Poxy Chelsea Tractor Brigade

[fuzzynavel]

Don't even need to ask if I'm being unreasonable because I know I'm not.

These ridiculous tanklike constructions being driven around London is just damn selfish.

Do these people think that "rough terraine" is just round the corner from Fulham High Street or something.

Yes, ChocolateBuiscuit my poor exhausted friend's children are 3 and under.

I absolutely detest the army of 'chelsea tractors' which have pushed up the cost of running a 4x4 to a hideous extent! £450 for road tax?!

I would rather not have a 4x4 but we live very rural, on a farm, pull a livestock box and don't even have a real road to our house

Oh, and children and a buggy...blah blah...

chocolatebiscuitcake I'll answer that question. No one!!

Cheers kenobi

Chocolatebiscuit - what about people carriers - you would have to go that option if you had 4 kids anyway ?

If you need to drag something heavy, drive in difficult conditions, see over the top of hedges and generally live somewhere where you don't block narrow roads, be my guest. Go crazy, buy a Hummer.

Though I get what you are driving at and in all honesty I don't know enough about car widths to judge if you are accurate when you say that the Land River is the only car ever that will fit three 'larger than booster' seats across the middle.

Chocolate, I think there is very little need for 4x4s today. Most people drive on fully tarmaced roads & don't do much towing / log pulling / bog navigation. I can't understand why they are so popular. They take up alot of room, they are not particularly fuel efficient. They are very expensive.
I grew up on a farm, we towed pretty much everything, drove accross fields, lived at the end of a very long unmade track & never had a 4x4.
I would never want to restrict choice, but I have to confess I'm baffled as to why town dwellers would want one.
I'm not poor or an eco-warrior & as far as I know I dont' have anything made of organic hemp string.

'what you are driving at' ho ho!

By the way, PLEASE don't buy a fucking hummer.

I have no idea why people want to drive these things in an urban environment. They were designed for driving over muddy tracks, not modern tarmacked roads. They take up way too much space on the road, particularly when you've got cars parked either side. They're simply a nuisance to other drivers.

I partly blame the car seat laws. If you want to have three small kids in the back of the car, you can't fit three car seats in a lot of cars. So people end up buying these bloody tractor things. That's my most charitable explanation.

My dh's rather portly uncle lives on a 45% hill in the middle of the Italian Alps, in winter the road closes to normal traffic for months at a time. He drives a Fiat Panda and has never been stuck in the snow (although it's still a four wheel drive Panda)

There are cars that take three car seats in a row. And there are cars that can handle rough terrain without being a giant beast of a car.

PostBellum - we grew up driving a TaTa which cost about £200, in similar conditions. It's still going.

Take that Land/Range Rover...

oh and naturalbaby lovely comment from you about the vertically challenged do you think height should be part of the driving test? Maybe if all "tractor" drivers had to retake their test (in urban areas)in said vehicle it would cut down on the nos on the road ?

I don't have a problem with what cars people drive.

The problem I have with them, is whether they are actually ABLE to drive them and how they drive them.

'Chelsea Tractors' seem to generally fall inside higher insurance bands. Any thoughts to why?

Its not just cos they are expensive vehicles. Its because a significant proportion of the people driving them struggle to be able to drive it in a safe manner. The parking across two spaces things is a bit of a joke, but there is some truth to the matter.

A lot of people drive them as they feel safer in them. Trouble is they might be safer to the people in them, but not necessarily to the people outside them.

Although passengers in a 4x4 are less likely to suffer harm in an accident than those in a smaller vehicle, their owners are increasing the risk of injury to themselves and others by their failure to observe common safety measures, according to research from Imperial College, London, which is published in the British Medical Journal.

Researchers who studied the behaviour of drivers of the all-terrain vehicles say that they took more risks because they felt safer than drivers of smaller cars.

The pattern is an example of "risk compensation", where the safer a person feels the riskier the behaviour they indulge in.

The researchers found drivers of 4x4s were almost four times more likely to be seen using hand-held mobiles. They were also less likely to use seat belts.

Lesley Walker and colleagues say in the BMJ: "Our data show a worryingly high level of non-compliance with laws on seat belts and hand-held mobile phones by drivers in London. Our observation that almost one in six drivers was not wearing a seat belt is a public health concern."

The BMJ also published an American study showing that 4x4s were more dangerous to pedestrians than normal cars. Tests showed that people who were hit by the vehicles in accidents were four times more likely to die than those hit by other cars.

Previous studies have shown that drivers using mobile phones have four times the risk of an accident. On that basis, 4x4 drivers are at 16 times the risk of having an accident, given that they are four times more likely to use a mobile compared with other drivers.

Dr Walker said: "In general 4x4s reduce the risk for their occupants but increase the risk for everyone else. In using a 4x4, instead of a normal car, one's chance of death or serious injury falls by four in 1,000 but the chance of killing or injuring others rises by 11 in 1,000, with a resulting cost to the community."

AND THERES MORE:
"Urban 4x4s are involved in 25 per cent more accidents than saloon cars and do far more damage."
Churchill Insurance

"4x4 drivers are 27 per cent more likely to be at fault in the event of an accident than saloon car drivers."
Admiral Insurance

"If a pedestrian is hit by a 4x4 they are twice as likely to be killed than if they were hit by a saloon car."
New Scientist

"Drivers of 4x4s are most likely to have been in an argument with traffic wardens (22 per cent), compared with 6 per cent of saloon car drivers."
RAC Foundation, 2004

POURS FLAMES ALL OVER THREAD

AYBU? Your Honor I rest my case for the Prosecution.
Over to you Defence Team...

Not running off on you all but at work and it's time for me to "fight" my way home along narrow Fulham streets in my little fiesta.

oooh Nice nice post :o

I also remember in the mists of time someone saying that the height of the bonnet means that if you get hit by a larger 4x4 type Chelsea tractor you're much more likely to sustain serious injury because instead of being hit in the legs, your abdomen takes the brunt of the accident, and all your precious bits like heart and lungs get damaged.

people buy the huge truck type vehicles to avoid paying tax if they are self exmployed as they would for a company car. It is a tax loophole I believe

This very morning one pulled up next to me at the lights, in the right-hand lane where there is an arrow on the road pointing right only; I had patiently queued in the left lane to go straight on. I knew she was going to jump me - it was 8.30 and she had Tarquin in the car and of course she just had to get a good parking spot - but she stalled and was stuck behind me.

Then she had to wait a full minute until I could turn right onto my drive - nobody coming the other way wanted to let me through, and when someone did it was a bus-driver.

Her face seen in the rear-view mirror was a picture. Joy of joys . . .

I wish there were fewer of them simply because DS1 has a meltdown if we park next to one. Our neighbour had one for a while so he could tow the caravan because the Passat he'd been using was on its last legs, but got rid of it as soon as he sold the caravan because it cost too much to run. DS1 even objected to that one, though!

The boot space argument doesn't convince me. It's cars like the Toyota Avensis or Mazda 6 that have enormous boots with lots of floor space, so you can get your huge buggy and the family shopping in there without having to stack it all up so you end up with squashed bananas.

I agree that Zafiras are awful. MIL had one and it was awful, plus it was so clunky, despite only having an Astra wheelbase, that she ended up with loads of scrapes on it.

God if you want boot space go for a Passat. Kicks the Range Rover's boot space into a cocked hat, though admittedly the roof isn't so high (ahem).

Why does your DS have a meltdown ouryve?

headfairy I've heard that too.

Love your post Nice, might try and memorise it.

I wonder if 4X4 drivers ever wonder why it takes them approximately twice as long as anyone else to be let out of a junction?

Everyone knows the rule, never give way (when it's your right of way) to anything bigger or more expensive that you! arf.

I have an enormous Feck-Off Landy.

Whilst I do live in the sticks, the primary reason for owning one is because I want to.

It runs on sliced dolphins.

Kenobi - he has ASD and they're on a long list of things he disapproves of. They're up there with Baby Jake and whistling!

As you live in the sticks, I don't care if your LR runs on polar bear cubs and rhino foetuses, retiredgoth

ahhh. So much less confused now ouryve!

Bollox about 9 kids and 5 buggys means you need a 4x4. There are many cars with space for these things.

I despair of the attitude that you need a 4x4 to keep Tarquin safe and fuck the damage you can do in an accident to everyone else, not to mention the environmental problems.

4X4 driver IME tend to be bullies of drivers too, tailgating etc.

My Dad owns a ridiculously large 4x4 for two of them - he does live in the sticks in an area of much winter snow hence the need, but the size of it is stupid - they could have gotten a smaller one.