4x4s?!

[Shirley]

Hi Ina

there is a school bus, but my son had already started back at the school he used to attend when we last lived up here. The house we moved into is just outside the catchment and so we don't qualify for transport. He's only got until June next year at this school and therefore there is no point in moving him - it would be too disruptive and he is familiar with the kids at the school he's at now.

I have asked the council if we could meet up with the school bus that comes within a mile or thereabouts but so far have drawn a blank. The school bus for the academy comes past our door in the mornings - you would think that he could get on that - after all, it's not full!! Rules though - aren't they great.

Shirlz xxx

[dawnmc]

I know it's all been said before, we bought a kia that can become a 4x4 with the flick of a switch. We bought a caravan so we wanted/needed a good car to pull it, and the old argument again, we dont fly anywhere, we buy local produce when we get to where we are going. We recycle etc and the car isnt used to transport kids to school. I'm apologising too much already.

[herbwormwood]

I have been such a coward so far and just watched the 4x4 debate! I am the owner of a landrover. I do live on the edge of a town and 'hands up' it is not a necessity. However, we do go 'off road' sometimes when getting to do some particularly out of the way hill-walking and being in hilly wet scotland, it really can be a comfort, my in-laws live out in the country and often in winter the roads are bad, I do feel safer driving a 4 wheel drive in bad whether.

We also like to go walking in out of the way places, we love hill forts and the like, but we park our car in a safe on the tarmac, if posible in a proper car park place and walk, and we have found many paths inpassable and have had to turn back and abandon our walk because the paths have been churned up so much by motor vehicles. Even when wearing wellingtons and carrying a hiking stick such paths are no good because the motor vehicles have made them slippy and full of deep holes. Such paths are not tarmaced and are just not suitable for motor vehicles but they seem irresistable to 4x4s and quad bikes.

[Ranter]

4x4s have been singled out in the gas-guzzling debate & some are offenders, but they are by no means the only ones or the worst. Some BMWs do less mpg than most 4x4s driven by people I know. My boyfriend has one, which is equipped as an expedition vehicle & is effectively a camper van that can get places a non 4x4 couldn't. The desert for example. In his defence, he doesn't drive it around town - he has a car for that & work.

I get as annoyed as anyone by those that drive 4x4s as a status symbol. I always wonder what it is they're compensating for, what's missing in their lives?

[ina]

Yeah, I've often wondered that, too... I live on a farm, in one of the workers' cottages. I also work here. However, the only people who live here and drive 4x4s are the two couples who rent one of the cottages and don't work on a farm! They just use them to drive into town for work, and for "leisure pursuits". They aren't even the types who go out walking in out-of-the-way places.
Actually, nobody who just works here could afford a 4x4... There is a proper farm landrover, which is used solely for farm work. And maybe in emergencies, like the time when we were effectively snowbound, to get some shopping from the village!

[Goodlife1970]

We have just bought a Landrover diesel,and whilst I agree with the pose factor of 4x4s in an urban setting,there are places that are to say the least difficult to get to here without one,the OH was out rescuing people when we had the snow. Some of the jobs hes been called to are way up in the Mountains with no proper tracks to them.Of course we will be using it to get to the supermarket and visiting the relatives,we can only afford the one car but i dont think for a moment that it has any pose factor or street cred,its a vehicle for doing a job and Im not going to be made to feel guilty about that. We are,as a footnote,gathering the information about converting it to run on SVO.

[Muddypause]

There are some aspects of the anti-4x4 debate that make me feel a little uncomfortable. Personally, I'm happy to think that most of them are solely used on city streets, rather than tearing apart the bridleways and ancient tracks in the coutryside.

However, I've been pillaging links from elsewhere, and thought some of you might enjoy these.

This is a short video of some motorised mountain climbing.

This is a series of pictures. AIUI, this is what happened here. 4x4 got stuck on a ledge adjacent to a frozen lake. The only way to recover it was to use a winch to lower it down the very steep bank towards the lake, across the ice, and up a lower bank the other side. The ice was thick; and a 4x4 can't be that heavy, can it? Need I go on? (Warning, the rest of the site may not be very savoury - click on other links at your own risk)

[Goodlife1970]

Oops! That broke it then!

[Shirley]

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/gasguzzler/

[Martin]

ho hum, just shot any green cred I had! - having flirted with a Disco (too much of a pig to drive - all that lifted elbow nonsense to change gear without clouting your funnybone), I've settled on 2550kgs of diesel 4x4 Frontera......
I would mention that I NEED a "tractor" vehicle to haul hefty loads of things like solar hot water systems and wind turbines down motorways, and also a vehicle that I can drive to wind turbine sites (good ones tend to be on the top of hills without roads!)
In fact, I expect it to be MORE economical than my petrol Astra 1.4i, especially when towing.........(and I can run the Frontera on Biodiesel)
And as for Prius' - overpriced, overcomplicated hypemobiles..........

[Martin]

a thought just struck me!
One of the better "eco vehicles" has got to be the dreaded Reliant Robin - 60mpg if driven carefully, only three tyres to wear out -virtually indestructible fibreglass body - engine dating from the "take it out and repair it on the kitchen table" era! - now I wonder why they aren't (rightly) sought after by the "wannabegreen" fraternity?............couldn't be anything so simple as lack of "street cred" of course.................

[Shirley]

There are definitely situations when a 4 x 4 is a requirement rather than a fashion statement or extension to ones.. errrm ego LOL.... we've got a 4 x 4 landrover and we've got an old mazda - the landie is used as a workhorse for all kinds of things, it's diesel and we are definitely hoping to do the biodiesel at some stage. It's more economical than the mazda I was using... the new one should be better as it's a smaller engine and also has manual transmission (erk - that will take some getting used to after 6 years of driving auto. Crunch... stall... oops )

Oh... and the 4x4 will get out in the snow and leave my mazda - which if it snows hard won't even get off the drive.

Street cred... do you reckon a reliant robin would cope with the snow and hills?? I think they are cute.

[Chickpea]

I'm uncomfortable with the 4x4 witchhunt. I'm perfectly happy with the approach "Don't use (or even have) a car if you can manage without, and don't use (or have) a bigger car than you really need", but singling out 4x4s in particular seems puzzling to me. It seems to me that most of the vitriol is aimed against mums who use them to drive the kids to school and go to the shops. Now whilst I agree that a 4x4 seems a bit overkill for this purpose, I would say that you need a big car for a big family - we have 3 small kids and I drive a people carrier because you simply cannot fit 3 child safety seats in the back row of a saloon. Often we have 4 or 5 kids in the car when friends are coming to tea etc. and they all need full-size seats to take child safety seats. And a week's shop for a family of 5 doesn't fit in the boot of an Escort - believe me. The same vitriol is not poured on salesmen who drive a huge Beemer containing only themselves and their suit on a hanger in the back window. Nor would you have your green credentials questioned for drivign about in a hand-painted VWCampervan, even though that is also a big thirsty vehicle unnecessary for transporting one or two people around town.

So basically I think a lot of it is sexist, based on an attitude that women should drive little Fiestas and 2CVs but men can rightly drive big powerful cars. It's not the sight of a big car, it's the sight of a woman behind the wheel that offends people.

[Martin]

I think what infuriates people (rightly) are the cretinous idiots who drive the big petrol 4x4s on the "school run" - usually for a short distance that they could (and should) easily walk. In my day, you either walked, or Mum would shoehorn herself and six kids into a (real) Mini!
There is a popular junior school nearby, the road past it is impassible during school run time - for some reason, parents have this attitude that they are carrying the crown jewels, and as such, it's perfectly fine to double-park (so the poor darlings don't have to walk a few yards), and then to hold their driver's door open on the road side, and then stand there blocking the road whilst making a mobile 'phone call!
If you live down narrow lanes with passing spaces like us, you'll rapidly get to loathe both 4x4s and MPVs (I find them FAR worse) - they are usually driven INCREDIBLY badly by women who are scared stiff of the size, and haven't a clue how wide they are - often with no attention to other traffic whatsoever!!!!!(and often containing one scrawny child!). I am coming to the conclusion that there may yet be a purpose for hefty bull bars - there will come a day when overcome by the prissy arrogance of these idiots who have those dreadful "back off, child on board" (or even worse "little princess on board") stickers obscuring their rear windows, that I will make full use in nudging them into the ditch!

[ina]

I think what infuriates people (rightly) are the cretinous idiots who drive the big petrol 4x4s on the "school run" - usually for a short distance that they could (and should) easily walk.

... and with only one kid in it, too... I agree with everything you've said there! I was once in a bus that was held up by a horde of 4x4s, unloading kids in front of a nursery, on a double yellow line, right at the bus stop. There was a tractor involved in that jam with a trailer, too - but as soon as one of those big cars (and no, not all of them were 4x4s, some were just "ordinary" huge cars) moved away, another one popped in the gap and started opening the door to the street side. No consideration for bus or tractor (one of which lost a mirror in that maneuvre). Just so those poor kids didn't have to walk a few yards from the next side road, where they could have stopped safely and legally...

Anyway, I don't think I'm witch hunting 4x4s especially, I'm just mad at inconsiderate drivers! And unfortunately, in my experience, the extent of inconsideration generally seems to increase in parallel with the size of the car. Maybe that's just my personal perception.

Btw - are Reliant Robins still available? They've stopped making them, haven't they? I'd love to have an Ecorider - they are available for road use, not just off-road. Do only 25 mph, run on diesel (well, the diesel version does ), so there's a chance to use biodiesel, they can load a lot of shopping (and the odd sheep ), and they cope with snow etc. Don't know whether I could cope with the cold in winter, though... and the rain, which will surely follow this drought...