to love my 4x4

[holidaysarenice]

And to not have to justify it to anyone!!

Pringles please?

Betty

An ordinary sized car would have hit the bumper of my car. The part designed to take the impact and protect you.

A Range Rover's bumper hits a Ford Ka at window height and the sheer weight of a Range Rover hitting a small car at high speed meant I was thrown forward with such force my glasses flew off my face and shattered against the windscreen.

Big difference between that and the time it was a Ford Escort that slammed into me. He cracked my number plate. That was it.

Gis (will take note) ta muchly

Why do people drive those ugly fecking machines in London? To make sure any cattle toddlers they mow down on the school run come off worse than the car?

Of course, coming from oop noorth there's no 30% tax...

Labootin - 29.7% of people on this thread agree that 14% of people know that..........

Now, back to that booze run!! Could you go past the gold souk I went to many years ago and get me some of those lovely sunglasses they sell just outside please...thanks:)

YANBU but then I have a 4X4 too and I (whisper it) love it. I didn't think that I was going to, but its great.

To answer someones safety concerns it is 5 out of 5 for front and side impact and a Euro NCAP score of 10 for pedestrian safety, same as an average large family car apparently. The most important thing though is that I am very aware of the size of the car and drive it carefully. I can park it and I live in the country, do I pass the responsible 4x4 owners test?

Oh yes, no one apart from a lorry can intimidate me in it, that includes the smaller cars driving 2m from my back bumper at 60 mph. Now they are dangerous.

I have never seen an accident involving a 4x4 ever unless you count myself having a blonde moment and forgetting we'd just installed a new fence as I reveresed into but i'd have done the same in my own car too which would have written it off

I am not a rubber necker by the way, but you obviously can't help but notice the vehicle when you drive past.

I don't beleive half the statistics bandied about anyway - they make them up to suit them!

Gawd yeah, the amount of tailgaters I get in my small micra - when driving the bigger car at the same speed on the same routes I don't get tailgated. Yet I'd be "safer"* being tailgated in the bigger car due to the size disparity.

Some drivers really are idiots

(* for some definition of safe)

Incidentally I get the size disparity problem having had a Volkswagen Polo totally written off when a lorry rear-ended me. My car was trashed, he had a broken headlight . I do get a bit nervous now when lorries drive too close behind me, so I get that it can colour your experience considerably.

No-one's going to be banning lorries from the roads anytime soon, though.

yabu. How can you 'love' what is essentially a 2 ton wheelchair? Its a tool to get you somewhere. And giant 4X4's are a menace in the cities and should belong to rural folk.
And no, its not size envy. My van is probably larger (yup, its a polluting menace too more likely to kill than a smaller car) but its needed for 2 wheelchairs.

I live in the country and pass about 10 on my way to school, it's good though because they can mount the kerb on the narrow country roads to pass, no way am I mounting them in my merc

You know when you're trying to turn right in the middle of the road at traffic lights and cars opposite are doing the same? If there's a 4x4 in the other queue there's Bob Hope & no hope of me seeing (or any bugger, actually!) what's coming so I can turn safely. That's the only time I really dislike 'em.

I have no opinion otherwise, they're fairly boring cars, I like mine smaller & sportier.

We have a Freelander, it has a smaller footprint than quite a few people carriers and large saloons, and being higher is very helpful as you see problems earlier over cars in front, and I find the more upright position better for my back.

And over the years we have helped tow a LOT of people out of muddy/snowy ground with it.

'the point is that a bad driver in a large car is far more dangerous, 4x4s are more dangerous that other cars in accidents anyway, particularly involving children as pedestrians. So your little darlings may be safer inside, other children on the street are far less safe.'

Three of my darlings can now legally drive my 4x4...

Children have absolutely no business being on the street and if they are there they are as likely to be hit by a car as a 4x4. Perhaps more likely to be hit by a car as a 4x4 driver will be higher up and more likely to spot them if they dart out between parked cars. Which they should not do...

Basically, no child should be out on the street unsupervised to the extent that he or she could be playing in the traffic.

"'Fatality Rates in SUV versus car crashes fall"
'Crashes involving sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks are less likely to result in fatalities to occupants of cars and minivans, according to a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Accidents involving the big vehicles and cars and minivans in the past were more likely to kill the occupants of the smaller vehicles than crashes between autos of the same class and weight segments. But that?s no longer the case because of improved crash protection in cars and minivans.

Safety features such as side air bags and stronger auto structures, as well as newer designs of SUVs and pickups that better align front-end energy-absorbing portions of the vehicles with similar sections in cars, have reduced deaths.

The changes represented a joint effort among safety regulators, automakers and the insurance industry to design vehicles that reduced fatal accidents between mismatched vehicles, the insurance trade group said.

According to the trade group?s data, SUVs were involved in crashes that killed car and minivan occupants at a rate of 44 deaths per million registered vehicle years in 2000-01. That rate dropped by nearly two-thirds to 16 in 2008-09.

And that was slightly below the 17 per million fatality rate in 2008-09 for crashes between cars and minivans with other cars and minivans.'

This was a US report from the Los Angeles Times

I one hundred percent like any car which delivers me booze.

Me too, especially if they bring me chocolate as well!

YABU

They contribute more to global warming which will cause much heart-ache around the world in the years to come. Basically more mothers will lose their children.

And they are twice as likely to cause a fatality to a pedestrian in a crash.
Again, more mothers will lose their children.

If you live in the country and often drive off-road then, after due consideration, it may be a reasonable option.

If you use it for the school run, and to show off to others, then YABU

"And they are twice as likely to cause a fatality to a pedestrian in a crash." More likely than what Juggling? I have no clue where that stat comes from and what you are comparing what with.

The insurance for my Range Rover is no more than it was for my Merc B Class. Go figure.

It is also a myth that a 4x4 will automatically be better than a 2wd car in snow because the most important factor when dealing with ice and snow is the tyre not the number of driven wheels.

As amply demnstrated in the last 2 winters when my Alfa shod with Pirelli winter tyres easily coped with icy & snowy hills and where various 4x4s were slithering helplessly.

The contribution by ItsAllGoingToBeFine on active safety (i.e. generally lousy in nearly all 4x4s as compared with nearly any car) was very relevant.

I got the worrying x2 stat up-thread from "ItWillAllBeFine"

She quotes (possibly from US research)

"If a pedestrian is hit by a 4x4 they are twice as likely to be killed"

compared to ? (presumably) A car that isn't a 4x4

As for your insurance point maybe car crashes involving fatalities are still rare enough not to make a big difference to insurance premiums - but there are things in life that matter besides money - especially life itself

Do you not find that in most cases it's the driver of the car in snow, rather than the car itself?

My friend has winter tyres on her car - her DH is a mechanic and changes them routinely depending on the weather and seasons - and she's absolutely ffing useless in the rain never mind the snow!

I've seen many a people carrier bigger than my 4x4 so I don't understand the logic of disliking them for size.

A bad driver is a bad driver regardless of the car s/he drives. To call people wankers, idiots etc based on the car they drive is ludicrous.