And Another Thing…

I drive a 4×4 because my work requires a lot of equipment and by removing the back seats it doubles up as a van. One car – one less set of manufacturing carbon costs. But you know it is funny how the 4×4 haters suddenly love me when I’m rescuing their cars from snowdrifts…

Wow. You’ve really shot down in my estmiations, Tom. Gaz guzzlers pollute the environment and nearly always take up more than their fair share of space on busy roads – which is a pain in the ass for other drivers. They are totally unnecessary in the city, which is why any responsible driver will opt for a smaller vehicle. Gaz guzzlers are an obsession of selfish Tories and you should know better.

Hear, hear! I’ve never understood the appeal, but vive le difference and all that!

I drive a Toyota Yaris.. If I had the money and the driving ability it would be a Porsche Cayenne something 4×4 ..

Pity I would be unable to park it….

4x4s and SUVs are great — except in city centres.

My objection is not with 4x4s or people carriers themselves, but more that they seem to be driven by people who cannot drive well, neatly or responsibly.

It’s as though being about two feet higher than other road users engenders a complete lack of consideration or care in the drivers of said vehicles.

Such lack of care used to be confined to the white van man (who is also situated about two feet about other road-users) but no more…

DK

Steve,

“Gaz guzzlers are an obsession of selfish Tories and you should know better.”

Sweeping generalisations based on less than stuff all are generally the preserve of fools and knaves: you should know better.

DK

You can’t fail to grit the roads (as has happened this winter) and then penalize people with high road tax for driving the only vehicles which can get anywhere!

It’s annoying not to be able to see over or past them to anticipate the traffic ahead. Vans are annoying like that too. Not so HGVs for some reason, possibly to do with total resignation. But that’s it. Anything else is indeed snobbery.

That Alan Davies makes the appalling Fry QI unwatchable. Just another one from the rent-a-berk range.

I thought those 4x4s consumed more fuel, not less.

4X4s have a very serious purpose and in the highlands they become necessity rather than luxury.
Still they suffer taxes due to the chelsea tractor syndrome and as such it becomes an indirect attack on the countryside. Something that Labour is often accused of.

Blimey! Absolutely agree with you Tom.

People carriers though?

As Clarkson says, “I’ve met my wife, had my children and now I’m just waiting for the chipboard overcoat.”

Not all Chelsea Tractors are gas guzzlers, but many more discreet vehicles are. Tax at the petrol pump ensure that they contribute more, so we don’t need to resort to abuse of their owners.
I’d rather see all vehicles capped at 100Mph. No-one can legally drive this fast, but they do (me included). Limiting the speed would be far more effective in reducing emissions.

I drive a 4×4 for use both in London where I live and for travelling to my family who live in the middle of very hilly countryside. While it’s great for scuttling over the fells in winter, it’s more useful at home in Hackney where the enormous potholes and endless speed humps make driving around town a bone-shaking ordeal. Those terrors certainly saw off my last car – shattering the suspension of a lovely eco-friendly Peugot 106. A 4×4 isn’t a luxury for me – it’s becoming essential!

The fact is that anyone on the end of an accident with a 4×4 will almost certainly get worse injuries than from another “saloon”.

The fact is that 4×4 drivers are not required to adhere to the Highway Code. Which is why so many are talking on mobiles whilst driving, and why so many see, to think that the line in the middle of the road is there to guide them.

As a country dweller, they are a total plague. Farmers and “work” users drive them fine; the idiot second homers are a menace and will happily drive you off the road.

Also, why are only blonde female drivers ever seen in 4x4s?

I have a 4×4 to drive across fields and along rough farm tracks carrying dogs and all sorts of stuff. Mine is a really useful vehicle but what does annoy me about some 4×4 drivers (usually women) is that they have no idea of what the vehicle can do nor how to use them.
The other day a woman who owns a Toyota Land Cruiser (to take her children to school along urban main roads as it happens) would not venture along a side road with ¼ inch of fresh snow as she did not want to get stuck! For goodness sake, I almost popped a blood vessel in anger.
If you have a 4×4, learn how to use it properly, even if it is to hop on and off kerbs delivering kids to school as misuse leads to the castigation of all 4×4 drivers, thus allowing the Government to tax them to an extortionate level as they think they are a luxury item only used by wealthy people in Chelsea and not a tool to many of us poorer mortals who live in the wilds.

I think they’re better called ‘war wagons’ myself. We live next to Glasgow Academy and have the spectacle every morning of the gimlet-eyed Scottish middle classes edging their massive vehicles up Belmont St and down Cresswell St, honking at prole mums with buggies who don’t get out of their way quick enough.

I’m not prone to aggression but I did blow my top once, when one of the buggers – a hatchet-faced dyed blonde – actually shouted from behind the wheel of her bloody canyonero (see the Simpsons) at a harassed mum crossing her path. Other pedestrians joined in, hooray.

Bang on Tom. In the UK car drivers more than pay for the carbon they emit – look at the expected cap and trade prices and you’ll see that the tax on oil derivatives is way above that level.

One problem though – why are we allowing the EU (I am NOT anti-EU, i just hate hypocrisy) to force us to use new lightbulbs rather than incandescent. I know they are more efficient but some people prefer the other ones and pay tax on the extra electricity they use which covers any environmental damage they do.

Given the number of potholes around Glasgow 4x4s should be standard issue!

I agree, Tom. Car sneering is unpleasant and increasingly stupid as engine efficiency improves.

I drive a Lexus IS 250. It’s wonderful. And I use it for less than 5000 miles a year, at around thirty to the gallon.

My neighbour’s Mercedes does more per gallon. But he drives 15000 miles per year.

Gross disparagements are silly, unless one knows the facts. And even then…

You can’t fail to grit the roads (as has happened this winter) and then penalize people with high road tax for driving the only vehicles which can get anywhere!

Hear, hear.

I’ve still not worked out why the government has such a hatred of motorists. It’s almost as though they want to punish us for not using public transport.

I have a Volvo XC90. It seats 7 people and usually has 5 of us in. With 3 small children I need a car with a second row of passenger seats because of their car seats – even the wide XC90 doesn’t take three abreast easily. We live in central London so also are massive users of public transport (as well as legs/scooters, which is how my 3 yo twins get to school). It is diesel and does about 28 mpg, which is comparable to most people carriers, but on a “per passenger” basis, we are v efficient. Am not taking any lessons from the likes of Steve on this who can sod off.

I had a Freelander TD4 – one of the most common 4x4s. A diesel that does nearly 40 mpg. Better than a hell of a lot of family saloons.

I think I am at one with the general sentiment. That class based hatred or a drive for a Mondeo monoculture is not the way forward.

However, what is irking is the attitude of some of these tank drivers. The purchase of a tank so the kids are “safe”, protected by the sheer bulk rather than the driver’s care.

Your kids are safe, everyone else is endangered.

You angling for a Top Gear invite then?

Lovely post.

Please join the other party. Oh yeah, you would have to find an English constituency.

Sod it. Run for Leader of the Opposition instead. First time I have encountered a missive from your tribe advocating the dangerous phenomena of freedom of choice.

I wonder if this post is code for your CC scepticism.

I thoroughly recommend Brazilian mineral water, chilled with polar ice.

A litre bottle has the same carbon footprint as 3 flights on Bransons Orbiter

All for a £1. In the pound shop (no inflation there I see. Same prices for the past ten years)

I think the iritation has something to do with the idea that the owners of these vehicles are buying ‘safety’ for their familes at the expense of other more vulnerable road users. This particularly applied when the early versions had completely unnecessary bull bars on the front.

Now – as a female who admits she is not the best person in the world at parking a vehicle – I just get supremely irritated at the women driving these vehicles who simply cannot park the damn things. And the ones who think it is socially acceptable to drive whilst holding a mobile to their ear.

Devils Kitchen@

The subtlety of the irony in your two posts in relation to sweeping generalisations, is an exercise in strategic, intellectual blogging beauty.

The way you set up the whole thing by making a sweeping generalisation yourself and then in a subsequent post, berating Steve for his sweeping generalisation, was majestic.

Anyway, back to the topic…

Alan Davies a comedian?

He’s about as funny as a quadruple puncture on my Cayenne. Which, BTW is not really designed to be driven off road. Trust me, it messes up the wax job.

And, yes we do pay through the nose to own one. And, not just when driving them either. Where I live, I have to pay £450 per year just to park mine outside my house. Roll on May…

Tom

I agree that people should have freedom to drive what they want.

Certainly some people need a 4×4 to do their job. However the vast majority are driven by just simply horrible people who have a total disregard for other road users.

It isn’t about money or about being middle class. Class is about knowing whats right. And 4×4′s at the moment are about as classy as Vegas strip joint.

For example head for St Paul’s and you will come to a small well to do school. All of the wealthy parents have the Toyota “Pious” – you will see lines of them. No one would be so crass as to have a 4×4 these days. It would be as socially acceptable as going to a dinner party and blowing your nose on the tablecloth.

Seriously – meet a few 4×4 drivers and you will soon see what I mean. Men with napoleon complexes. Women that wear more makeup than a bad drag act. Neither with any sense of taste or the first idea about giving way to other road users. Both with that desperate air that they must prove themselves. Just horrible people. Like Audi drivers*.

(hope that falls in within the posting remit)

*not always true

Boudicca said, ‘… the owners of these vehicles are buying ’safety’ for their familes at the expense of other more vulnerable road users.’

Yes, at the expense of other road users, because if you hit a Fiesta with one of these great things, you crush it flat.

But for your family, not necessarily. If, as often happens, you are on the motorway and a left-hand-drive truck pulls into the overtaking lane and causes you to run into the central barrier, if you have a car-shaped car it bounces off the barrier, back into your own side of the road. Not ideal, but at least everyone is going in the same direction so there is a chance of not being hit. If you have a tall SUV, it flips over the barrier and lands upside down in the fast lane of the other carriageway, and someone hits you at a combined speed of 140 mph.

Nice to hear a reasonable view for a change. Much of the resentment seems to be at the drivers, ie Blond, Female, middle class and apparently ‘kept’ as a trophy by their husbands rather than the 4x4s themselves. The politics of envy are never far away.

One positive aspect of the middle classes buying these cars new is that they finance all of the depreciation and put very little wear and tear on them. This means less well off trades people get to buy an ‘as good as new’ workhorse at half price when they are cast off.

The middle classes should be given a medal for subsidising the working populations transport needs.

We have an old Mk 2 Land Rover. Its just the job for this weather, we use it for local journies in bad weather. We live down a track and we need it to get out when we have had snow. After this weather perhaps people will understand a bit more. I am not in the least bit interested what people think, We also have another 2 cars that we use.All maintained by our local garage. He often repairs the Landrover for free.

“The fact is that 4×4 drivers are not required to adhere to the Highway Code.”

Really? I didn’t know this: could you expand?

DK

I want a tank. A proper one.

The mum’s who get snide comments and dirty looks for using their 4X4 off-road vehicle for taking the kids to school (and parking off-road, on-pavement) finally had their day today. They would be amongst the very few able to get their kids to the school gates. To find the school shut of course. (Snigger)

Landrovers of course are not included in this…they are too cool!

I wonder if you would have written this post if you had been in the car with me this morning, when I was blocked in at the petrol station by a (woman) driver in the most massive 4×4 who parked diagonally across the pumps so no-one could get passed – AND DIDN’T EVEN GET OUT THE CAR TO BUY ANY PETROL. She just sat there, refusing to make eye contact with anyone while her friend went into the shop. Still, I’m sure if you had been there you would just have shrugged and said hey, there’s room on the road for all of us.

I’m just saying…

Bad drivers are bad drivers, whichever car they own. Darling.

“Bad drivers are bad drivers…”

And they all seem to drive BMWs (sales reps) or black fiat puntos (18 year olds in their first car).

Could Tom and Carolyn get a vroom please.

In the 1970s we had the Morris Minor, the 1980s Mondeo salesman, the 1990s Volvos and the noughties 4x4s. Yes thats right the myopic buffoons who hog the outside lane of the motorway with 2 unused lanes on the inside.

Obviously I am generalising but when you are perched up high in a 4×4 and it gives you a sense of superiority and the fact that these cars are sold on safety, the drivers can be selfish and very complacent. I was staggered to read among the worst insurance risks 10 years ago were middle aged, middle class Volvo drivers.

The safest generally were middle aged boy racers in their Porches and Ferraris.

Of course I support free choice but many 4×4 drivers are people who have no interest in cars but still want to pose in one.

To improve driving considerably simply make people drive the most expensive car they can afford and ban fully comprehensive insurance. Suddenly everyone’s on their best behaviour on the roads.

Sensible post, from a Labour man, on the subject of 4x4s. Will wonders never cease?

4×4′s have a low fuel efficiency for which the owners therefore have to pay through the nose for the extra fuel, but that is THEIR choice to pay for the extra comfort and satisfaction. The negative effects of the correspondingly high emissions are, however, experienced by us all, even though we never had a choice about it.

The argument is similar to the idea of smoking in pubs – we do not accept that we should suffer the negative consequences of someones self-indulgent actions. We share the implications but do not enjoy the positives nor do we have a role in the choice.

And, what’s wrong with buying only those cars which serves our need? The idea that we buy ‘nice’ things to serve our ego’s has the implication that we change cars (or clothes or gadgets, etc.) well before their full durability, making sure that natural and human resources are wasted.

You need narrow tyres to get through snow not the great big flat ones on many 4x4s.

We were able to deliver supplies to a lady at the end of a long drift(lane).

Our old land rover had no problems at all.

I see in other parts of the country councils have been asking 4×4 owners to help out as well. So think before you critisise.Life in remote parts is just so different to towns and people just dont understand.

Norfolk brought its replacement rock salt in by ship landing it at Kings Lynn on Tuesday. they also provide a road griting map so you can plan your journy on gritted roads.Its been a great help.

Having a 4×4 with a small carbon footprint is a bit like oven chips getting all-green on traffic light health ratings – it may be accurate (though I’ve yet to see the real hyrid ones), but somehow does not compute.

My objection to 4x4s is that being high up gives the impression of good visibility while actually children in particular become more vulnerable because they cannot be seen while in positions of danger behind the car. A friend with one once said to us that his children were safer asa result – his yes, everyone else’s less so.
I also object to people driving them badly in streets that were essentially designed for a horse and carriages and are not large enough to accommodate two normal sized cars. I dislike the parking in those same streets that makes it incredibly difficult for even normal sized cars to pass them.
And while bad driving is bad driving no matter who does it, dong so with an attitude of I’m in a big car so no matter what the rules of the road say YOU’ll move is unspeakably rude.