driving me crazy ( did you see it ? )

[ROBLATCH]

did any one watch driving me crazy on mon itv ? about the urban 4x4.

i thought it was ridiculous how some towny can try to persuade other folk into changing their 4 wheel drive vehicles simply because some idiot,s think they are too big for urban controll.trying to ban 4x4s in urban places in my oppinion is far to extreme.the excuse is too big to handle! wahat about busses ? artic lorrys ?.

they want us to go green and jump on a fuel guzzling bus , or deliver food to our supermarkets in a mini metro what sense ?

[Mungler]

They were very clever in their selection of the 3 test 4x4's.

 

They went for:

 

1. Landcruiser - the biggest affordable 4x4 available (leaving aside Hummers and the like) and yes therefore totally impractical for London streets

2. The Jeep Cherokee - being larger than most 4x4's but the most inefficient and carbon hungry

3. Some tw*t in a monster american penis extension - seriously that fella needed an extra 2 or 3 inches not a motor vehicle

 

No mention of any of the mid range and entirely manoeuvrable 4x4's that would be fine in an urban environment or the CO2 friendly jap ones or the electric Lexus one.

 

I think the programme accepted that 4x4s had a purpose in the countryside. But the choice of vehicle and "test" was all too selective - the reversing test was a nonsense - why not try that with a van? Plenty of vans on the streets but no one moans about them. The whole 4x4 thing is turning into a class issue in much the same way that fox hunting did.

 

P.S.

 

That being said everyone knows Freelanders are the choice of homos

[MC]

It would be a *****y good thing for a company like landrover to come up with an incredibly low emiision 4 x 4 just to **** the government off.

 

All the ford fiesta owners would be up in arms when their road tax went up to £300 a year.

 

The government are happy to take the TAX from the manufacturer, customer and fuel companies for all these cars and then they knock them once all that has been collected.

[SNAKEBITE]

I would love a 4x4, but I'm never going to need one.

 

There are two groups that have 4x4's. Firstly the farmers and shooters/sportsmen and secondly the "Fashionistas". I live right near a school and every morning the roads are clogged up with the 4x4's that the mums drive the 1/2mile to school in. These are the people that need to be thinking about what they drive. Farmer Palmer who is struggling with the E.U. subsiduary schemes and getting 5p for every gallon of milk he produces does not need to penalised for having a 4x4. Having an old landy for recreational purposes and used as asecond car occasionally should not be a reason to have to pay a huge penalty either.

 

If you want a 4x4 to be flash, fashionable or fit in with the crowd get a penis extension (thanks Mungler for that phrase, very apt!) and don't clutter up the towns. 4x4's are for OFF ROAD, hence the big tyres, and no Tarquins school fete or a car boot sale in a field do not constitute off road.

[Gully]

I think the car manufacturers are missing a trick. Urban people want the following that they get with a 4x4 -

High driving position, 7 seats if possible, imposing road presence (they feel their kids are safer)

 

They also get things they don't want - 4wd, higher torgue engines, low ratio gearboxes, the weight of all that tougher running gear and drive train.

 

Why don't the manufacturers make a 2wd road version of all these cars. If you took a Range Rover, got rid of all the extra suspension, transmission, knobbly tyres etc, it wouldn't weigh much more than a large saloon and could be powered, through 2 wheels by a much more economical 2.0 diesel or even a hybrid.

 

Just don't drive it into a field though

[SNAKEBITE]

I think the car manufacturers are missing a trick. Urban people want the following that they get with a 4x4 -

High driving position, 7 seats if possible, imposing road presence (they feel their kids are safer)

 

That would leave you with one of those Montego seven seater estates, or worse an Espace!

 

You don't need a high up driving position really, do you? And what the hell is "imposing road presence" going to do for you? Most likely get everyones back up!

As for the safety aspect all that goes out the window when two 4x4's crash into each other!

[Dunkield]

I agree with freedom of choise and all that, but where does it end.

 

Have a look at this picture, taken last month in California.

I am about 5' 10" or so, and I couldn't get my arm up on the bonnet of this 'truck'

When we took a picture of it the Americans in our group asked us what were doing, apparently back home everyone drives those

 

 

[Mungler]

I think the car manufacturers are missing a trick. Urban people want the following that they get with a 4x4 -

High driving position, 7 seats if possible, imposing road presence (they feel their kids are safer)

 

They also get things they don't want - 4wd, higher torgue engines, low ratio gearboxes, the weight of all that tougher running gear and drive train.

 

Why don't the manufacturers make a 2wd road version of all these cars. If you took a Range Rover, got rid of all the extra suspension, transmission, knobbly tyres etc, it wouldn't weigh much more than a large saloon and could be powered, through 2 wheels by a much more economical 2.0 diesel or even a hybrid.

 

Just don't drive it into a field though

 

 

That makes sense.

 

If you have more than two kids you have few choices for a family car - some horrid people carrier or a 4x4.

 

And yes, I recently chopped in the missus' Galaxy for an X5 Sport. Penis sizes aside, I know which I prefer to drive.

[naddan28]

I am with you lot, make people who use 4x4's to do the school run pay through the nose, not people who are actually using them for the purpose designed! They were made to make driving on offroad possible so thats where they should be used! Its ridiculous, taxing farmer's and shooters who use 4x4's for NEEDING them would be like taxing carpenters for owning/using saws. I like snakebite's idea about having 2wd economical 4x4's type vehicles, that would make sense and cut immissions but would the fashionable people want them? Knowing they are not quite the full mccoy? Women by defualt should have to do an advanced driving test for them, the other day I had some women come tearing down a country lane at me in one doing at least 45mph, while I was in my pouncy KA all I did was pulled over pronto and prayed as she sailed past!

[MC]

Why shouldn't we drive the car we want, does everyone who has a performance car go racing every weekend.

 

If Mrs pendleton-smythe want to run her kids to school in kensington in a Hummer then why shouldn't she?

 

Our forefathers fought two world wars against dictatorship so why shouldn't exercise our freedom of speech?

 

Stuartp,

 

That truck is a beast and if I could afford one I would probably have one, and I would drive it through the fence at the LACS compound and release the deer that are being treated cruelly.

[Dunkield]

Here you go Martin, start with one of these and get some bigger wheels for it.

Looks they brought out a longer one for people who found the last one a bit cramped (i.e really fat people)

 

Amzing what you get for about £13K in the States

 

http://www.fordvehicles.com/trucks/superdu...932595|80435780

[SNAKEBITE]

There was a truck like that for sale at the Ace cafe a couple of weeks ago when I was there, it made my mondeo look like a smart car!

[Andy W]

I drive a Mercedes ML 270 4 x 4, when 4 of us go shooting we go in my car, with 4 lots of guns, boots, hold alls, waterproofs and cartridges we would not fit it all in a small hatchback or a Fiat Panda 4 x 4 like the do gooder anti 4 x 4 lobby want.

[butchdickason]

As usual a completely biased programme just because a **** has media access to express his own opinion. What right has anybody to tell another person how to spend hard earned cash,or what to drive depending on where you live. They banned hand guns,fox hunting, smoking, is the 4x4 next if you live in a town ? We are all entitled to :

FREEDOM OF CHOICE.

 

 

B)

 

 

Butch

[SNAKEBITE]

I drive a Mercedes ML 270 4 x 4, when 4 of us go shooting we go in my car, with 4 lots of guns, boots, hold alls, waterproofs and cartridges we would not fit it all in a small hatchback or a Fiat Panda 4 x 4 like the do gooder anti 4 x 4 lobby want.

 

Nobody should have a problem with that! If they do then they are ******. You are utilising the vechile to its full potential.

[Mungler]

 

You are utilising the vechile to its full potential.

 

 

 

That's rubbish - what so people with sports cars must drive them fast all the time and people with vans must have them ladened with tools and irishmen (either asleep, smoking or drinking in the back).

 

Sounds a bit left wing socialist worker to me.

 

There are plenty more vehicles on the road that are less enviro friendly than say an X5. All the nit picking appears to polarise on "mums and kids school runs". What's that got to do with the price of eggs?

 

Same as how the anti fox hunting lot polarised in on how the sport was for fat upper class men.

 

Class war!

[SNAKEBITE]

Believe me Mungler I am as far away from being a leftie tree hugger as it is possible to get!

What I am however is keen on having this world left in a reasonable state to pass onto my children!

It is all about balance, use cars but not for silly short trips, unless it is vital.

Having a large 4x4 loaded up is not the same as having a sports car doing 120mph is it?

[MC]

Believe me Mungler I am as far away from being a leftie tree hugger as it is possible to get!

What I am however is keen on having this world left in a reasonable state to pass onto my children!

It is all about balance, use cars but not for silly short trips, unless it is vital.

Having a large 4x4 loaded up is not the same as having a sports car doing 120mph is it?

 

 

Isn't it? They will both use similar fuel and they are both being used for what they were designed for. People have to use cars, end of story. The public transport in this country is a joke, and if I have to use a car then it will be one of my choice not the choice of some soap dodging tree hugger who lives with the fairies.

[SNAKEBITE]

There are plenty more vehicles on the road that are less enviro friendly than say an X5. All the nit picking appears to polarise on "mums and kids school runs". What's that got to do with the price of eggs?

 

I don't disagree that there are less efficient and fouler smelling vechiles than an X5! But maybe the "old bangers" need taking off the road. Discuss.

 

As for the school run mums IMHO that is the prime example of the wasted usage of a 4x4. They are bigger than anything else, badly parked (not the vechiles fault granted ) and can cause more damage to a body in a low speed impact. They were designed for off road use and should be focused towards that function. Just because a sit on lawn mower can be driven on the road doesn't mean it should be used to pop down the town for a weeks shopping does it?

[MC]

The point that you are missing is,

 

People ARE allowed to drive whatever vehicle they have a licence for providing it is road legal. A friend of mine when we were at school who lived a few miles away used to visit his girlfriend in a john deere tractor because he could.

 

I suppose that was inapropriate use of a tractor unless he ploughed a few fields on his way.

 

Why shouldn't mums run their kids to school in a X5 if they have one, or would you prefer that we all had Trabants in lived our lives like an eastern block country?

 

Until the politicians lead by example they can stuff it up their rsholes, my disco uses less fuel than their jags.

 

Also when I was at school they taught the green cross code, not blamed the type of car on the road for people getting run over.

[Mungler]

LOL

 

Here here.

 

Anyone listen to Nick Ferrari this morning on LBC? Making the point that our green leader and green heir to the throne were about to do 50 tonnes of CO2 on their holidays and their various junkets to the states (not in pursuit of government).

 

One rule for one and another rule for another - or is that we are all equal but some are more equal than others?

 

EDIT:

 

I am now off home in my gas guzzling V8 saloon and no I don't do a car share. Lets see them make a documentary about that.

 

We are all heading to hell in a pedal powered hand cart

[NorfolkBoy]

I once read somewhere that the average commercial jet airliner produces more pollutants during one take off than your average family car does in one year - When they stop air travel I'll chop me SUV in for a bike but not before....

[Dunkield]

For me at least the school run mum things becomes annoying when they claim they need a 4x4.

 

They may want one, why not, have what you like - but just try to justify it on the grounds that little Johnny is safer is just plain BS - if he went to schol in Basra I could undertsand it

 

If they knew how to drive them it would also help a lot, I resent having to drive to work anyway so getting stuck behind half a dozen scrummies in their RRS's who think they are as wide as river barges doesn't exactly get my day off to a very good start. B)

 

When our son was born I had a VW Corrado and mrs stuartp had a Fiat Uno, we didn't feel the need to buy a Volvo estate or whatever the must have mum truck at the time was.

I have only ever had 2 door hatches and so has she.

Last time I looked he was still alive (mind you he is 15 now so it's a bit difficult to tell )

[SNAKEBITE]

You seemed to have summed up what I was (badly) trying to say stuartp.

 

I am not saying you shouldn't have a 4x4 I am saying that not everyone needs one.

If you want one, get one, just don't moan about the high taxes on it!

[JohnGalway]

What Snakebite said 100%

 

There's a place in Dublin with the area code D4, a lot of the snobs live there and fairly or unfairly all the Dublin snobs are nicknamed D4's. In summertime my village is renamed G4, G for Galway. D4 moves West on holiday. They must come cross country, that's the only way I can figure it... (none of them can park either, but that's more of a genetic thing as it's a small gene pool the snobs).

 

In the leafy suburbs of Dublin (or Galway, Cork, limerick or anywhere else fo rthat matter) you do not need a 4 x 4. You can own one sure. Even legally. But I'd tax the beejesus out of them for it. Happily, merrily, with mirth and joy.

 

I am a farmer. I could well use a 4 x 4 but I can't afford to buy, run or tax one. It'd get dents in it, muck in places Mrs D4's polish run carwash couldn't reach and generally get lots of abuse pulling trailers and taking loads of stuff to lots of places. I don't think I should get taxed at the same level and if I do I should be at least able to claim it back from my tax.

 

Did you know, you can buy (yes, buy) spray on muck for your 4 x 4?

 

Boo hiss at them that own 'em and don't need 'em. Same for performance cars. My 2 cents worth. I'm giving away as many cents lately I'm going flat broke, someone take up a collection for me please