreasonable - I’ve almost hit 3 pedestrians in my time, ALL of which were their fault, 2 darting out between cars not looking at what was coming and one on their phone looking the wrong way up the street and walked out in front of me. Have avoided all of them. Not my problem, I have no issues walking around the streets with vehicles on them with Bullbars - I watch where I’m going. Yet another rule people want to change to protect the stupid. Let Darwinism lead where it may IMO...

Mr Mod... could we please have this as a different thread? Probably in a different sub-forum?

Originally Posted by TB

Mr Mod... could we please have this as a different thread? Probably in a different sub-forum?

Yep, you’re more than welcome to start a thread on this - let me know if you do, I’ll happily move the posts discussing bull bars there. 👍

Maybe start it in Tech Chatter? I can move it around if others want it elsewhere later. 👍