Harry Potter, the Psychic Boss and the Laneways of Doom

On 2005-02-23, Theo Bekkers wrote:
Stuart Lamble wrote:

You aren't reading what has been written on the thread. Instead,
you're picking and choosing points to nitpicking, and ignoring those
that you can't nitpick.

Of course, thsi is usenet isn't it? :-)

Point. :-)

It's not about the length of the car. It's
about the HEIGHT of the car.
Get in something around the size and shape of a Holden Barina, and go
for a drive.

Can I assume your personal vehicle is a Barina?

A Vectra; I use the Barina as an example because the effect is a bit
more obvious in that size of car. It's still there in the Vectra, but
because it's a bigger car, it's not *quite* as obvious. Still very
noticeable, though.

If it weren't for the fact that cars depreciate like crazy, and I don't
want to be buying a replacement car before I've used this one for a good
ten years, I would have gone for an Astra, or something of a comparable
size. For the things I enjoy doing, the Astra -- right now -- would be a
perfectly adequate car; the Vectra, being a little larger, would do the
job very nicely if and when I start up a family. I've had the Vectra for
nearly five years now; still another five years before I look to trade
it in for something new (read: something to replace it, not necessarily
brand spanking new).

The Barina just wouldn't be able to cope with the demands I'd put on it,
especially when it came time to go for a few dives down the south end of
the bay.

I don't give a damn if their length is more or less than another car.
What I give a damn about is their height -- when you're behind them,
you can't tell what's going on ahead, and that's one thing I *very*
much want to know as a driver.

I'm saying that many vehicles on the road (for whatever use) are as much of
a vision block as a 4WD. Yet you do not take umbrage at them because they
have some, to you, legitimate reason for blocking your view. I personally
don't see the difference.

Because that is not the distinction. The distinction is that those
vehicles at which I do not take umbrage are the size and shape they are
for good reason; trying to make them lower to the ground would render it
impossible for them to perform the task for which they are meant. I
don't like being stuck behind a truck, but I accept it as a necessary
part of our society.

The umbrage I take at 4WDs is because they *can*, by and large, be
replaced by vehicles that are lower to the ground. This means that
there's a double whammy: not only do they block my view, but they do so
(in what I would estimate are the majority of cases) unnecessarily.

*THAT* is what gets me riled about 4WDs, more than anything else. Yes,
the fuel guzzling part of it (refer to somebody else's post about
drive chain inefficiencies, wind resistance, and the like)
contributes to that annoyance, but it's the vision problem that gives
me the most grief. The Rav 4 is a lesser annoyance than other 4WDs,
but it still irks.

Try a three second gap. Another vehicle will possibly pull into the gap and
it may not be a 4WD and your problem will be gone. :-)

Diminished, not gone.

Here's another article that sums up a great many of the other reasons
why I dislike 4WDs so much, and far more articulately than I ever could:
http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html

Note in particular the section on active versus passive safety. Very,
*very* telling. To give you an indication on where I stand: when I was
car shopping, I was looking for dual (driver/passenger) airbags, and
ABS. Of the cars that had one or the other, but not both, I strongly
preferred the cars with ABS over the cars with airbags. There's the
whole active/passive safety thing in play, right there...

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".

On 2005-02-23, Theo Bekkers wrote:
Stuart Lamble wrote:

I like the suggestion made by a co-worker. They're trucks: they have
truck tyres; truck engines; truck chassis; and physics means they
react in a similar way to unloaded prime movers. Ergo, to drive one,
you should need a truck license.

If you check your Drivers Licence (assuming your state has adopted the
so-called new 'standard') you will find your basic car licence allows you to
drive a truck, providing it has no more than two axles and weighs less than
4.5 tonnes. I think that pretty much covers a Hummer or a Mazda T4500.

I know, but I can dream nonetheless

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".

I like the suggestion made by a co-worker. They're trucks: they hav
truck tyres; truck engines; truck chassis; and physics means they reac
in a similar way to unloaded prime movers. Ergo, to drive one, yo
should need a truck license



4WD + 8 metre caravan + 18 year old driver = car licenc

Any time, any roa

??????

You need a truck licence to drive a truck much smaller than that

I reckon there should be towing licences _and_ truck licences for th
large 4WDs. And scrap licences for life. Retest every 5 years. Tha
would stop bad habits developing

(yes I know most drivers of the above are 50+ years but the point abou
the possibility is still valid

Steve

--
SteveA

Stuart Lamble wrote:
Theo Bekkers wrote:

Can I assume your personal vehicle is a Barina?

A Vectra; I use the Barina as an example because the effect is a bit
more obvious in that size of car. It's still there in the Vectra, but
because it's a bigger car, it's not *quite* as obvious. Still very
noticeable, though.

If it weren't for the fact that cars depreciate like crazy, and I
don't want to be buying a replacement car before I've used this one
for a good ten years, I would have gone for an Astra, or something of
a comparable size. For the things I enjoy doing, the Astra -- right
now -- would be a perfectly adequate car;

We also recently (last month) bought a company Astra. This one was for the
D-I-L's sister, who also works for us. We're a bit incestious as a company.
Nice car. CDXI or something. Our other company cars are a Holden Combo
(ugh!), a Mercedes C180 (the supercharged one), a Holden Storm V6 ute, a
Holden SS V8 ute, and a Hyundai Grandeur, the new V8 Adventra, and my Ford
Courier.

I'm saying that many vehicles on the road (for whatever use) are as
much of a vision block as a 4WD. Yet you do not take umbrage at them
because they have some, to you, legitimate reason for blocking your
view. I personally don't see the difference.

Because that is not the distinction. The distinction is that those
vehicles at which I do not take umbrage are the size and shape they
are for good reason; trying to make them lower to the ground would
render it impossible for them to perform the task for which they are
meant. I don't like being stuck behind a truck, but I accept it as a
necessary part of our society.

The umbrage I take at 4WDs is because they *can*, by and large, be
replaced by vehicles that are lower to the ground. This means that
there's a double whammy: not only do they block my view, but they do
so (in what I would estimate are the majority of cases) unnecessarily.

How do you feel about the people-movers? Voyager, Tribute, Tarago. These
also have height, are not 4WD and rarely have more than one person in them.

Try a three second gap. Another vehicle will possibly pull into the
gap and it may not be a 4WD and your problem will be gone. :-)

Diminished, not gone.

You'll have to do most of your driving a 2am to remain calm. :-)

Here's another article that sums up a great many of the other reasons
why I dislike 4WDs so much, and far more articulately than I ever
could: http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html

Note in particular the section on active versus passive safety. Very,
*very* telling. To give you an indication on where I stand: when I was
car shopping, I was looking for dual (driver/passenger) airbags, and
ABS. Of the cars that had one or the other, but not both, I strongly
preferred the cars with ABS over the cars with airbags. There's the
whole active/passive safety thing in play, right there...

I agree with the active/passive safety thing. ABS and good frame geometry
can prevent accidents. No seatbelt or airbag has ever prevented an accident.
They may have even caused some.

I drive a 2003 Ford Courier ute (a Mazda wit a Ford badge made in Thailand).
Have you perhaps noticed that utes are getting taller? The seat height in my
ute (not a 4WD) is higher than the RAV4.

Cheers

Theo

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 at 09:14 GMT, Stuart Lamble (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
On 2005-02-23, Theo Bekkers wrote:
Try a three second gap. Another vehicle will possibly pull into the gap and
it may not be a 4WD and your problem will be gone. :-)

Diminished, not gone.

Here's another article that sums up a great many of the other reasons
why I dislike 4WDs so much, and far more articulately than I ever could:
http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html

But when, in focus groups, industry marketers probed further,
they heard things that left them rolling their eyes. As Keith
Bradsher writes in "High and Mighty"--perhaps the most important
book about Detroit since Ralph Nader's "Unsafe at Any
Speed"--what consumers said was "If the vehicle is up high, it's
easier to see if something is hiding underneath or lurking behind
it." Bradsher brilliantly captures the mixture of bafflement and
contempt that many auto executives feel toward the customers who
buy their S.U.V.s. Fred J. Schaafsma, a top engineer for General
Motors, says, "Sport-utility owners tend to be more like 'I
wonder how people view me,' and are more willing to trade off
flexibility or functionality to get that." According to Bradsher,
internal industry market research concluded that S.U.V.s tend to
be bought by people who are insecure, vain, self-centered, and
self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages,
and who lack confidence in their driving skills.


--
TimC -- http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/staff/tconnors/
"How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are for. I only
coded it." (Attributed to Linus Torvalds, somewhere in a posting)

SteveA wrote:

4WD + 8 metre caravan + 18 year old driver = car licence

Any time, any road

???????

You need a truck licence to drive a truck much smaller than that!

You don't need a truck licence till the towing vehicle weighs more than 4.5
tonnes and then you can tow 1.5 times the weight of the towing vehicle if
the trailer has brakes. GVW of 11.25 tonnes, 18, and on P plates. Scary!
More realistically, a Lancruiser 100 series can tow a 3 tonne caravan,
making an all-up weight of 5 tonnes. And there are lots of them out there,
mostly driven by pensioners.

I reckon there should be towing licences _and_ truck licences for the
large 4WDs. And scrap licences for life. Retest every 5 years. That
would stop bad habits developing.

You think that would solve anything? I like the British method (at least
when I was there in 67) of driver education with TV ads. You got several
every evening telling you about some road situation and what to do in it.
Don't know if they still do that.

(yes I know most drivers of the above are 50+ years but the point
about the possibility is still valid)

I was 50 more than a decade ago. :-)

Theo

hippy wrote:
Dave wrote:

All weopons have an answer.. usually involving escalation. The way to
out heavy a volvo is with a 4wd. The 4wd drivers are merely armoured
volvo drivers.


Does Aussie Disposals sell tanks??

Check it:
http://www.daystoamaze.co.uk/pages/product331.tpl

hippy
- off to mess with some Toorak Tractors..

At one stage we had one

Dave

Stuart Lamble wrote:
On 2005-02-22, hippy wrote:
Stuart Lamble wrote:

You aren't reading what has been written on the thread. Instead, you're
picking and choosing points to nitpicking, and ignoring those that you
can't nitpick. It's not about the length of the car. It's about the
HEIGHT of the car.

"you took the words right outta my mouth.."
"it musta been.. um.. cut!"

Unless you're a female in her twenties or early thirties, we definitely
*don't* want to finish that quote.

Unless 'Stuart' is a trendy new name for women in their mid-20's, the
"cut!" stays!

hippy

Theo Bekkers wrote:
I think we have pretty much worked out that the length, width, and fuel
consumption of 4WDs are pretty much irrelevant. After many posts it appears
that people dislike their height. So why pick on 4WDs. There's Taragos,
Tributes, Voyagers and a whole bunch of happy-vans that have the same height
without the 4WD and also block your view. Why does nobody complain about
them?

Because this thread started discussing 4wd's. If it makes you feel
better, a people-mover with one person in it is just as sh1t as a 4wd
(assuming it's the same height, etc..).

Thing is.. there's waaaay less people-movers on the road. I don't think
I've ever had an issue with one.. yet.. 4wd's on the other hand.. sheeet!

Shall we make a law that all cars must be no taller than the eyes of a
cyclist? How about the poor people in Ferraris, they can't see over or past
a Corolla. They must really be frustrated.

Serves 'em right! Rich *******s! :P

How about a law that prevents the use of vehicles over a certain size,
within a particular radius of the CBD? Exceptions could be made for
commercial uses.

Taxing 4wd's properly would be nice too. Basically, I'm in favour of
anything that makes large 4wd's less attractive to buyers.

hippy

hippy wrote:

How about a law that prevents the use of vehicles over a certain size,
within a particular radius of the CBD? Exceptions could be made for
commercial uses.

Very difficult to do as the authorities would pick length as being the
obvious criteria. Ban anything over 5 metres and Land-Cruisers will stay,
Commodore wagons would be out.

Taxing 4wd's properly would be nice too. Basically, I'm in favour of
anything that makes large 4wd's less attractive to buyers.

I'm in favour of anybody being able to buy and drive any vehicle that is
legally defined as being for use on the roads. Including bicycles and
recumbents. I see no need to tax any passenger vehicle differently.

4WDs are not a problem for me. I encounter road trains every day on my
commute. B-triples, B-doubles with an extra trailer, and heavy rigids (four
axle trucks) towing two trailers (14 axles, 52 wheels). This is on a one
lane each way "Highway". Their only limit is 36.4 metres in length.You think
I'm going to be bothered by a 5 metre two-axle Land-Cruiser? Pffft!

Theo